In the span of three days, the Milwaukee Panthers went on the road and secured two conference victories. First, a 70-60 victory over the Valparaiso Crusaders on Thursday, then a 62-56 victory over the UIC Flames on Saturday.
Following a tough loss to Youngstown State last Saturday, these two wins are crucial for the team’s overall confidence as the culmination of the conference season is a mere two weeks away. With this weekend’s sweep, the Panthers move to 15-10 (9-5 Horizon). Milwaukee sits alone in 3rd place in the conference only one game behind Wright State for 2nd.
Leading this weekend for the Panthers was Sophomore Steph Kostowicz. She scored a career-high 27 points and had 12 rebounds on Thursday and came back and scored 24 points on Saturday. Those two tremendous performances from Kostowicz were enough to earn her Horizon League Player of the Week honors. Kostowicz’s double-double Thursday was her 5th on the season. The Panthers also received strong performances from Alexis Lindstrom and Sierra Ford-Washington who scored a combined 20 and 19 points this weekend respectively.
As a team, the Panthers shot much better from the field over the weekend. They shot 44 percent combined between the two games. It was a significant improvement on their season average of 39 percent and their 36 percent shooting performance against Youngstown State in their last outing. The Panthers also performed admirably on the defensive end holding their opponents to a combined 35 percent shooting over the weekend, including holding UIC to a staggering 29 percent from the field.
Milwaukee returns to the floor for its final home games of the season this weekend, facing Northern Kentucky on Thursday and Wright State on Saturday. Thursday’s game tips off at 7 p.m. and Saturday’s tip is 2 p.m. Both games can be found on ESPN 3 and The Big 920.