The No. 11 GVSU women's basketball team closed out 2018 with an impressive 99-30 victory over National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) foe Lourdes on Saturday afternoon (Dec. 29) to push their win streak to nine straight while moving to 11-1 overall this season. Lourdes falls to 5-9 before the new year.
The 69-point win marks the most lopsided victory the Lakers have achieved this season while it is the first time they have held an opponent to 30 points or less since the Tiffin Dragons scored just 29 back on Feb. 17, 2018. The Lakers held the Gray Wolves to 10 points each in the first, third, and fourth quarters while they didn't allow a single point in the second period. Overall, Lourdes shot just 24.0% after going 12-for-50 from the field.
The Lakers knocked down a season-high 15 three's in the contest, shooting a blistering 51.7% from beyond the arc. 15 of junior guard
Jenn DeBoer's 17 total points came from deep while freshman
Brooke McKinley was a perfect 3-for-3 from deep. In all, nine different Lakers knocked down a triple, including newcomer
Tara Lierman, who scored her first collegiate bucket on a three try late in the fourth quarter after spending her first four years as an All-American for the GVSU soccer team.
DeBoer's 17 was the highest from a Laker but both McKinley (13 pts, 7 rbs) and
Jenai LaPorte (12 pts, two assists) set new career-highs in points scored.
As a team, GVSU dominated down low, outscoring Lourdes 36-8 in the paint while also winning the rebounding battle, 45-25. GVSU's bench also contributed a season-high 58 points as the early lead allowed the Lakers to make substitutions early.
GVSU wasted no time opening up a lead as DeBoer knocked down her first two threes with just under a minute and a half gone to go up 6-0. Two more threes, this time from
Victoria Hedemark and
Taya Andrews, gave the Lakers the 12-4 lead before going up 14-4 at the halfway point of the first. The Lakers kept building on their lead, going up 16 with 2:00 to go after a McKinley jumper before closing the quarter with yet another pair of threes to go up 20, 30-10.
The second quarter was all GVSU, as the Lakers would accomplish a feat rarely seen in college basketball when they denied the Gray Wolves a single point in the full 10 minutes of play. The Lakers would knock down four more threes in the second period as they would put themselves up 41 points heading into halftime, 51-10.
Maddie Dailey opened up the third with a corner triple before a streaking
Jenn DeBoer would get to the bucket for a layup to push the lead to 46, 56-10. The Gray Wolves finally added back to their scoring column at the 7:17 mark after Jami Hardy knocked down a mid-range jumper. The Lakers lead climbed to 50 at the 2:22 mark after a layup on the left side from LaPorte found the bottom of the bucket and they would lead by 54, 74-20, by the time the stanza ended.
The fourth and final quarter was much of the same, as the Laker offense kept churning out buckets while their defense suffocated the Gray Wolves. The quarter was highlighted by Lierman's first collegiate bucket with 2:52 left when she knocked down a three from the right wing to put the Lakers up 66, 91-25. GVSU would cruise the rest of the way to their season-high 69-point victory, 99-30.
The Lakers will be back in action on Thursday, Jan. 3 when they host Ferris State in a 6:00 PM contest.
