ROCHESTER, Mich. – Milwaukee women's basketball outscored host Oakland by a 20-9 margin in the second quarter and finished off a weekend road trip in Michigan with a 61-49 victory over the Golden Grizzlies.
 
Jada Donaldson scored five of her nine points in the second quarter as she ended the game with five assists and five rebounds. Kallie Peppler led Milwaukee in scoring with 12 points, while Jorey Buwalda also reached double digits in scoring with 10 on the afternoon.
 
All eight Panthers to play in the game scored as Milwaukee finished the game with 16 assists on 22 field goal makes and finished the game shooting 44.0 percent. In the first half, Milwaukee shot 55.6 percent from the field including a 9-for-12 effort in the second quarter.
 
"We were being really aggressive offensively," noted Milwaukee head coach Kyle Rechlicz after the game. "We were attacking the rim and tried to use their aggressiveness against them by being even more aggressive ourselves."
 
While the offensive determination was there, so too was the defensive effort as Milwaukee held Oakland to just 31.6 percent from the field overall with the Grizzlies scoring just one three-pointer over the final three quarters. Oakland's shooting percentage got progressively worse as the game continued, shooting a game low 27.8 percent in the final quarter.
 
"It's back-to-back games where we held teams on the defensive end," added Rechlicz. "It's nice to see we can really rely on our defense, and it showed because we had two quarters where we held them under 10 points."
 
Milwaukee led 18-14 after a back-and-forth opening quarter, before the Panthers made a stretch of 5-of-6 field goal attempts to extend their lead to 29-19 early in the second. The Black & Gold closed the quarter on a seven-point run on a three by Donaldson, and layups by Izzy Pugh and Anna Lutz to take a 38-23 lead into the halftime break.
 
The Panthers held a double-digit advantage throughout the third quarter, capped off by a three-point make from Peppler to put Milwaukee back up by a 45-32 score headed to the fourth.
 
Buwalda put Milwaukee up by 17 with a layup from a pass by Kamy Peppler with 7:30 left in the game, but Oakland fought back and scored the next nine before the media timeout.
 
Payton Rechlicz made four free throws on back-to-back possessions as Milwaukee was back ahead by 12. The Golden Grizzlies could only get as close as eight points with 2:10 to go before the Panthers finished off the game with a make by Donaldson for the 61-49 win.
 
Lutz and Pugh both finished the game with eight points with Kamy securing five rebounds to go with her seven-point game. Kacee Baumhower had three points with four assists, and six rebounds.
 
Macy Smith led the home team with 18 points, while hitting all three of Oakland's long-range makes. Maddy Skorupski was the only other Grizzly in double figures with 11 points as she led the team with seven rebounds and three assists.
 
Milwaukee returns home to the Klotsche Center on Wednesday evening for a 6:00 p.m. start against the IU Indy Jaguars.