It is hard for a less talented team to beat a more talented team. It is impossible for a team with less talent to win if it makes too many mistakes.

The Penn State women's basketball team routed the Fairfield Stags 88-37 yesterday in The Bryce Jordan Center.

The Lady Lions played a great offensive game, shooting 44.4 percent from the field on their way to the 51-point victory. But the biggest reasons for the Lions' dominant win were turnovers.

The Stags made many poor pass attempts as well as a few careless plays while dribbling the ball. When the game was over the Stags had only three more points than they had turnovers.

Thirty-four turnovers do not happen without some great defensive play. Fairfield head coach Dianne Nolan said that she knew Penn State was going to put an emphasis on its defense in yesterday's game.

"Their defense was pretty strong tonight," Nolan said. "We read about it in the newspaper and we've known it obviously through scout tapes that (defense) was their concentration."

That defense was able to come up with 18 steals in the game. The biggest thief of all was also the games top scorer. Sophomore captain Kelly Mazzante led both teams with eight steals and 29 points. She also led both teams in rebounds with eight and assists with six.

Mazzante was quick to give her teammates the credit for her steals.

"I knew kind of where their point guard was going," she said, "but it also started with Tanisha (Wright) and Jess (Strom) putting pressure on the point guard."

Many of Mazzante's steals led to easy points. On several occasions she was able to go coast-to-coast and convert a steal into a lay-up. She was also able to pass the ball to other Lions for uncontested points.

One player who benefited from the defense was freshman guard Tanisha Wright. Wright scored 14 points, which was the second highest total next to Mazzante's. Wright said that it was the team's defensive play that assisted her offense.

"The defense helped a lot too," Wright said of her offense. "We got a lot of steals and most of my points were lay-ups and four were from the free-throw line."

Wright was perfect from the free-throw line, converting all four of her shots. Free throws have been a problem for the team all season long but yesterday it was a strong point. The Lions were 80 percent from the charity stripe and scored 28 points off freebies.

Penn State head coach Rene Portland said that the better free throw shooting was encouraging and that it comes from the players practicing on their own.

However, she also gives them some motivation to practice.

"When I walked into the locker room the other day to do film it says 50 foul shots a day and the film screen was down so I put a one in front of it," Portland said. "So I made it 150. I don't know if they did it, but it's pretty bad when you miss a foul shot, it shows a lack of conditioning."