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All-around rebound
Eleven score as Panthers roll to first victory since season-opener
By David Steidl
Last Saturday, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women’s basketball team traveled to Connecticut for the first of three straight road games. They easily defeated Central Connecticut State, 77-51.
Senior Aubri Rote led the Panthers with 17 points and eight rebounds. Junior center Traci Edwards also chipped in 13 points and 14 rebounds. All 13 players got in the game and 11 scored.
“We got great production out of everybody today. That is what we’ve needed this season, people coming off the bench and providing a spark for us. If we are going to win games, we will need three to four people scoring in double-figures,” Head Coach Sandy Botham said after the game to uwmpanthers.com.
The game was close in the first half, as the Panthers only led by six at halftime. The second half was a different story, and the Panthers started off with a bang, scoring the first five points of the half. Midway through the second half they blew the game open by going on a 21-6 run. The Panthers made a season high 12 three pointers and shot 60.7 percent from the field in the second half.
A key to their success was the limited amount of turnovers they had. The Panthers finished with 18 assists and a season-low 18 turnovers. This was a huge improvement from their previous game against Miami, when they committed 32 turnovers. This Panther win comes after a hard-fought battle with the University of Miami on Wednesday the 28th. They were down by 7 points with 47 seconds to go and managed to come back to tie it and force overtime. They eventually lost in overtime, 73-70. Traci Edwards had a double-double and led the team with 21 points and 10 rebounds. She increased her streak to 27 games of leading the team in scoring. That was a school record, but the streak ended on Saturday when Rote led the scoring attack with 17.
Head coach Sandy Botham commented on the Miami game saying, “I was proud of our kids’ efforts. I was proud of the fact that they never gave up,” as quoted by uwmpanthers.com. The UWM women will travel to Madison on Tuesday to face off against in-state rival Wisconsin at the Kohl Center at 7:00 p.m.
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