With five players scoring in double figures, NIU’s women’s basketball team beat the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 83-76 Tuesday night in front of 210 fans at Klotsche Center.

The non-conference win raised NIU’s record to 12-9. UW-M’s record dropped to 13-9.

NIU forward Angela Lockett led both teams with 23 points and 13 rebounds, including 10 on the offensive end.

“With her on the boards, we’re a strong team,” NIU head coach Jane Albright-Dieterle said. “Mostly, I think, it was a game in which our team was together. We really did a good job of playing hard, of playing together. It was not one particular person.

“(UW-M) is a team that beat Wisconsin-Green Bay (who beat NIU last month). We were real glad to win. We had production from two places tonight: inside players and our bench. It was a balanced game.”

After nine lead changes and 10 ties, the Huskies went into halftime leading 36-33. But after Teresa Teske hit two of her team-high 16 points with 12:07 left in the game, the Huskies found themselves down 54-49.

Two jumpers by Deb Teske, and a bucket by Dianna Wingis cut the Panthers lead to one, 56-55, with nine minutes to play. A Wingis bucket at 7:11 put NIU up to stay, 59-57.

E.C. Hill (16 points, team-high four assists) put NIU up 77-71 with a 16-footer at the 1:14 mark. Two free throws by Carrie Vorpahl with 40 seconds left brought UW-M to within four. NIU then ran off six straight points, ending with a lay up by Cindy Conner, who scored 13 points.

Hill scored 10 of her points in the game’s final four minutes.

“E.C. Hill made great offensive decisions,” Albright-Dieterle said. “She did a great job.

“I think we had a whole lot of poise.”

Center Niki Flack scored 14 points for UW-M and grabbed a team-high six rebounds. Teammate Pam Bartnik scored 12 points and had a game-high eight assists. Vorpahl and Laurie Krajnik scored 10 points apiece for UW-M.

Teske came off the bench to score 14 points for NIU. Wingis also came off the bench to score 11 points, while garnering eight rebounds. NIU out-rebounded UW-M 48-30.

“I was very impressed with the team’s togetherness,” Albright-Dieterle said. “You can see it in the stats. We had a lot of rebounds. This is the first time we’ve out-rebounded a team like that. We out-rebounded them by 18 in the second half. That was definitely the key of the game.”

The Huskies’ next game is Saturday, 2 p.m., at Chick Evans Field House against North Star Conference rival Wright State, whom NIU beat in January, 82-72.