ALLENDALE, Mich.—The Grand Valley State women's basketball team closed out the regular season with a bang on Thursday night, defeating rival Ferris State by a score of 80-46. The victory moves the Lakers to 20-8 overall, and 15-7 in the GLIAC, giving GVSU the program's second straight 20 win season, and 16^th season in program history with 20+ wins.
 
Lindsay Baker had seven of the Laker's 15 triples, finishing 8-13 from the field for 23 points, just one point shy of her career high. Taylor Parmley chipped in 17 points on 7-9 shooting from the field, while Bailey Cairnduff added 14.
 
The game began quite sluggishly, as neither team scored for the first minute and a half of the game. Bailey Cairnduff netted the first points of the game on a triple, and after two more minutes passed, Kayla Dawson added a triple of her own to make it 6-0 with six and half minutes left in the first quarter. The Bulldogs would battle back, however, and would score eight straight points to take an 8-6 lead with under four minutes left in the first. After a Ferris layup gave them a four point lead with two minutes left, a Taylor Lutz triple and Parmley's first layup of the night would give the Lakers a one point edge at the end of the first.
 
The second quarter began with another scoreless drought for both teams, of almost three minutes, before Parmley scored another layup, igniting an 8-0 Laker run to go up 22-13 with five minutes left before half. Baker would hit her first triple of the night with 1:39 left in the half to put the Lakers up by 11, and after a Parmley layup and a Cairnduff triple, Baker would hit a baseline pull-up jumper with six seconds left to get the Lakers into the break with a 37-19 lead.
 
At the break, the Lakers had picked up their woeful shooting from the first quarter, in which they hit just 5-18 shots, ending the first half with a 42.4 percent clip from the field. Ferris had committed 15 turnovers, leading to 20 points off of those turnovers.
 
Coming out of the break, it was Ferris that hit the court hot, scoring seven straight points to pull within 12 points of Grand valley, before Kayla Dawson and Cairnduff righted the boat. After a Dawson free throw ended the scoreless draught, Cairnduff nailed a triple, and Dawson added a layup to get the lead back up to 17 with six and a half minutes remaining. A Ferris jumper with just over four minutes left got it down to single digits, at nine points, but Baker would hit back to back triples, and Parmley would close out the quarter with an old fashioned three point play and a layup to put GVSU firmly in control as the third quarter ended.
 
By the fourth quarter, the Lakers were in cruise control, increasing their lead into the 30's with triples from Lutz, Cairnduff, Baker and Janae Langs in the quarter. Grand Valley ended the game shooting 45.2 percent (28-62) from the field and 15-36 (41.7 percent) from beyond the arc. GVSU would the rebounding battle, 31-26, including a 13-3 edge in offensive boards. This led to an 11-2 edge in 2^nd chance points. 
 
Ferris State ended the game shooting 44.7 percent (17-38) from the field,but just 3-11 (27.3 percent) from three point range. The Bulldogs attempted just 38 shots in the game compare to GVSU's 62, coming as a result of 25 turnovers, which the Lakers turned in 40 points.
 
Cairnduff led the Lakers with seven rebounds, while Dawson added six boards, three steals and three assists.
 
Grand Valley State now moves on to the first round of the GLIAC Tournament. Locked in as the #6 seed heading into the game, all that was necessary was to determine their opponent, and that opponent will be #3 Michigan Tech, with whom the Lakers split this season. Each team bested the other on their home court, and the Lakers will have to travel to the higher seeded team's court for the game, which is set for Tuesday, March 1st at 6:00 p.m.