She waited three years to get her chance to leave her mark on Penn State softball. This weekend she set one that other players will be trying to break for some time to come.

Kelly McCann secured her place in the Penn State record books this weekend when she broke the school record for wins in a season.

By earning a 1-0 victory against Michigan State on Saturday, the senior pitcher tied a school record, notching her win No. 17 of the season. She accomplished the feat by shutting out the Spartans, her seventh shutout of the year.

The Pittsburgh native allowed just four hits and stuck out three, including getting Michigan State's Amanda Melton to watch a called strike three to end the ballgame.

Despite the individual accomplishment, McCann said the team goals are more important.

"We didn't even know," McCann said. "Records don't mean anything. We had six games to win coming out here today, and we're going to knock them off one at a time.

A win is a win and we don't care how we get it."

McCann was backed by strong defense throughout the game. A groundball pitcher, McCann gave up just two fly ball outs all game. The left side of the Nittany Lions infield, Jennifer Tripken and Adrienne Manzo saw most of the ground balls, combining for 11 assists. McCann also played her share of defense, contributing three assists. First baseman Erin Norton recorded 14 of the Lions 21 putouts.

"A lot of it has to do with Kelly," Lions senior Jenny Briz said. "She gets the ground balls. She starts the cycle of outs."

The record came one day after McCann was shelled by No. 24 Michigan and knocked out of the game after 3 2/3 innings, giving up seven runs and 10 hits, all singles, in the Lions 10-1 loss. McCann was able to shake off the memory of the Wolverine batters though and pitch one of her better games of the season.

Yesterday McCann was back on the mound to take sole possession of the record. She gave up no earned runs on seven hits and tied her personal best of seven strikeouts. McCann said the record was made a little sweeter because it came on Senior Day.

"It was definitely nice to get to throw in my last game here," McCann said.

McCann was a key member of last year's team that won a school best 38 games. However, she only started a total of 16 games her entire career before this season. This season she has been the leader of the Lions staff, showing her team and the rest of the Big Ten just how good she is.

"It means a lot to me because it is the year I have pitched the most," McCann said. "I have been waiting for three years to show the team what I could do."

Penn State softball coach Robin Petrini also had no idea McCann was approaching the record until after Saturday's game.

"I just found out about it," Petrini said. "I think it's awesome."

Collegian staff writer Rick Burchfield contributed to this story.