After four straight matches and two straight weekends on the road (during which Penn State extended its national record consecutive match winning streak to 84), Penn State returns home to Rec Hall for a match tonight against Indiana and a match Saturday night against Purdue.

Although road matches are tough, the Nittany Lions are coming off of what Head Coach Russ Rose described as their best match of the season against Michigan State in East Lansing. In an interview after that match with the Daily Collegian’s Andrew J. Cassavell, Rose said “In every aspect — hitting, passing, setting — the energy was at the level we would like it to be.”

Rose, the Nittany Lions, and Penn State fans are hoping that energy carries over to this homecoming. As Junior Libero Alyssa D’Errico told Cassavell, in an October 22nd interview, “We’re making big steps for us in turning things around. . . . And we’re excited to turn things around at home and show our home fans what we’ve worked on in the last couple of weeks.”

Here are previews of both matches, courtesy of The Daily Collegian:

[Note to Daily Collegian: the record for consecutive wins by a college sports team is not held by the UCLA men’s basketball team, and is not 88. Somehow that misinformation entered the media (it was cited by the Big Ten Network commentators during the PSU-Minnesota match), and has been repeated frequently. As pointed out in this thread on PennStateHoops.com, the record for consecutive wins is the 92 straight wins by the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team from 1990-94 (UNC also has unbeaten streaks of 101 and 103 games).]

Here’s how the three teams stack up statistically:

We’re looking forward to continued improvement from the Nittany Lions, with lots of energy from the team and the fans. Maybe something like this: