The Nittany Lions are home for the final two matches of the 2009 regular season, facing off against Michigan State on Friday night, and Michigan on Saturday. For those of you who may have forgotten (blocked?), when Penn State met Michigan in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines gave them all they could handle, and almost more, in a 3-2 (24-26, 25-8, 23-25, 25-21, 15-12) nail-biter at sold-out Cliff Kean Arena. For the Notes from that match, Click Here. For the Game Tracker final, Click Here, and for Final Match Statistics, Click Here.

Although Penn State followed that with a sweep of Michigan State the following night ( 25-11, 25-18, 25-12), led by Junior Blair Brown’s 13 kills (.522 hitting percentage), Junior Arielle Wilson’s seven total blocks and eight kills (.727 hitting percentage), and Junior libero Alyssa D’Errico’s 14 digs, both Michigan (24-7, 12-6 Big Ten) and Michigan State (17-13, 5-13 Big Ten) are good teams. The Nittany Lions can’t take either team for granted.

Below is our “Stat Joust” — comparing selected team and individual statistics for the three teams as of November 22, 2009: