GREEN BAY, Wis. - Junior
Celeste Hoewisch (Hortonville, Wis.) had a career-high 23 points, leading all
scorers as Green Bay (20-3, 9-3) won their 34th consecutive regular-season
conference home game, beating Milwaukee (9-14, 4-8) 74-63.
Green Bay applied great defensive pressure in the first half
forcing Milwaukee to turn the ball over eight times and shoot 32 percent from
the field. On the offensive side of the ball the Phoenix shot 57 percent from
three-point range (4-7) with Hoewisch scoring 14 and grabbing six defensive
boards.
"I'm never satisfied with how I play. There were a couple of
times I didn't close out defensively and gave up dribble penetration, but as
long as my team wins I'm happy," said Hoewisch.
The Phoenix led 40-23 at the half only turning the ball over
twice but once again had a slow start in the second half, "I'm not real pleased
with our performance in the second half, but we found a way to win," said head
coach Matt Bollant.
After Green Bay led by as many as 20 in the first half Milwaukee
shot over 91 percent in the first eight minutes of the second half, cutting
Green Bay's lead to three with under nine minutes to play. Kayla Tetschlag
(Sheboygan, Wis.) came up with five big defensive rebounds to help slow down
the Panthers' attack, "one of the things we've lacked this season is adversity
so it was good for us to go through that today and see who was going to step up
and make a play," said Bollant.
With Tetschlag and Hoewisch in foul trouble freshman Adrian Ritchie (De Pere, Wis.) stepped up scoring 11 points, shooting 3-4 from the
field and 5-6 from the free-throw line, "it felt good to play well today and I
just had a lot more confidence on the floor once I got into a rhythm," said
Ritchie.
The Phoenix scored 21 points off Milwaukee's 17 turnovers including
13 off of nine in the second half, while turning the ball over a season low six
times.
Green Bay improves to 20-3 overall (9-3 in League play)
tallying their 11th straight 20-win season. In addition, Green Bay
raised $9,827 in tonight's Pink Zone game. All proceeds will go to the Compete
to Beat Fund through the Bellin Cancer Foundation.
---www.GreenBayPhoenix.com---
