The gloomy and gray Sunday afternoon did not deter the fans at Bigler Field, as a crowd of 500 watched the Penn State field hockey team dominate Lafayette, 5-0, to start off the 2002 season.

The Nittany Lions outshot, outscored and simply outplayed the Leopards from start to finish, and saw only a few defensive breakdowns in an otherwise solid opener.

"I loved the way we came out," said Penn State field hockey coach Charlene Morett. "We showed we have a lot of depth to keep the flow of the game going."

Penn State's first goal came 10 minutes into the first half, after Timarie Legel rocketed a shot into the back of the cage off a Jill Martz assist.

Martz displayed some masterful stick-handling skills throughout the game, troubling a Lafayette defense that double- and triple-teamed her.

That left her other teammates open for distribution.

"For the first game, holding a team to 5-0 and having a shutout, that's what we want to do," Martz said.

"This is probably the third time out of practice that we played the full field because we don't have a very big team. So the first 10 minutes of the game we were just getting used to playing together again."

About five minutes later, the Lions capitalized on a penalty corner and scored their second goal.

Junior midfielder Heather Conroy connected for the score.

"I thought the midfield played very well," said Conroy, who had two goals in the game.

"I thought Jill and I worked well off of each other in the center of the field."

A minute after that, Penn State continued the offensive onslaught as Martz carried the ball down the left side of the field and scored off a ricochet in heavy traffic.

While most of the action was held in the Leopards' half, Lions goalkeeper Annie Zinkavich got her first real test after a brief defensive lapse, and made a tremendous sliding save with 10 minutes left in the first half.

She had five saves on the day.

The team seemed poised to maintain the pressure on Lafayette's defense during the second half.

Penn State was one step ahead of the Leopards, as they were able to spread the field by establishing a crisp passing game during the last 35 minutes.

Penn State's final goal came from sophomore Karin Grap, who came off the bench early in the second half.

"All of those guys coming off the bench, sparking it up, I thought they did well," Conroy said.

Grap was set up by Mary Schaefer, who made her first start at right forward.

Despite outshooting Lafayette 28-5, Morett said there were things the team needed to improve upon.

"While we scored five goals, I felt we could have put the ball in a position to get more shots," she said. "We definitely put ourselves in some bad situations."

The Lions hope to start a winning streak as they face Connecticut in their first away game at 6 p.m. Friday.