It's almost like watching a magician doing a card trick.

The audience stands in amazement watching the magician as he makes the ace of spades appear out of thin air.

The magician knows he's had the ace up his sleeve the whole time, but the audience is still mystified because it appears like the card came out of nowhere.

Penn State field hockey coach Char Morett has been playing the magician. In the past few games the No. 6 Penn State field hockey team has played, the 14-year coach of the Lady Lions (7-2, 1-0 Big Ten) has been stunning teams by pulling aces out of her sleeve.

Morett and the Lions will take their magic show on the road as Penn State faces No. 18 Michigan State (6-3, 0-1) at 7 p.m. today at Spartan Stadium.

"Michigan State is always tough," senior middle/back Irene Kofroth said. "It's always a dogfight whenever we play them and even though they're not in the top 10, they're still going to play us hard so we have to be ready for it."

Kofroth and the other players said they have been working hard in practices, on corner options and offensive formations as well as fundamentals like passing and stick work.

The team's work on corner options and stick work paid off against Iowa last Saturday as the Lions dominated the ball and scored three of their four goals on corners.

Two of the three corner goals were scored from the same formation, a pass play from the shooter to the holder and back to the shooter. The team said they liked that option because of how deceptive it is.

"It's a great play to use because it pulls all the defense out and puts you on the goalie," said senior co-captain Traci Anselmo.

"If you can get a one-on-goalie, it's an ideal situation. We try to do that with all our corners -- open up the middle as much as we can and give the shooter as much time as she needs."

As well as the corners worked against Iowa, they weren't fooling Syracuse. The Orangewomen corralled each of Penn State's 18 penalty corner opportunities.

Kofroth said she had a hunch Syracuse had studied tapes of Penn State's corner options and devised ways to stop them all.

But just when the Orangewomen thought they had seen all of the Lions' tricks, the Lions pulled a few other aces out of their sleeves.

With keen passing and a stellar defense, the Lions worked their magic on Syracuse to earn the 1-0 victory.

"Our defense has really come a long way and I think our stick work has really improved," Morett said after the 4-1 win against Iowa. "We have the ability to combine a passing game and a one-on-one game. That makes us dangerous.

"We've made a lot of improvements and a lot of things are working well for us. With all the things going right for us now, we're a dangerous team."

But the players know they'll have to keep coming up with those aces to continue its success, especially in the Big Ten.

Penn State has a 14-0 all-time record against Michigan State and the team knows that streak of success could end at any time. The Lions said the Spartans always come out fighting and they have no reason to believe tonight's game will be any different.

"Each Big Ten game is really important so we can't go out there, sit back and expect to win just because of our record against a team," sophomore middle/back Jill Martz said. "I think we have confidence and as long as we come out and play a full 70 minutes with no letups, we'll come away with a win."