It's been a tradition this year for the women's basketball team (22-6) to start slow and pick it up in the end. The Lady Lions have played their season like this and have played many games in this fashion.

This weekend's Northern Lights Invitational in Anchorage, Alaska, was a perfect example of how Penn State has been performing this season.

In the first two games of the tournament, the ninth-ranked Lady Lions got off to sluggish starts against Cal State-Sacramento and New Orleans, but straightened themselves out in the end to pick up victories. Penn State beat Sacramento State 63-60, and defeated New Orleans 72-64.

Then last night, as many State College residents went to bed, the Lady Lions leveled the University of Missouri-Kansas City, 83-62, in the championship game.

Susan Robinson tied a season high with 29 points in the game to give Penn State the victory and its third tournament title this season. Robinson was also named MVP of the tourney.

While travel may have been the team's excuse for early sleepwalking in the Sacramento game, the Lady Lions could not afford to use jet-lag as an excuse last night, and in the end they didn't.

After allowing the Lady Kangaroos to take a 17-16 lead midway through the first half, Penn State took control of the ball and the tempo of the game to shut down UMKC.

The Lady Lions finished the half with a 29-11 run, including a 11-0 spurt with about five minutes left. Most of the credit was given to the defense, which slowed the game to a crawl and didn't give the Lady Kangaroos any chance to run-and-gun.

"We felt that the one thing we needed to do was to get in a half-court press and to try to contain them," Coach Rene Portland said. "Since we were playing zone, and we don't play a whole lot of zone, the 2-3 zone really threw them off."

That zone spurned UMKC's love for the 3-point shot and forced the team to go inside more, which is where Penn State's slight height advantage had an effect. Robinson knew that going into the game and said that their plan worked to perfection.

"I think (the zone) changes the momentum and makes them put their heads down and we can score easy buckets when they do that," the senior forward said.

The Lady Kangaroos' game was also hampered by that fact that their point guard and leading trey artist, Veda McNeal, picked up three fouls in the first half and got hit with her fourth early in the second.

Robinson did have a lot of those aforementioned buckets as she scored 19 points against Sacramento as well as 25 against New Orleans. Kathy Phillips had her string of tournament MVP awards snapped but scored 14 points last night and was named to the All-Tournament Team.

Guard Dana Eikenberg continued her offensive breakaway with 16 points.