A happy team heads home to Happy Valley -- finally.

After traveling to Maryland and New York for its first two tournaments, the Penn State men's tennis team comes back to University Park for its first turn as tournament host this season.

The Nittany Lions (2-1) are set to host the Penn State Fall Classic tomorrow and Sunday.

Joining the Lions will be Connecticut (2-0), Marist (3-0), Pennsylvania (1-2), Rutgers (2-1), St. Bonaventure (0-3), Temple (0-1) and West Virginia (0-0).

Last year the Penn State Fall Classic was originally scheduled but was later cancelled because of the Sept. 11 tragedies.

With the next home match not slated until Feb. 9 against Virginia Tech, the Lions know this is a good time for their only home competition of the fall season.

"It's always exciting to play at home," sophomore Clint Keithley said.

"We have one of the best facilities of the teams we play. You definitely have an advantage playing on familiar courts. We were actually supposed to play the next couple tournaments away as well so it would have been a long time away from home [without the Penn State Fall Classic in the schedule]."

The Fall Classic also opens the fifth year for the Sarni Tennis Center. The $2.3 million venue was opened back in September 1998 -- with the first match taking place there in the spring of 1999 -- and has meant a lot to the team since its inception.

Penn State men's tennis coach Jan Bortner is happy his team gets to stay home for once, but he also knows the problems that his team could face there.

Bortner said that teams could get into a comfort zone when playing in a familiar setting, which can hurt the team's play.

Bortner had some simple advice for his team to help them avoid this problem.

"The main thing we need to do, and I told my guys this [Wednesday] in practice, is to stay in the present tense," Bortner said.

"We need to stay focused, take it a day at a time, and get better."

Spectators who stop by the Sarni Tennis Center this weekend will see a melting pot of players from all the teams.

Unlike last weekend's Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships that Penn State competed in, the Penn State Fall Classic is an individual-based, rather than team-based, tournament.

The teams will divide their players into flights -- four for singles (A, B, C and D) and two for doubles (A and B).

Each team's No. 1 and 2 singles players will participate in flight A, No. 3 and 4 in flight B, No. 5 and 6 in flight C, and No. 7 and 8 in flight D.

Each of the flights will have its own winner.

Penn State players have posted a 24-9 overall record in singles and a 15-4 overall mark in doubles so far this season.

The team hopes to continue this trend, while building off of and improving some things, to continue to progress throughout the season.

"So far the guys have done a great job," Penn State men's assistant tennis coach Bill Potoczny said.

"Certainly there are things we need to improve on. We do a couple of things a little bit better and we could be a darn good team."