The Hornets return to The Nest this week to face four teams, two of them are conference opponents, the third is a blank slate and the final are the Causeway rivals.

To open up Big Sky conference play for the week Sacramento State will play against a confident Weber State team. Although the Wildcats are one of the youngest teams the Hornets will face this season, starting three freshman and two sophomores, the Wildcats are 2-1 in the Big Sky after suffering its first loss to the Bengals of Idaho State on Saturday.

The Bengals overcame its rival in Pocatello, Idaho in five games. Senior outside hitter Felice Yocopis picked up 22 kills and 19 digs against the Bobcats.

The Bengals are the second conference opponent heading to The Nest this week.

Also, this season Weber State tallied its first win against Eastern Washington (EWU) in four seasons. EWU defeated Sac State on Saturday in three games.

Although Idaho State is 8-9 in non-conference matches, the Hornets should expect a few surprises. The Bengals were able to put away Portland State (PSU) in its conference opener. During the five-game match sophomore Katie Hurst tacked on her 15th double-double of the season. The game against Sac State will be the first conference game away from Reed Gym.

Sac State wasn’t able to produce the same results against PSU. The Hornets winning streak was stopped short at four straight when Portland was able to take a fifth game tiebreaker on Friday.

The team would bounce back. The next night the Eastern Washington Eagles got a lashing by the Hornets in three games.

While shooting .311 percent against the Eagles as a team, senior middle hitter Shannon Arts also had 13 kills and shot .407 to spearhead the attack.

Sac State has never faced the Bucknell University Bison. The Lewisburg, Pa. school will be making its first west coast trip to face off against the Hornets on Sunday and then down into the Bay Area for a match against San Francisco.

Sunday’s match will be the only time the Bison play a Big Sky team and will be coming off two home matches on against Lehigh and Lafayette.

Before coming out west the Bison were 9-6 with a 1-2 record in the Patriot League.

The Hornets will begin defending this season’s 6-1 home record at 7 p.m. on Thursday night. The Idaho State and Bucknell games will be on Saturday 1 p.m. and Sunday 2 p.m., respectively.