HILLSDALE, Mich.—The Grand Valley State women's basketball team got back to winning ways on Saturday with a 71-65 defeat of in-state opponent Hillsdale College on the road. The victory moves GVSU to 19-8 on the season, and 14-7 in the GLIAC, with the postseason tournament looming ahead.
Kayla Dawson led the way for Grand Valley, scoring 21 points off of 7-15 shooting from the field (7-9 FT). She also added six rebounds, five assists and three steals.
Bailey Cairnduff chipped in 19 points on 5-7 shooting from the field, including a 3-5 effort from downtown. She was 6-6 at the free throw line, including four crucial late game makes.
Grand Valley would get off to a hot start in this one, taking an early 7-0 lead after a
Taylor Parmley layup with seven and a half minutes left in the first quarter. Two quick threes from Hillsdale's Makenna Ott cut the lead down to 7-6, however, and a layup by Ott quickly thereafter would give the Chargers a one point lead, 8-7. With just under two minutes left in the game, GVSU's
Taylor Lutz hit a triple to give the Lakers a slim four point lead, but the Chargers would tie the score at 16 apiece at the end of the first quarter off of two layups in succession.
In the second quarter, the pitched battle continued, as Hillsdale narrowly outscored the Lakers in the second frame, 15-14. After a pair of
Kayla Dawson free throws opened the scoring, GVSU got a layup from
Piper Tucker to get the lead to 20-16, and two minutes later Lutz would add another triple to get it to a seven point lead, 23-16. After Hillsdale strung together a few baskets to get the score tied at 28 with less than a minute left till halftime,
Keyara Wiard hit a jumper to stake the Lakers out in front by two, but the Charger got a triple from Ott with just four seconds left in the half to take the narrow one point lead into the break.
Coming out of the break, the two teams traded baskets for the first couple minutes of the third quarter, with neither side extending the lead past one point until
Bailey Cairnduff nailed a triple to put the Lakers out in front by four, 39-35 with just over seven minutes left in the quarter. After Hillsdale made a push to get on top by one point 46-45 with three and a half minutes left,
Bailey Cairnduff came up with an offensive rebound on the next GVSU possession after a missed three ball. After passing the ball around,
Kayla Dawson found
Janae Langs for another look from deep, and Langs sank it, putting GVSU back up by two with two minutes left to play in the third quarter. As the quarter wound down, Parmley scored a layup to get the lead up to five, but a Charger layup with nine seconds left in the third got the margin down to just three, as the teams headed to the final quarter.
The final quarter got off to a good start for the Lakers, even as the Chargers took the lead n on a triple from Ott, up 55-54 with eight minutes left in the game. That spurred the Lakers on an 11-1 run that got them up by nine points with four and a half minutes left, capped off by a triple from Cairnduff to make the score 65-56. Two minutes then passed without either team scoring, before a Dawson layup increased the lead to 11 points. The Chargers then came rallying back, hitting triples on consecutive possessions to cut the lead to five points, 67-62, with 1:10 remaining. A pair of Cairnduff free throws got the margin to seven, which was then cut down to four by a Hillsdale three ball with just 16 seconds left. Down by four and needing the ball, Hillsdale sent Cairnduff to the line, where she sank two more free throws to seal the game for Grand Valley and get the final score to 71-65.
Grand Valley State finished 26-56 (46.4 percent) from the field, and just 6-24 (25 percent) from beyond the arc. They allowed the Chargers to shoot 43.4 percent (23-53) from the field, but also converted 21 Chargers turnovers into 25 points of their own.
The Lakers wrap up the regular season at home on Thursday, February 25
th, taking on Ferris State at 6 p.m.
