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recap cleveland state
78
Winner Milwaukee MKE 12-12, 7-6 HL
60
Cleveland State CSU 10-15, 7-7 HL
Winner
Milwaukee MKE
12-12, 7-6 HL
78
Final
60
Cleveland State CSU
10-15, 7-7 HL
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 F
Milwaukee MKE 21 23 15 19 78
Cleveland State CSU 13 16 22 9 60

Game Recap: Women's Basketball |

Walstad’s Career Night Powers Panthers Past Vikings

Freshman scores career-high 27 points in road win

CLEVELAND – Megan Walstad poured in a career-high 27 points to power the Milwaukee women's basketball team to a 78-60 win over Cleveland State Friday night from the Wolstein Center.
 
The Panthers (12-12, 7-6 Horizon) quickly built a double-digit lead in the first half and never trailed all game. The Vikings (10-15, 7-7 Horizon) closed the gap to seven just before the start of the fourth quarter before MKE closed the game out with a convincing 21-10 run.
 
The win is a big one that moves Milwaukee ahead of CSU in the conference standings with just over two weeks left to play.
 
"I thought our team really came out ready to play tonight" MKE head coach Kyle Rechlicz said. "We were rotating people in and out because I felt like we were a little deeper, so we really wanted to hone in on the fact that the fourth quarter was going to be our quarter – especially from a defensive perspective.
 
"We were doing kind of a five-person rotation, which I'm not used to doing, but I was really proud of how our team responded to it. We had a lot of people really step up."
 
Walstad was dominant from start to finish, connecting on 10 of her first 12 shots before finishing with a career-high 27 points in just 26 minutes of action. The freshman also had career-best four blocks to go with four rebounds and two assists.
 
"She (Walstad) really commanded her space in the paint and they let her play one-on-one," Rechlicz said. "That gave us a lot of opportunities to go to work and score. I think the biggest thing was our team kept feeding her the basketball. We were running some plays for her, but most of the time it was out of our motion offense.
 
"We were consistently trying to get her the ball knowing that it was an opportunity to win. And that's just such an unselfish team."
 
Lizzie Odegard also was awfully efficient with 13 points and five boards in just 13 minutes. Jamie Reit also finished in double figures, tallying 11 points to go with five rebounds and two assists.
 
Akaylah Hayes made the most of her starting nod, finishing with nine points and seven rebounds.
 
Ryaen Johnson had another three blocks to go with five rebounds, while McKaela Schmelzer dished out a career-high eight assists to go with four boards and three points.
 
Mariah Miller led the way for CSU with 15 points on just 6-17 shooting to go with eight rebounds.
 
The win is the ninth in a row for Milwaukee over Cleveland State, with the 18-point win marking the largest margin of victory since an 87-66 win back in 2000.
 
Milwaukee dominated nearly every statistical category on the night – finishing with a 34-24 edge in points in the paint, a 43-34 nod in rebounding and a noticeable 26-8 lead in points off the bench as 10 different players scored for MKE in this one.
 
The Panthers also finished shooting a season-high 51.7 percent (30-58), with 20 assists on those 30 made field goals. That marks the eighth time in the last 11 games they have had at least 15 assists in a game.
 
MKE will now close out its road trip Sunday with a Noon Central contest at Youngstown State.
 
 
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