MILWAUKEE – Four players scored in double figures for the Milwaukee women's basketball team as the Panthers led from start to finish in a 73-54 win over the IUPUI Jaguars on Thursday evening at the Klotsche Center.
 
Grace Crowley led the Panthers (14-11, 8-6 Horizon) with 13 points off the bench, while Jada Donaldson scored a dozen. Kamy Peppler and Anna Lutz each finished the game with 11 apiece, as Milwaukee ended the game shooting 51.1 percent from the field and a season-best 57.1 percent from three on 8-of-14 shooting.
 
"We had a lot of great moments … great passing with 17 assists on 24 makes," noted head coach Kyle Rechlicz after the game. "[Our scoring] was well-rounded, when their defense took away one of our players, we were able to find someone else. That's unselfish basketball … we had players stepping up at different times during the game to make plays."
 
Defensively it was the seventh time that Milwaukee held an opponent under 55 points this season, as IUPUI was held to just 29.8 percent from the field, the Panthers' second-best defensive performance of the year by shooting percent.
 
"There are some things we need to do better," Rechlicz added. "We can't put teams at the free throw line 24 times … but give IUPUI credit, they did a great job of attacking us and they made it tough for us as they kept getting to the line. It was important for us to force them to shoot threes tonight, and we didn't do that consistently until the end of the game."
 
IUPUI shot 2-for-13 from three but were able to convert on 18-of-24 from the line including 10-of-14 from Jazmyn Turner, who led the Jaguars with 20 points.
 
Peppler led the Panthers with six assists while Donaldson had another three helpers. Kendall Nead and Angie Cera each had eight points on the effort. Nead was tied with Lutz for the team lead on the glass with seven boards each, while Cera had two of Milwaukee's season-high five blocks.
 
Milwaukee opened the game on an 8-0 run before the Jaguars were able to close the gap down to one possession at several stages through the opening quarter. The Panthers responded with the final four points of the period and led 18-11 after one.
 
The Panthers' shots continued to fall as the game progressed with the Black and Gold clad in pink for the team's annual 'Pink Out' game led by 11 at the halftime break capped off by a Donaldson three-pointer with just seconds remaining to make it a 32-21 advantage.
 
Milwaukee had responses for many of the IUPUI makes during the second half with key defensive stops along the way and led by double digits throughout the second half. The team put the game away in the fourth quarter with five three-point makes on six attempts including an acrobatic three-pointer by Peppler with 3:08 left in the game as the shot clock was expiring to extend Milwaukee's lead to 21.
 
Lior Halevi got on the scoresheet with a layup late in the fourth to give the Panthers their largest lead of the game at 23. The Jaguars closed the game on a 5-1 run as Milwaukee picked up the 19-point win, the team's largest margin of victory in conference play this season.
 
The Panthers resume the weekend at home on Saturday afternoon, when Milwaukee welcomes Northern Kentucky to the Klotsche Center for a 2:00 p.m. start. Milwaukee will be celebrating Alumni Day at halftime and recognizing all of those that suited up for MKE through the program's history.