MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee women's basketball dropped its Horizon League opener on Thursday evening, as the Green Bay Phoenix ran away late in the game for a 76-53 win at the Klotsche Center.
 
Milwaukee trailed by a 36-26 score at the break, after tying the game at 22 midway through the second quarter. The Phoenix outscored the Panthers by 11 in the third quarter to open a 21-point advantage and came out on top by a 23-point margin.
 
Milwaukee was led by Jorey Buwalda in scoring with 11 points, while Kendall Nead was also in double figures with 10 points. Buwalda, Nead and Kamy Peppler each finished the game with a team-high four field goals as Peppler ended the game with nine points. Anna Lutz scored six, while Angie Cera added four.
 
Nead pulled down nine rebounds as she fell one board shy of a double-double, while Lutz had six caroms on the defensive glass. Nead also led the Panthers with five assists and three steals on the night.
 
As a team, Milwaukee shot 40.4 percent from the field, which included better than 45 percent in both the first and fourth quarters. After knocking down 17 three-pointers on Saturday, the Panthers were only able to dial up five from long range against Green Bay.
 
The Panthers did have 18 assists on its 21-field goal makes, but turned the ball over 19 times allowing Green Bay to score 26 points off turnovers.
 
"This is a good game for us to learn a different style of basketball … we took on a lot of teams in the non-conference that played transition-style, that were athletic and quick, but were not as physical," noted head coach Kyle Rechlicz post game. "We have to learn how to play through that physicality and know that we need to play more disciplined moving forward."
 
Nead got the Panthers on the board with a jump shot after Green Bay scored the first three points of the game. Milwaukee took the lead on a Cera layup before Green Bay wrestled the lead back and scored the next 10 to take a 13-4 advantage.
 
After the teams exchanged threes, MKE scored the next four points on layups by both Crowley and Buwalda to trim the lead to 16-11. Green Bay scored in the closing seconds to lead by seven heading into the second quarter.
 
In the second quarter, the Panthers scored the first six points of the quarter as Buwalda, Lutz, and Peppler scored, with the latter two coming off defensive boards. With 5:37 to go in the half, Peppler drained a three-pointer from the top of the arc to even the score at 22.
 
Lutz gave the Panthers the lead with a layup off a dish from Nead after the media timeout, which was answered by seven unanswered by the Phoenix. Cera put an end to the run with a jumper from the right wing, but another seven-point outburst by the Phoenix gave the visitors a 10-point lead at the break.
 
Buwalda got the Panthers kickstarted in the third quarter with an three ball from the elbow, followed by a jumper by Nead to slice the lead back to five at 36-31. The Phoenix closed out the period on a 16-point run to take a 52-31 advantage into the final quarter.
 
Milwaukee scored on a free throw to open the scoring on its first possession of the period, before Green Bay built up its largest lead of the game in the waning minutes at 31 with 2:36 left in the game. Nead sank a three from a Justina Hernandez feed, and after a Phoenix basket Jada Williams found Peppler for a bucket.
 
The Panthers scored the final seven points of the game on a pair from the line by Hernandez, a three-pointer by Kalvina Eubanks and a shot in the final possession by Williams off another Hernandez assist.
 
Milwaukee will get right back to Horizon League play on Sunday afternoon, when the Panthers take on the IUPUI Jaguars from the Jungle in Indianapolis with the tip scheduled for 1:00 p.m. (CT).