All of the pieces were in place for the Penn State women's lacrosse team to finally put together back-to-back wins.

Penn State was well rested and had the home crowd -- something it hadn't seen since March 25 -- on its side. And yesterday's match against Pennsylvania seemed like it would be a breather, especially since the Nittany Lions' last four games have been against Top 20 teams.

With matches against conference rivals Ohio and Ohio State and No. 6 Georgetown still ahead, yesterday was the prime opportunity to put together a win streak of more than one game.

Penn State, however, seemed to have no intention of winning until it was too late. The Lions never recovered from a slow start and the Quakers took advantage, pounding Penn State 13-9 at the Bigler Athletic Complex.

"I don't think we really expected what we saw today," said freshman Shari Maslin, who recorded a hat trick in the losing effort. Maslin added that once the team fell behind, it had a difficult time preventing a snowball effect.

Within the first two minutes of the game, the Lions were hanging by a thread -- and Penn State women's lacrosse coach Suzanne Isidor knew it. Immediately after Penn senior Kate Murray put the Quakers up 1-0, Isidor called a timeout.

Penn State's attempt to regroup failed as Penn scored two of the game's next three goals to take a 3-1 lead into the half.

"We lacked everything we needed today," Isidor said. "We didn't have the intensity, we didn't have the ability to attack, we didn't have the defense -- and Penn did. Penn did all of those things and they did well."

Throughout the half, the Lions struggled to penetrate the Quaker defense. While Penn State was able to take the ball into Penn territory, nearly every time it tried to create a scoring opportunity, it was either bounced back to midfield or forced to stall behind the net.

"Our attack didn't do anything that we worked on," Isidor said. "Penn did a great job of packing their defense in. We needed to spread them out, and we needed off-ball movement to create opportunities."

Things weren't much better for the Lions on the defensive end. Penn's leading scorer, Lindsey Cassidy, scorched Penn State for seven goals, increasing her season total to 29. About 50 minutes into the game, Cassidy had as many goals (6) as the Lions' offense.

"Our defense just didn't step up on her," Isidor said. "Obviously, if she was going to goal, she was going to goal hard. We had our feet planted in quicksand. We either fouled her or just let her run by us."

After posting convincing wins against No. 12 North Carolina and No. 19 Johns Hopkins and after nearly upsetting No. 1 Loyola and No. 2 Maryland, Penn State appeared to be a different team against Penn.

Was it that Penn State was coming off of four straight games against Top 20 teams? Was it that it hadn't played a game in over eight days? Did it underestimate Penn?

A dejected and frustrated Colleen O'Hara summed it up: "They came out ready and we didn't."