All it took was one timeout to spark the run.
Justina Hernandez had just rattled home a trey to give Milwaukee its lead of the afternoon, 28-27 with 8:11 to play in the second quarter. Consuegra signaled for timeout, visibly frustrated by her team’s defense effort.
Then came a stop, and then another, and then a third consecutive stand, — which was followed by a fourth. The Golden Eagles had the Panthers’ once-scorching offense in a sudden blender.
Marquette women’s basketball (7-2) extended its win streak to seven Sunday afternoon against inner-city rival Milwaukee (3-10), besting the Panthers 69-51 at the Al McGuire Center thanks to a career-high 21 points from Volker. The Golden Eagles are now 14-2 all-time against the team across town.
The first half of the contest featured the tale of two quarters for Marquette.
There was the first quarter, where both teams shot over 50 percent from the field and scored a combined 46 points. Then, there was the second frame, which featured a singular timeout that seemingly changed everything on the defensive end for Marquette.
“Coach kind of laid into us and was like ‘hey, this is our standard, and we got to do it,” Lee Volker said. “I think we responded well.”
Marquette used 11 consecutive stops to propel itself to an 11-0 run, holding Milwaukee scoreless for six and a half minutes. The lone points the Panthers would score for the rest of the half would come off a Kamy Peppler layup. The Golden Eagles went into the locker room up 40-30 thanks to 19 first-half points from Lee Volker and a sublime defensive effort in the final eight minutes of the half.
“I thought our urgency wasn’t great in contesting,” head coach Cara Consuegra said. “I thought our activity defensively wasn’t great, I thought our ball pressure wasn’t great, and I just challenged them.
“And again one thing I love about this team is when you challenge them, they step up.”
The Golden Eagles continued to step up in the third frame as well. Jaidynn Mason and Kennedi Perkins both scored four points in the quarter, as Marquette tried to maintain its lead.
And it did just that, extending the lead to 52-36 at the end of the third quarter thanks to a pair of free throws, a forced shot-clock violation and a tough layup through contact from Volker all within the final minute.
“We have just tried to pour confidence into her since we’ve taken over this job,” Consuegra said. “Let her know that we believe in her, and you know now that we’re starting to understanding her game better, putting her in really good positions, I thought we did a good job today just putting her in the right spots.”
The penultimate frame was another strong one for the Golden Eagles on the defensive side of the ball, as they forced the Panthers into five turnovers and held them to just 2-of-11 (18.2 percent) shooting overall.
Marquette held Kacee Baumhower — Milwaukee’s leading scorer — to just five points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field. It’s just the second time she’s been held to under seven points this season.
“We wanted to make everything tough for her,” Consuegra said. “She’s shooting the ball really well, she can shoot it from deep and is a little deceiving off the bounce.
“So our biggest thing was, anything she was going to score against us, we wanted it to be difficult.”
Marquette outscored Milwaukee 17-15 in the final frame of play, en route to its 18-point win. It’ll be a quick turnaround for the Golden Eagles this week, as they play two games in the next six days, starting with a road game at Bowling Green on Wednesday.
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.
