As EIVA conference play wears on, some familiarity begins to form between each team.

The No. 9 Penn State men's volleyball (9-4, 6-0 EIVA) team travels to face Juniata (6-6, 2-4 EIVA) at 7 tonight for its second conference match against the Golden Eagles this season. When the two meet, Juniata will try to remember which players hurt them from its first meeting when Penn State came out victorious.

There's one person the Golden Eagles surely will remember, though, and he won't be suiting up for the Nittany Lions.

He'll be preparing the team from the sidelines. Penn State assistant coach Dennis Hohenshelt is a Juniata alum, and was an instrumental volleyball player for the team in the early 90s. He was part of the 1992 and 1993 teams that won EIVA Division III titles along with being captain and MVP of the '93 squad. After his playing days, Hohenshelt stepped into a coaching role with the Golden Eagles. He came on as an assistant coach in the 1994 and 1995 seasons before assuming head coaching responsibilities in 1996. During that season, Hohenshelt guided Juniata to an 18-8 record and a second-place finish in the EIVA Division III tournament.

After that promising first season, Hohenshelt brought his coaching expertise to State College, where he has been an assistant coach on the Penn State staff for the last decade. The area and the great talent that Penn State has churned out each year have kept Hohenshelt with the blue and white.

"Me and my wife like living in the area, it's been a really great time to stay here for 10 years," Hohenshelt said. "When we get great teams, we're going to stick around and keep trying to win national championships."

Hohenshelt said he will welcome the homecoming to his old stomping grounds and will make sure to catch up with old friends.

"I love getting to see the people that I coached with down there," Hohenshelt said. "My old coach is the [athletic director], so getting to hang out with him will be a good time."

Hohenshelt is also well aware that his old team loves the opportunity to play with the Lions and strive for an unprecedented upset.

"They're going to be fired up to play," Hohenshelt said. "They'll make plays, so we'll have to grind with them. It's been like that the last four or five years against them."

His importance can't be valued in just the win column, though. It's the relationships that he's made that most of his players will remember.

"We have a great relationship with Dennis. He understands us well," senior co-captain Matt Proper said. "We can laugh and joke with him, and it's really nice to have that."

Hohenshelt has been instrumental in the development of both Proper and senior co-captain Nate Meerstein. Proper is leading the Lions in kills (158) and is hitting .367 -- last time the two teams faced Proper tallied 14 kills, hitting .417. Meerstein is hitting .487 and is second in kills (132).

Penn State head coach Mark Pavlik has worked with Hohenshelt for 10 years now. He credits much of the team's success to that continuity on the coaching staff, and even had trouble putting his assistant's importance in words.

"I cannot adequately express what Dennis has meant," Pavlik said. "You look around at all the great programs, one of the tell-tale signs of success is a coaching staff that's been together for a while.

The team has so much faith in Hohenshelt, that he could step in for Pavlik at any time and the team would have no fear of a letdown.

"If I were to step outside and get hit by a CATA bus, Dennis is more than capable of not missing a beat," Pavlik joked.