After five straight matches on the road, No. 22 Illinois (6-2-0) will return home this weekend for a pair of contests against Big Ten rivals Indiana (4-4-0) and Purdue (5-2-1).

Posting a 4-1-0 road record away from home this season hasn’t been a problem for the Illini, but being around familiar surroundings makes matches easier.

“We’re excited just to be on our home turf and be in our locker room,” junior defender Aliina Weykamp said. “It’s just nice to be home for a little bit.”

The Illini’s only road loss came last weekend against Iowa in Illinois’ Big Ten opener. Head coach Janet Rayfield attributed the rough start in conference play to the older players worrying too much about helping the younger players along.

“They spent their energy on that instead of doing what they’re supposed to do and what they’re good at,” Rayfield said. “I don’t think we could have had a much bigger gap between our performance on Sunday and our performance on Thursday, it was a night and day difference.”

The Illini will try to carry the momentum from Sunday’s victory against last year’s Big Ten champion, Nebraska, into this weekend’s games.

First up is Thursday’s bout with Indiana, the team that knocked Illinois out of last season’s Big Ten tournament. The Hoosiers lost each of their first two conference matches to Ohio State and No. 8 Penn State, which has them at the bottom of the Big Ten.

Rayfield isn’t overlooking them, however.

“I think it was a tough weekend in terms of results, but if you look at the games, they did some great things in those games,” Rayfield said. “It’s an athletic team that has some dangerous threats. (They’re) hard to break down, they’ll get numbers behind the ball, and they don’t give up goals easily.”

Illinois has a 10-5-3 all-time series lead over Indiana, including a 6-2-1 record in games played in Champaign and three straight victories over the Hoosiers before last season. With five goals and 23 shots this season, junior midfielder Jessie Bujouves will be the Hoosier to keep an eye on.

After two days of rest, Illinois will take on Purdue at home for the first time since 2011. The Boilermakers split their first two Big Ten matches, with a narrow 1-0 defeat to a tough Penn State team and a rebound win over Ohio State.

Illinois is 10-6-3 all-time against Purdue, but has owned the matches in Champaign, posting an 8-0-0 record in which the Illini have outscored the Boilermakers 19-5 and only let one goal in the last five matches.

Regardless of past results, the Illini are going to focus on themselves to achieve the results they want.

“Certainly now we know what we’re capable of at the Big Ten level and we’re going to hold ourselves to that standard going forward,” Rayfield said.

Sunday’s match is expected to draw one of the largest crowds of the year because of Illinois’ ninth-annual SoccerFest. This year’s fan perks include free Jimmy John’s for the first 1,000 attendees, post-game autographs and a fan zone comprising of games, prizes, face painting and even a bounce house.

“I think the freshman being in an atmosphere like that will really enjoy it just as much as our upperclassmen do,” Jannelle Flaws said. ”It’s a great chance to get more fans out, and it’s definitely a more high-energy fan base. It’s exciting and always fun to play in a crowd like that.”

Home-field advantage will be at full tilt for the Illini this weekend.

Joey can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @joeyfigueroa3.