By: Joey Daniels (@GBPhoenixWBB)
CHICAGO, Ill. (GreenBayPhoenix.com) – Strong second half efforts from Mehryn Kraker and Tesha Buck helped lift the Green Bay women's basketball team past UIC on Saturday night, winning 64-45 at the UIC Pavilion to win its eighth-straight game.
Green Bay (17-3, 7-0 HL) kept its perfect conference record intact with another road victory, outscoring the Flames (13-7, 3-4 HL) in both halves and limiting them to a 4-for-22 (18.2 percent) shooting performance from the three-point line.
“First half we did a pretty good job of keeping them off the glass. They're strong kids and they really fight for the ball. We did a good job taking care of the ball, which was a key area for us because they apply so much pressure on the ball,” head coach Kevin Borseth said.
Kraker exploded for 11 points in the second half, while her backcourt-mate Buck erupted for 10 points of her own. The redshirt-sophomore Kraker finished with 13 points, tallying her 14th double-digit scoring game of the season. Buck totaled a game-high 16 points, going 4-for-7 from beyond the arc.
UIC scored the first points of the game, but it was the Phoenix who quickly responded with a 10-0 run of its own. Buck splashed back-to-back three's for Green Bay, finding the open spot against the UIC zone.
For the first time in seven games the Phoenix was outrebounded by its opponent. UIC finished with 40 rebounds to Green Bay's 36, thanks to 19 offensive boards, the second-most allowed by GB this season. Buck led the rebounding efforts with seven, while five-man Mariah Monke also grabbed seven.
Lexi Weitzer and Sam Terry came up big off the bench for Green Bay, scoring seven and eight points, respectively. Terry went 4-for-6 from the charity stripe while Weitzer knocked down just her second three-pointer of the season.
The Phoenix concludes its difficult four-game conference road trip unscathed, going a perfect 4-0 with three victories by 15 points or more. GB is now 8-2 on the road, but can look forward to playing three-straight games at home, where it owns a perfect 7-0 record.
“The key for us is improvement. We need to be able to use as many kids as we can in the game today, because in the end we need everybody. We got pretty good minutes out of everybody tonight so that was good,” Borseth said.
Green Bay returns to the friendly confines of the Kress Center for three in a row, starting with a home date against Oakland next Wednesday (Feb. 4) night at 7 p.m. CT.
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