No game can be overlooked.

Fresh off a 6-1 pounding of Indiana, the No. 6 Penn State field hockey team (9-1, 2-1 Big Ten) was only able to beat a weak Northwestern team 1-0 in overtime on Saturday.

Sophomore forward Amanda Eckert registered her third goal of the season, while junior goalie Annie Zinkavich recorded her fifth shutout.

Eckert's second game-winning goal of the season came just over six minutes into the overtime period. Eckert fielded a loose ball from three yards out, turned around, and buried it in the back of the cage past Wildcats goalie Kendra Mesa.

"I think we played strong throughout the whole game," Eckert said.

"The only problem was that we couldn't get the ball in the back of the cage, but it was totally a team effort."

The story of this game was defense. Through 70 minutes of regulation, Penn State only allowed Northwestern (4-6, 0-2) one shot and one penalty corner.

However, Penn State took 15 penalty corners of its own and was unable to convert on any of them. The Northwestern defense stymied the powerful combination of Penn State midfielders Jill Martz and Heather Conroy on the corners, registering three defensive saves to back up Mesa's five saves.

"Corner execution was our downfall today," Penn State field hockey coach Char Morett said.

"We had a good stop and a good hit on only five of our corner attempts."

Despite the lack of corner production, Morett feels the team played its best passing game of the season.

The all-around sentiment was that the team did a good job of handling the frustration of being unable to score.

"We were doing everything right," Martz said.

"We had beautiful passes and were able to draw corners. We just couldn't put the game away."

With the majority of Penn State's goals being scored off of corners this season due to the powerful shot of leading scorer Conroy, it's unusual to see a scoreless game for so long.

The Lions usually know how their opponent will set up their defense during corners.

Northwestern, however, changed its defensive positioning on every corner which left the Lion offense little time to prepare.

The Lions had the added pressure of playing in their first overtime game of the season.

However, Penn State already had the momentum going into overtime.

The Wildcats were forced to play defense during the entire second half because the Lions prevented them from getting the ball inside the Penn State 25-yard line.

"It's good to see in overtime that we're poised and we're able to handle the pressure," Martz said.