Big lead sends Milwaukee past YSU women

Staff report

MILWAUKEE

The Wisconsin-Milwaukee women’s basketball team built a big first-half lead and shot 56 percent to hold off Youngstown State, 76-68, on Saturday at the Klotsche Center.

The Panthers led by as many as 16 points in the first half and were able to withstand YSU’s rally, which cut the margin to three with 10 minutes remaining.

YSU’s Kenya Middlebrooks led all scorers with 19 points, 15 of which came on five 3-pointers.

Brandi Brown had 14 points in limited action because of foul trouble, and Macey Nortey scored a season-best 12 points to go along with seven assists.

Milwaukee had four players reach double figures in its best shooting day of the season. Sami Tucker had 16 points and 10 rebounds, and fellow post Courtney Lindfors scored 13 of her 15 points in the second half.

Angela Rodriguez hit four 3s en route to a 15-point performance, and Ashley Green added 13 points and nine rebounds. The Panthers held a 40-28 edge in rebounding.

YSU lost its fourth straight contest and for the 14th consecutive time against Milwaukee. The Penguins are 8-10 and 2-5 in Horizon League play while Milwaukee is 5-12 overall and 1-6 against league teams.

The Penguins made just three of their first 20 attempts, but they made 21 of their final 41 shots, including 7-of-10 to close out the first half.

Milwaukee hit three triples in the first three minutes to go up 9-1. A Tieara Jones bucket made the score 9-3, and she hit another basket with 10:38 remaining to keep the deficit at six, 15-9. Milwaukee, though, scored 10 straight points to go up 25-9 with 7:38 remaining following three-point plays on back-to-back possessions.

YSU started to get hot at that point and scored nine of the next 11 points to close the gap to 27-18 at the 4:16 mark, and the Penguins scored the final eight points of the half once Milwaukee went back up by 14.