PHILADELPHIA -- It wasn't the defense or Dale Hodges. It was simply the Lady Hawks' understanding of Coach Jim Foster's propensity to speak French from the bench.

Once St. Joseph's got that down, the rest was English pure and simple -- it had enough to get by the women's basketball team, 73-61, Saturday afternoon at the Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse.

"I have a certain tendency to speak French," Foster said.

He explained that when he does slip into another language, his players sometimes have a difficult time understanding him. In Saturday's game, Foster mentioned it wasn't until midway into the second half that his team got the message. He added, "We had a certain plan and it took us a while to get into that."

With forward and almost certain All-American Dale Hodges leading the charge, along with a stingy second-half defense, the Lady Hawks pulled away from Penn State in an important Atlantic 10 contest.

No. 21 St. Joe's is now 18-4 on the season, 13-1 in the conference. The Lady Hawks are tied for the league lead with Rutgers (both teams have lost to each other on the road). No. 22 Penn State lost its second consecutive game and fell to 16-5 overall and 10-2 in league play.

The game was close until three different events started happening, almost all at the same time. First, Lady Lions' center Kathy Phillips picked up her fourth personal foul with the score tied at 45, five minutes into the second half.

Once Phillips was gone, Hodges started going crazy. In one 20-second sequence, she stole the ball, entered the lane, turned around and finger-rolled the ball beautifully into the net. A few seconds later another steal -- except this time Hodges drove rove right at the basket with no finesse involved whatsoever.

Hodges finished with 34 points and 19 rebounds.

And swarming pressure defense from St. Joe's forced 19 Penn State turnovers and allowed the Lady Lions to shoot only 29.6 percent from the field in the second half.

"Turnovers hurt us again tonight," Penn State coach Rene Portland said. "We just didn't shoot the ball at all in the second half. But we did a lot of things right. We made St. Joe's think about their game. Not too many of them shot the ball very well (39 percent for the game), except for Dale; she's the show."

The game started in Penn State's favor with the Lady Lions jumping out to a 20-11 lead after Lynn Dougherty hit a 3-pointer from the right side. The Lady Hawks slowly erased the lead behind the play of Ellen Shields (17 points) and Margaret Bess (eight points in the first half in a reserve role). St. Joe's managed to hold a 37-35 lead at intermission after a fast-paced first half.

With Phillips in the game, Hodges only mustered 10 points. The physical play between the two seemed to unnerve the league's leading scorer and rebounder.

"We didn't want her to go to her left-hand side," Portland said. "If Dale goes to her right, she'll miss her shot. Kathy played her very, very well.

"It was awful with Kathy out of there. Dale just doesn't like people touching her."

St. Joe's built its lead to 12 in the second half before Penn State tried one final comeback. Forward Susan Robinson (27 points, 14 rebounds) chipped in a free throw and a short five-foot bank shot to narrow it to nine with minutes to go, but Penn State wouldn't get any closer.

"Their pressure caused turnovers," Phillips said. "(In the second half) we had our spurt when we came back, but then they had theirs."

Phillips scored 10 points as did guard Tanya Garner. Dougherty scored nine points.

Notes: Penn State has now lost to St. Joe's six consecutive times . . . Including Thursday's loss at Temple, the Lady Lions have not won both games in Philadelphia since 1986 . . . The Lady Hawks won their 23rd straight conference game at home.