Every time the ball came towards the goal, junior Carey Maser would hit it off the field.

"Stop hitting them away," senior captain Natalie Berrena said to Maser.

"I need to practice," Maser said.

"We know you know how to hit," Berrena said back.

For the Penn State field hockey team winning lately has been as easy as knowing how to hit the ball.

Riding a 10-game win streak, the Nittany Lions are playing their first Wednesday home game of the season against Syracuse University at 4 p.m. today at Astroturf Field.

The Lions lost to Syracuse, 3-2, in overtime in 2004.

"Last year they beat us," Penn State field hockey coach Char Morett said. "It's always been a competitive game."

The Orange, who starts a freshman goalie, Heather Hess, is going to be a prime target for Penn State's revamped offense.

The Lions have already scored as many goals and won as many games as last year, and the worries about the team's top forwards graduating last year are long-forgotten.

But that doesn't mean Morett is going to let the offense take it easy in practice.

The Lions have been working on converting their penalty corners in the last half-hour of every practice.

The one thing Morett wants to work on is individual defense.

"I think that individual defense is an ongoing process," Morett said. "We need to determine that we are going to play it decisively because at times we play indecisively."

The defense so far this season has kept opposing teams from scoring more than two goals throughout the entire winning streak.

Senior goalie Megan Akstin has only seen, on average, six shots a game, as opposed to Penn State's own average of 12 shots per contest.

Winning has been easy for the Lions in the last 10 games, but the final second of the team's last game against Northwestern has Morett a little worried.

With no time left on the clock, Northwestern scored on a sloppy Lions defense.

Though the final score was 6-2, Morett felt the need to address her players about it.

"We felt that [goalie] Megan [Akstin] got caught going down too early," Morett said. "She's an aggressive goalie, she makes dynamic saves, but she needs to play the percentages more often."

The problem was handled quickly in practice, and the team went back to working on its usual practice.

The Lions took shot after shot at Akstin and Jen Beaumont, and, afterward, Morett made sure to give her players high-fives. Then she repeated something that she has been saying a lot to her 10-1 team this season and hopes to say after today's game against Syracuse.

"Good job, guys."