The “super-team,” as Michigan volleyball coach Mark Rosen called Penn State — the squad that won three consecutive national championships and had the second-longest winning streak in all of Division I sports history (109 matches) — has lost some of its star power.

With the graduation of outside hitters Megan Hodge ('09) and Nicole Fawcett ('08), both four-time AVCA All-Americans, along with setter Alisha Glass (09), Penn State is a “little more regular” this season, having already lost three conference matches.

“It’s been a long time since anyone beat Penn State,” Rosen said. “They’re still very physical and they’re still very athletic. They’re still very elite, but the team they had the last three years was the best team ever in the history of college volleyball.”

On Oct. 16, 2009, the Wolverines took the Nittany Lions to five sets inside a sold-out Cliff Keen Arena, before losing in the fifth and final frame — Michigan was just one of two teams to go the distance with the eventual undefeated national champions.

And while the Wolverines (9-3 Big Ten,20-4 overall) haven’t defeated Penn State since 2002, No. 15 Michigan is currently off to its best start in program history with a 20-4 overall mark and a 9-3 record in the Big Ten, tied for second place with the Nittany Lions.

“Last year, when we went five sets with their super team, it’s almost like, ‘God, how did that happen?' Now, you look at them and for how much that they’ve lost, you can look and say, ‘OK, I can see how that happened’,” Rosen said.

With Hodge and Fawcett no longer a threat to the Wolverines and a Michigan game plan to combat the No. 9 Penn State offensive attack, the Wolverines have a renewed sense of confidence heading into one their marquee matchups of the year.

By getting the Nittany Lions (9-3 Big Ten, 19-4 overall) out of system and putting a lot of pressure on their defense — through tough serving and playing an up-tempo style of offense — Rosen hopes to make the game a little bit more uncomfortable for Penn State.

“We used to say, ‘Stay with them the whole game, point-for-point, and then when it gets to 20, hopefully the coin flip goes our way,’ " senior setter Lexi Zimmerman said.

Through the course of the first two months of the season, Rosen has also seen his team’s ability to compete at the highest level, squeaking out close five-set wins against then-No. 14 Minnesota and at Purdue. And according to Rosen, though some matches could have gone either team’s way, he knows that “at the end of the day, a win’s still a win.”

“We’re a bunch of fighters,” junior libero Sloane Donhoff added. “If we get into a heated battle with (Penn State) and I look at every player on our team, I know that they’ll still have that, ‘We’re going to win’ attitude. I know that if it goes down to a deuce game, 25-25, I know we can pull it out.”

Facing a tough, yet not quite as dominating Penn State squad this season, Rosen and the Wolverines are optimistic that they'll see results they haven't witnessed in almost a decade.

“We’ve seen other teams in the Big Ten go out and play solid games against them and win,” junior outside hitter Alex Hunt said. “Both Indiana and Purdue have beat Penn State when they were on the road, so now it’s our turn.”