The purpose of the present study was to examine athletes' precompetition psychological states prior to playing evenly-matched opponents over a balanced series of regular-season home and away competitions. A team consisting of 11 female field hockey players completed questionnaires assessing cognitive and somatic state anxiety, self-confidence, and self-efficacy prior to home and away games over the course of an eight-game series of regular-season competition. Consistent with previous research, it was hypothesized that athletes would report higher levels of self-confidence and self-efficacy prior to home games compared to away. Due to inconsistencies in previous findings about precompetition state anxiety, no hypotheses about the effect of game location on these perceptions were advanced. Results showed that players' psychological states were variable, but reflected a significant pattern of higher self-efficacy and self-confidence as well as lower cognitive and somatic state anxiety prior to playing at home compared to away. Findings are discussed relative to previous home advantage research and self-efficacy, is proposed as a potential theory-based explanatory mechanism of the home advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]