Women's Basketball Scoreboard (Feb. 23)
Milwaukee 90, Cleveland State 78
Youngstown State 72, Green Bay 63
Milwaukee 90, Cleveland State 78
Senior Angela Rodriguez and sophomore Avyanna Young each had a double-double to lead the way for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's basketball team in a 90-78 victory over Cleveland State University Sunday afternoon at the Klotsche Center.
The Panthers (8-18, 4-9 Horizon League) led by nine at halftime and steadily pulled away from the Vikings (13-13, 8-5 Horizon League) to earn the victory.
"I am really proud of how we stepped up tonight," Milwaukee head coach Kyle Rechlicz said. "I know that we can compete with a lot of teams in our league and I think this helps give our players that confidence that the next game that we play, we can compete and we can play tough. I hope we can continue this momentum into Wright State."
Rodriguez finished with a team-high 26 points and tied her career-high with 10 assists. Young added her 11th double-double of the season with 21 points and 11 rebounds.
Freshman Bre'Zall Warren scored a season-high 17 points and senior Emily Decorah was also in double-figures, finishing with 13 points.
Imani Gordon led the Vikings with a double-double of 28 points and 15 rebounds.
"That was a fun game to coach," Rechlicz said. "I felt like our execution from the start of the game was hands-down one of the best it has been all season. We made some adjustments in our plays this week based on how Cleveland State had defended us in the first game and our players executed it to a tee. We got Avyanna going early in the paint, which really helped our outside shooters and we had some big people step up. To have Bre have her career-high and hit those free throws at the end of the game as a freshman is really huge for us and I felt like Angela was back to her normal self. Just making really good passes and decisions and scoring the basketball as well as she did."
The first half featured 10 lead changes and they all occurred in the first 10 minutes of the contest. Young's layup at the 10:07 mark gave UWM the lead for good on the day and gave the Panthers a little bit of control. Back and forth for a bit, CSU was back within three at 27-24, but Milwaukee would score 13 of the next 18 points to build the advantage to 11, settling for a 40-31 lead headed into the locker room when the Vikings scored at the halftime buzzer.
The Panthers controlled the game from there. A 6-0 spurt, capped by a Decorah three at the 16:43 mark, extended the lead to 49-35. CSU trimmed the lead back under 10 points just once the rest of the way and Milwaukee was solid at the free throw line down the stretch to put it away, making 14 of its final 18 from the charity stripe over the final two minutes of the game.
"I kept telling her (Rodriguez), the more we have the ball in your hands, the better we are," Rechlicz said. "She is one of the best free throw shooters in the country, so when you have someone like that on your team, you definitely want to put the ball in her hands at the end of the game."
UWM shot well on the day, finishing at 45.6 percent (26-for-57) from the floor, making 10 more three-pointers as well. CSU finished at 43.7 percent (31-for-71) from the floor.
Milwaukee won the rebounding battle, 43-40, and took care of the ball. The team had just nine turnovers, with an impressive assist-to-turnover ratio of 21-9.
Rodriguez pushed her career point total to 1,501 to become just the sixth player to reach that plateau in school history. With the 10 assists, she is also closing in on the school record for assists in a season - she is currently at 151, with the school standard of 153 up next.
Youngstown State 72, Green Bay 63
Junior Heidi Schlegel scored a game-high 23 points, including the 1,000th of her career, and the Youngstown State women's basketball team created a three-way tie atop the Horizon League standings with a 72-63 win at Green Bay on Sunday at the Kress Events Center.
YSU, Green Bay and Wright State are all tied for first place with a 9-3 record, and Wright State plays both teams in the final two weeks of the regular season.
Youngstown State won for the first time ever at the Kress Events Center and swept Green Bay for the first time in school history.
YSU freshman guard Jenna Hirsch scored 16 points, and Liz Hornberger scored 11 of her 14 points in the second half. The senior hit back-to-back 3-pointers to start the second half as the Penguins started the period on a 9-0 run. YSU did not trail for the final 19:02, and it led for the final 13:51.
Kaili Lukan and Sam Terry had 13 points apiece to lead four Phoenix players in double figures.
Green Bay hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds of the first half to go up 34-31 at the break, but the 9-0 run to start the second half put YSU ahead 40-34. Lukan hit back-to-back buckets to cut the deficit to two, and her sixth point of the period tied the score at 42 with 13:51 remaining. Melissa Thompson scored on the next possession right before a timeout to give the Penguins the lead again at 44-42, and that eased Green Bay's momentum. YSU led for the rest of the game.
Thompson had a putback a minute later to push the lead to four, and Hirsch capped a 7-0 run with a 3-pointer at the 10:26 mark. Green Bay scored the next six points to get within 49-48 at the 7:53 mark, but that's as close as it would get. Flagg hit a jumper on the next possession, and Hornberger's 3-pointer at the 6:44 mark gave YSU a 54-48 advantage.
Megan Lukan and Mehryn Kraker both split two free throws to trim the lead to three with under six minutes left, but, after Lukan's make, the Penguins scored the next nine points to take their largest lead of the game at 66-54 with 2:09 remaining.
Sam Terry hit three 3s in 80 seconds to get the deficit down to five at 68-63 with 42 seconds left, but YSU was able to run off 17 seconds before being fouled on the next possession, and Schlegel made four free throws down the stretch to put the game away.
There were seven ties and six lead changes in the first half, and Green Bay needed a 3-pointer in the final seconds to take a 34-31 lead at the break.
Schlegel became the 18th member of the program's 1,000-points club with a bucket in the lane at the 19:02 mark of the first half. That tied the game for the first time at two, and the score was within three points for the first nine minutes.
YSU's largest lead in the opening period was two, and Green Bay led by as much as seven. YSU's last lead of the half came at 14-12 at the 12:25 mark after five straight points from Monica Touvelle. Green Bay answered with nine straight points to go up 21-14, but YSU weathered the storm and tied the score at 25 on a 3-pointer by Hirsch.
The score was tied again at 27, and Thompson's 3-pointer at the 1:09 mark locked the score at 31. YSU's 12th turnover of the first half led to Kraker's triple just before the buzzer.
Hirsch had nine points at halftime, and Schlegel and Touvelle both had eight. Tesha Buck had 11 to lead all scorers on 5-for-6 shooting.
