Char Morett received the best gift a team could ever give its coach on the day of her 300th Penn State victory. A perfect game.

The offense attacked early against the Temple Owls and forward Annelise Legel scored a hat trick in the first half of a 5-0 victory that gave Morett her milestone win. Shaun Banta and Natalie Blasco each contributed a goal.

"She had two beautiful goals, and the third goal was just a wonderful example of possession passing," Morett said of the hat trick.

Morett has always stressed a strong opening and she got exactly what she asked for yesterday. Legel poked in her first goal when a corner shot from Kiersten Wood deflected off of the Owl goalie into Legel's oncoming stick just under eight minutes into the game.

Three minutes later, Legel struck again, scoring on a pass from Natalie Berrena, who registered her first assist of the year.

The offensive onslaught went silent for 10 minutes until Banta scored unassisted to put the Lions up 3-0 just under twenty minutes into the first half.

Legel's third goal came when Kiersten Wood sent a pass to Legel who took the corner shot. The ball deflected off of a defender and passed the Temple goalie at the 27:14 mark.

"When the third goal went in, I thought Sara Cahill had tipped it in, and I said, 'Great tip!' " Legel said.

Cahill responded that she hadn't touched the shot, as Legel's teammates began to congratulate her for her rare feat. It was the first hat trick of her career.

Penn State went into the half with an overwhelming 4-0 lead. The defense had allowed no shots in the first half for the second time in as many games. Feeling confident with the lead, Morett decided to allow Legel and captain Bekah Hostetler to rest in the second half.

"It was the fastest halftime speech I had all year, it only lasted about two minutes," Morett said. "You just tell them to keep doing what you're doing and you hope they don't have a letdown."

Penn State continued to dominate in the second half, allowing three shots, only one of which was on target, as the Penn State defense and goalie Megan Akstin completed their third shutout of the year.

Morett credited the victory to a much-improved passing attack, and solid defense as the No. 7 Nittany Lions improved to 7-1 on the season.

"We defended well, Molly [Schriver] and Jen [Miller] stepped up, our two-deep backs. They did a good job stopping the plays."

The win also pushed the Lions win streak to seven games. The last time Penn State had a streak that long was in 2002, the year the Lions played for the national title.

Morett stressed to her team early in the week that Temple was not a team to be taken lightly. Even though Temple had a poor record, which now stands at 1-6 after the loss to the Lions, the Owls had nearly upset two of the top-ranked teams in the league. Last week Temple lost one-goal games against No. 8 Michigan and No. 3 North Carolina.

Apparently a wet field equals offense for the Lions.

Rain poured on the Temple field in the early minutes of the game softening the ground and the team scored more goals than it had in its previous three away games. Legel said the team got "charged up" when the rain started because they played the majority of their games in rainy conditions last year.