The last time the Penn State field hockey team played an away game, a 10-game winning streak was snapped at the hands of Ohio State. This time, the team hopes for a different result on the road.

For their final away game of the regular season, the No. 8 Nittany Lions will play Northwestern at 3 p.m. today.

After their loss to the Buckeyes, the Lions knocked off No. 5 North Carolina at home last weekend, 2-1. The game proved to be physical, and Penn State coach Char Morett and her players labeled the homefield advantage as a big factor.

Without that benefit, the Lions will have to be especially focused on the game plan against Northwestern. Morett described Northwestern's field as a beautiful place to play, where distractions come easily.

"It's always tough to play on the road, especially in the Big Ten," senior Chase Bacon said. "In the Big Ten, records don't matter. First place could be playing last place and it could be a fight. Everyone in the Big Ten has a loss right now, so we have to come out to play from the beginning, for 70 minutes."

The Penn State defense will have to be on its A-game with the strong Wildcat forwards. Its offense ranks second in the Big Ten in both total shots and shots per game, while Penn State is sixth in both categories. The Wildcats (7-8, 1-3 Big Ten) have a lot of young, fast talent that is difficult to track.

"They are very fast, much faster than they've been in the past," Morett said. "The challenge for us is to not let their speedy forwards get the ball, so we need to step up and look to mark and intercept their forwards."

On the offensive side of the ball, Morett is happy to see multiple players as a threat for the attack, making Penn State (11-3, 2-1 Big Ten) a tougher team to defend. One goal for the offense and the midfield is to hone their passing skills before looking to goal.

"Even in the Carolina game, we really dribbled a lot," Morett said. "We just need to get back to our passing game. That'll open up the field for us.

"We really need to concentrate working the ball out of the back field in the midfield, then we can look on to taking people on inside our attacking 25."

With the Big Ten tournament starting in early November, the Lions have three games left in the regular season. The tournament season is not on the team's mind right now, but the pace must be kept high for the postseason.

The Lions are expected to have their minds in the right places for Northwestern. The AstroTurf Field crowd won't be there behind them, and the opponent cannot be taken for granted, Morett said. The team has put the Ohio State loss behind them, and it is determined to let that be the last loss of the season.

"At Ohio State, we just started out slow," Bacon said. "It's hard when you gottta fight back, but now our morale is definitely up. UNC was a huge win. It was an awesome feeling to win that game, and it definitely gave us more confidence. So hopefully we'll keep on winning until November."