Goalie Kay Young said she -- and the rest of the women's lacrosse team -- had trouble getting into yesterday's game against Delaware.

But Penn State scored seven goals in the first half and held on to defeat the Blue Hens, 14-8.

"We just didn't have our act together today," Young said.

"When we worked it, we did well," attack Deanna Blood said. "But we weren't as fluent as we usually are."

The Lady Lions played inconsistently, scoring goals in spurts but allowing Delaware to twice narrow Penn State's lead to three goals or fewer.

"You can't be disappointed with 14 goals, but I don't like the eight," Coach Julie Williams said.

The No. 1 Lady Lions raised their record to 7-0; Delaware fell to 2-4.

Delaware scored first, just 1:05 into the game. The Lady Lions then scored five consecutive goals, two by Christy Sansone, to take a 5-1 lead.

But after scoring seven goals in the first 13 minutes, Penn State didn't score again until Lori Fitzgerald hit a free possession shot with 16:33 remaining in the second half. During that time, the unranked Blue Hens cut Penn State's lead to 7-5.

"I think it was more that we knew we were going to win, so we let up," attack Megan Smith said. "Well, it wasn't really a let up, but we were taking ourselves for granted."

Delaware tends to play with all of its players at one end of the field and has defenders bring the ball up. When a Penn State defender would pick her up, a Delaware attack wing would be left open and better able to score.

Williams said better communication among the offensive players, who need to cover the open opposing attack wings, would have solved the problem.

"We've worked on it, but we just weren't good at it today," she said.

Penn State took 28 shots on goal and scored on half of them. Several Penn State shots bounced off the goal, and others went just wide of it. Smith said that better shot selection -- moving the stick up or down instead of just taking the shot as they received the ball --would have helped the Lady Lions.

"We need to move the goalie around more," she said.

Penn State's biggest scoring spurt came when it scored three goals in the last 1:14 of the game. One of the goals was scored legitimately by Foley. Then Blood got credit for a goal when a Delaware player knocked the ball into her own goal. And Faith Sweeney scored with two seconds remaining, but the clock was started late and the goal probably shouldn't have counted.

Smith scored one goal and added three assists, and Foley scored two goals and two assists. Blood, Sansone and Karen Hoysted each scored two goals.

The Lady Lions host No. 9 James Madison at 1 p.m. Sunday at Lady Lion Field. The game, originally scheduled for March 16, was snowed out. James Madison defeated Delaware, 21-9, earlier this season.