Northwestern N'western/Penn State Penn State Women's College Basketball recap on ESPN

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Rene Portland knew she had a great player when she recruited Kelly Mazzante. On Thursday night, the freshman showed just how good she is.

Kelly Mazzante scored 29 points in just 28 minutes to lead Penn State (No. 9 ESPN/USA Today, No. 10 AP) over Northwestern 92-54, giving the Lions their eighth consecutive win.

It was Mazzante's second-best outing of the season and just seven points shy of the Penn State freshman scoring record.

Mazzante has topped 20 points six times this season, including 32 points at Pittsburgh, making her one of just three Penn State freshman to score 30 points in a game.

"There's been only one other freshman that has had an impact on the program like Kelly has, and that's Suzie McConnell," Portland said, referring to the former Penn State All-American and two-time Olympian.

"She knows to shoot the ball, but she knows to work on her defense. You saw her pass, you see run the fast break. She takes great pride in being a team player," Portland said.

With Mazzante on offense, the Lions (11-3, 3-0 Big Ten) hardly needed to play defense. Still, they held Northwestern (4-8, 0-2) scoreless for the first 5:43 of the second half. Emily Butler's layup with 14:17 left closed the Wildcats to 56-34. Jessica Brungo scored a career-high 13 points for Penn State, and Katrena Carr also scored 13. Maren Walseth had a season-high 12 rebounds. Mazzante said she was just taking advantage of what Northwestern was giving her. The Wildcats' defense was focussed on stopping Penn State senior Lisa Shepherd. "A lot of teams are doing a box-and-one on Lisa, and that means Jess and I need to step up and make big shots," Mazzante said. Butler, who finished with 18 points, was the only Wildcat to score in the first 10 minutes of the second half. It was Northwestern's lowest-scoring game of the season; the previous low came in a 56-48 victory over Miami. The Wildcats were just 20-for-59 from the field and were outrebounded 48-31.

Mazzante made seven of eight shots in the first half, including two 3-pointers, and scored 11 points in Penn State's 20-6 opening run. The Lady Lions led 48-32 at halftime.

"We're slow-starters anyhow, so we're running behind the eight-ball here," Northwestern coach June Olkowski said. "I'm just happy we got good shots. They didn't hurt us in the half-court offense in the first half, they hurt us in transition, so at least we took something away."

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