Behind a five-goal afternoon from senior midfielder Haley Warden, third-ranked James Madison held off a late rally to defeat No. 20 Penn State, 14-12, in non-conference women's lacrosse action on Wednesday afternoon at Sentara Park. The Dukes improved to 6-0 on the year, matching their best start since 2011, while the Nittany Lions fell to 3-3. The win also snapped PSU's three-game win streak in the series and avenged last year's NCAA Second Round loss. Warden tied her career high six points, scoring five goals to go with one assist. She also caused three turnovers and collected two ground balls. Senior midfielder Elena Romesburg recorded a hat trick while tying her career high of five draw controls. She also tallied four ground balls. Junior attacker Hanna Haven and senior attacker Kristen Gaudian each notched a pair of goals, and Gaudian won a career-high seven draw controls to lead all players. JMU out-shot PSU 33-24 (25-18 SOG) while also holding advantages in caused turnovers (11-9) and ground balls (23-13). Both teams each won 14 draw controls, with PSU winning seven of the final eight to set up the visitor's comeback attempt. Leading 7-4 at the break, the Dukes stormed out of the gates in the second half, scoring six of seven to take a 13-5 lead with 13:33 to play. The Nittany Lions answered with four straight in a span of 2:36 to climb to within 13-9 with 8:25 to go. After Warden fired home her fifth goal to make it 14-9 with 6:07 left, Penn State came back with a string of three straight to make it a 14-12 game with 3:38 to go. With a minute to play, Madison Carter's shot on a 1-v-1 opportunity was saved by junior Ellie Harmeyer (5-0), one of her six stops on the day, to secure JMU's second top-20 victory of the season. PSU was led by Carter, who had five goals and six draw. Maggie Gallagher scored three times and Katie O'Donnell potted two goals, to go with five draws. Lucy Lowe took the loss between the pipes despite making a game-high 11 saves. CAREER WATCH Two players moved up on JMU's career top-20 list in Kristen Gaudian and Haley Warden. Gaudian scored one free-position goal to mark the 28th of her career, which is tied for ninth all-time. She has 10 this year, which already ranks tied for 14th in single-season history and is seven shy of tying the JMU season record. Warden had two ground balls to move up to 13th place with 108 for her career. CHARLOTTE'S FIRST TALLY Players always remember their first career goal and Charlotte Haggerty joined that list in the Penn State win. Haggerty fired home a free-position goal just under 10 minutes into the game for the first of her career. That score gave the Dukes a 3-2 lead and they later took the lead for good six minutes later. A GAME OF RUNS JMU and Penn State lived up to the top-20 hype as it produced six scoring runs of at least three goals. JMU built its largest lead of the day, at 13-5, by virtue of a trio of three-goal runs and a 4-0 surge. The Nittany Lions scored four in a row in just over two and a half minutes and later added three straight goals in less than two minutes to bring them to within two. UP NEXT JMU returns to action Saturday, March 10 when it travels north to face another Big Ten foe in Rutgers (4-2). Game time is set for 1 p.m. from High Point Solutions Stadium and can be seen on BTN Plus for a nominal fee.