Sophomore Traci Edwards

Thursday night at the Klotsche Center, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers women's basketball team was victim to almost unheard of perimeter shooting as the Butler Bulldogs shot 15-of-27 (55.6 percent) from beyond-the-arc to win 74-59.

The Panthers could have overtaken Butler for third in the Horizon League standings and continue to have control of their own destiny, which would have given them home-court edge in the quaterfinals and semifinals of the fast-approaching conference tournament.

If the main plot wasn't enough, UWM coach Sandy Botham was going for career win No. 200 and sophomore forward Traci Edwards needed 11 points to become the 15th Panther with 1,000 career points and just the second with 1,000 points and 500 rebounds.

Botham will have to wait until another day. But Edwards finished with a team-high 19 points to become the fastest of the 15 Panthers to reach 1,000 and tied for the fastest in Horizon League history as the Menasha native accomplished the feat in 56 games.

However, most of the points came in final 10 minutes, when the outcome was all but secured.

It was a game controlled by Butler for most of the night. The Bulldogs were led in scoring by Susan Lester with 18 points. She was a big reason in sparking a 14-2 run that gave Butler a 33-23 lead with 4 minutes 55 seconds left in the first half.

The Panthers closed the half with seven straight points to make the halftime score 33-30. However, Butler came out firing to start the second half, quickly re-establishing a comfortable double-digit lead and the Bulldogs shot 9-14 from behind the arc in the final 20 minutes as their lead reached 20 points.

The Panthers never threatened to get back into it.

“I“m disappointed with the loss. This was an important game for us in gaining in the Horizon League standings,” Botham said. “Butler came in here, showed great focus and determination. They have so many scorers, shoot the ball well. They were certainly “on“ today-when it rains, it pours.”

Butler earned the season-sweep of the Panther and improved to 12-13 overall and 9-4 in the Horizon League, one game behind the University of Illinios-Chicago. The Panthers' loss drops them to 12-14 overall and 8-5 in the conference.

UWM's chances of getting to second place are now almost gone, but they have a comfortable three-game lead for fourth place with three games remaining. A fourth-place finish would give them a quarterfinal home game in the league tournament.

If the Panthers were to survive there, they'd almost surely battle Horizon League undefeated UW-Green Bay in Green Bay in the semifinals.

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