MADISON, Wis. – A solid combination of youth and seniority met up to lead the Wisconsin women's basketball team (2-1) to a 77-74 last-minute win over Southern (1-2) at the Kohl Center on Monday night.

It took just one quarter for sophomore Abby Laszewski to tie her career high with 10 points, and it took less than one minute into the second quarter for her to pass that high. But give her four quarters, and Laszewski simply dazzled in her third career start. The 6-3 forward recorded a career-high 25 points, hitting 10-of-14 from the field, while adding five rebounds.

Senior Cayla McMorris had herself a game too, claiming her first double-double of the season and second of her career, putting up 21 points accompanied by 13 rebounds.

It was that combination that clinched the victory in the last seconds of the game.

The Jaguars led 74-73 with 2:23 to play before a layup in the paint from Laszewski put the Badgers back on top, 75-74, with just 25 seconds left. After Southern missed a jumper with three seconds to play, McMorris grabbed the defensive rebound before getting fouled and making to free throws to secure the win.

The Badgers outrebounded the Jaguars, 46-27, led by two Badgers who had double-digit rebounds. Both McMorris and Kendra Van Leuween tabbed career highs in boards with 13 and 10, respectively.
 

Notes to Know

• Wisconsin's largest lead of the game was by nine points at the 9:17 mark in the second quarter. UW led for a game-high 28 minutes, 26 seconds.
• UW had 24 points off second chances.
• The Badgers put their bench to work, gathering 23 points from reserve players, including 12 from Marsha Howard and 11 from Suzanne Gilreath.
• Tonight's game marked the first time Badgers had four players in double figures (Laszewski 25; McMorris 23; Howard 12; and Gilreath 11) since Feb. 12, 2017 at Michigan.
• It was also the first time two Badgers scored 20 points in a game (Laszewski 25; and McMorris 23) since Dec. 11, 2016 vs. Marquette.
• Two players had 10-plus rebounds in the same game (McMorris 13; Van Leeuwen 10) for the first time since Feb. 9, 2017 vs. Nebraska.
• Senior Cayla McMorris tallied her second career double-double with a season-high 21 points and a career-best 13 rebounds.
• Sophomore Abby Laszewski had a career night, posting all-time highs of 25 points, shooting a best 10-14 from the field and a peak 5-9 from the charity stripe, while adding a career best two blocks.
• Sophomore Kendra Van Leeuwen had a career high 10 rebounds.
• Junior Marsha Howard had a career best night from the free-throw line, going 8-9 (.889 percent).

 

Turning Point

Sophomore Suzanne Gilreath drained her third 3-pointer of the night at the 6:20 mark in the fourth quarter to give UW a 67-63 lead. The Badgers extended their lead to 71-65 with 4:21 to play behind two free throws by Abby Laszewski. A 9-2 run gave the Jaguars a 74-73 lead with 2:23 remaining before Wisconsin scored the last four points of the game.
 

Straight from the Court

Head coach Jonathan Tsipis
"I'm really proud, I told our team after the game that was a situation last year where they wouldn't have believed in themselves. I'm really proud individually of how they were able to come together.

"You have to weather the storm. We tried changing defenses and sometimes in the end you just have to find a way and I'm really proud of our group for finding a way to win tonight.

"I'm just happy with how we were able to compete. Obviously, we can always take better care of the basketball but you hope your defense will get better and our defense was better in the fourth quarter.

"It went a little bit more to four guards, which we were going to do tonight because we didn't have the opportunity for Kendall Shaw to play for us due to injury. I think that's a great learning experience when you build a game plan around somebody and she's not there you've got to be able to adjust on the fly."

Cayla McMorris
"We just put the last game in the past and moved on to coming into this game, we didn't think about the last game. We came out, played our game and we're really calm and collected. We knew we had to bounce back and be aggressive and that's really what our mindset was coming into this game."

Abby Laszewski
"We knew that I would have a few inches so the game plan was just to try to play our game and duck in as much as possible."
 

Up Next

The Badgers play in the 2017 Paradise Jam in Washington D.C., on Thursday-Saturday. Wisconsin face Syracuse on Thursday at 10 a.m., George Washington on Friday at 12 p.m. and Vanderbilt on Saturday at 12 p.m.

Tsipis returns to his old stomping grounds to face his former team, George Washington. At the helm of the Colonials, Tsipis held a 93-38 record and took them to the WNIT third round, the NCAA first round twice and were two-time A-10 Champions.

Assistant coach Sasha Palmer will also face a former team as she was an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Syracuse for two years, where the Orange were 45-20 in that stretch.

Redshirt senior Kendall Shaw also played at Vanderbilt for three seasons before transferring to Wisconsin.