For the field hockey team, home is where the astroturf is.

Penn State (1-1) will come home to the familiar turf beside Holuba Hall this weekend to face Syracuse and North Carolina.

Penn State will face the Orangewomen at 4 this afternoon and the Lady Tarheels at 1 Sunday afternoon. The games mark the beginning of a four-game homestand for the Lady Lions.

"It's fun playing at home," Coach Charlene Morett said. "You get a special feeling playing on your home turf."

This is the first season in which the Lady Lions will play all of their home games on astroturf instead of the grass of Lady Lion Field. The Big Ten, which the team will enter in 1992, requires that all conference games be played on turf.

Morett said the change won't affect the Lady Lions' style of play, since they already have practiced and played the majority of their games on turf in the past.

"Char has developed Penn State into a turf team in the past few years," senior forward Eleanor Stone said.

Last weekend, on the astroturf of Old Dominion's home field in Norfolk, Va., the Lady Lions lost to the Lady Monarchs, 5-2, before blanking Northern Illinois, 7-0.

Both Stone and Morett said the loss to the defending national champions was still a confidence builder.

"We fared so well, other than the score, that we were able to remain focused throughout the game," Morett said.

"We had no idea what we were going to do against Old Dominion," Stone said. "Just knowing that we were good enough to beat them has given us confidence."

One area the Lady Lions were lacking in, Morett said, was their focus inside of the 25.

"We need to show greater toughness inside the 25-yard line," she said.

In addition, the Lady Lions are adjusting at the midfield and forward positions to "make quicker the transition from defense to offense," Morett added.

This weekend's games will further test the Lady Lions' new system of play.

For the Orangewomen, just scoring a goal against Penn State would be an accomplishment. In their last four meetings, the Lady Lions have outscored Syracuse 14-0. Penn State is 7-0-1 in the series' history.

Morett said that Syracuse has nine starters returning from last year.

"They have more confidence and more experience from last year," Morett said. "There are three girls on the front line with lots of speed and quickness."

The Lady Tarheels, who Penn State lost to in the NCAA Final Four last year, have "experience laced throughout the field and their different lines," Morett said.

"Both teams are really wellcoached," Morett said of this weekend's opponents. "We can't make one game more important than the other."

Most important, however, is the team's escalating confidence and cohesiveness.

Stone said the Lady Lions' team cohesiveness has never been a problem.

"I think we've always had it," Stone said. "We are still a real close team."

"They know they have the potential to be a very strong team, Morett said.