UNIVERSITY PARK — When one of the Big Ten’s best 3-point shooting teams faces the league’s best 3-point defense, something has to give.

And, it did Thursday. Penn State’s stingy defense held Wisconsin’s sharpshooters to 1-of-12 from 3-point range and the Lady Lions rolled to a 69-54 win before 3,654 at the Bryce Jordan Center on Thursday.

Maggie Lucas (16), Ariel Edwards (14), Alex Bentley (14) and Mia Nick-son scored in double figures as the No. 18 Lady Lions (19-5 overall, 9-3 league) avoided a rash of upsets to jump from fourth to second place in the Big Ten standings.

Penn State trails conference leader Purdue (9-2) by a half game and is a half game ahead of No. 10 Ohio State and No. 13 Nebraska, both of which suffered upset losses Thursday.

Coquese Washington’s squad scored the first eight points and never trailed the Badgers (8-16, 4-8), who had nailed a school-record 12 3-pointers on Monday against the Buckeyes. Wisconsin entered the contest making nearly seven 3-pointers per game, but went 28 minutes before making their lone shot from behind the arc.

“Coach prepared us for that,” Bentley. “She said they were shooting a lot better from the 3 recently. We made sure we got out on the shooters and made them put it on the floor.”

Penn State came into the contest limiting teams to 27 percent shooting from long distance and dropped that number.

“We had a poor shooting night,” Badger coach Bobbie Kelsey said. “Anybody that’s looking at a stat sheet can tell. We usually hit our threes and we didn’t do that tonight.”

Leading 12-6, Penn State took control with an 18-6 run over a 10-minute span in the first half. Edwards came off the bench to key the spurt with six points and finished the half with 11 points.

“She was huge lift on both ends of the floor,” Washington said of Edwards. “I thought she really did a good job defensively in using her length speed and quickness to be disruptive to Wisconsin. I think because she was getting after it defensively that it gave her the adrenaline to play hard and to be assertive and attack on offense.”

Edwards was coming off one of her toughest games of the season. She scored just two points in 16 minutes of Sunday’s 68-65 win at Minnesota.

“Any player, they have moments where they’re not going to play at their best,” the sophomore forward said. “I think the important thing was to take that game as a learning experience. We did get the win which is the important part. (You need) to learn from that, to become better and to do better the next game.”

Lucas had 12 points at the half as Penn State led 41-26 against a team they had beaten by 33 points earlier in the season. But this time, the Badgers didn’t make it quite as easy.

Led by an outstanding performance from Anya Covington, Wisconsin rallied. Taylor Wurtz nailed the Badgers’ lone 3-pointer to pull them within 52-44 with just under 12 minutes left.

Penn State responded with a 9-0 run, keyed by Bentley’s two fast-break baskets. Zhaque Gray capped the burst with a 3-pointer which pushed the margin to 61-44.

“I think defense turned that around pretty quickly for us,” Lucas said.

While Penn State’s defense stymied the Wisconsin outside attack, it struggled against Covington. The forward, who had missed the Badgers’ two previous games, had 20 points on 9-for-12 shooting in 24 minutes.

“She’s coming off a scary episode with chest pains,” Kelsey said. “... I really didn’t realize that she had 20 points to be honest with you. I tried to get her in-and- out in little short minutes.”

“She’s added some offensive moves to her game since we played them the first time,” Washington said. “... I thought we needed to do a better job of defending her, but I have to give her a lot of credit. She came out and really went right at our posts.”

Taylor Wurtz added 11 for the Badgers, who had 17 turnovers.

Despite being limited by foul trouble, Nikki Greene had a game high 10 rebounds and added seven points for Penn State. The Lady Lions shot 48.3 percent (28-of-58) for the contest.

Penn State next travels to Northwestern (13-11, 3-8) on Sunday. The two teams have not met this season.

Notes: Candice Agee, a 6-foot-6 center who is the only Penn State signee for next season, was named to the West roster for the McDonald’s All-American Game on Thursday. The Silverado High School (Calif.) standout is one of 24 players selected for the game, which will be held March 28 in Chicago. Agee is averaging 17.3 points, 7.4 rebounds, 3.5 blocks and 3.4 steals per game. ... Gray moved over the 800-point mark (803) for her career. ... Penn State moved to 27-10 against Wisconsin and swept the season series for the first time since 2005.

Walt Moody can be reached at 231-4630.