If only Jen Harris could see and, better yet, remember what her teammates and fans could when she's in her "zone."

Instead, her fourth offensive career-high of the season was just a blur to the sophomore, along with an overmatched Illinois (10-4, 2-2 Big Ten) team. Harris shot 7-of-8 in the second half and finished with a game-high 26 points to lead the Lady Lions (9-6, 4-0) to their third straight win, 71-46.

Harris also added a career-high five 3-pointers, four in the second half.

"I don't remember anything that really happened," Harris said. "I take it that I was just in the zone. When you're there everything you shoot is going in. Teammates kept telling me to shoot it. They were all giving me the ball, so you have to keep putting it up."

The lead swapped five times in the first 12 minutes of the game until Amber Bland's jumper put Penn State up for good. Her bucket made it 18-16, and then Ashli Schwab made a layup. And then Harris added a layup, Jennifer Brenden hit a 3-pointer...

And the rout was on.

Penn State went on a 17-0 run spanning six minutes and went into halftime leading 33-20.

"It was a totally different game," Illinois coach Theresa Gentz said. "16-16 it looked like this was gonna be a good situation. They went up six points and we just never got back on track after that."

The 20 points were the lowest allowed in a half this season by the Lady Lions.

After shooting 46.7 percent in the first half (Illinois shot just 31.5 percent for the game) the Lady Lions' backcourt came out searing.

Strom started the second-half target practice by making a layup and hitting a 3-pointer. Harris followed with two more 3's, which Strom answered with one of her own. With Strom and Harris playing there own version of HORSE, Penn State made its first six shots in the second half and ended the half connecting on 16-of-26 (61.5 percent) attempts.

"We're thrilled with the win," Penn State coach Rene Portland said. "We started out in the first five minutes not knowing what was going to happen, but the defense turned it up and got ourselves some good distance. I'm very, very pleased with the rebounding effort, obviously pleased with the shooting."

Schwab and Amanda Brown both had 10 rebounds, and as a team Penn State outrebounded the Fighting Illini 40-24.

Tanisha Wright followed Harris with 16 points, but the impressive part of the Lady Lions' run at the end of the first half was that Wright was on the bench for much of it. Strom, who had played the full 40 minutes the previous four games, also got some much-needed rest while Harris stole the show.

"I'm definitely getting more confident," said Harris, whose previous career high was 22 points. "We're up and the chemistry is really great right now. We just need to pick up the slack a little bit more, pick up the defense and on the offensive end when one of [Strom or Wright] is out."

The Lady Lions head to Bloomington, Ind., on Sunday to face the Hoosiers and to continue their perfect conference start.

What once was a team sitting at 0-3, is now a team atop the conference they've won the past two seasons.

"It feels great to be 4-0, especially with the start we had," said Strom, who finished with 13 points and eight assists. "I think we're just building confidence every game. Those two road win games gave us a lot of confidence and it was nice to come back to our home crowd. I think we just have to take this and keep building for Sunday."