vs. Michigan Tech (Thursday, Jan. 17 - 5:30 PM)
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vs. Northern Michigan (Saturday, Jan. 19 - 1:00 PM)
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The No. 9 Grand Valley State women's basketball team will face one of its toughest tests of the season when it travels to Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan this weekend (Jan. 17 & 19, respectively) for a pair of GLIAC contests. The Lakers are 15-1 this season and 8-0 in the conference to sit atop the GLIAC South Division standings but have to make the long trip to the Upper Peninsula where they face the top two teams in the North Division. 
 
Michigan Tech, who is 10-6 overall but 6-2 in the conference, are winners in five of their last six contests, with the lone loss coming to No. 7 nationally-ranked Ashland at the beginning of January. Following that game, the Lakers will travel to Northern Michigan where they face a Wildcat team that is first in the North Division with a 7-1 conference record and a 12-4 overall record. They have won three of their last four with their lone conference loss also coming to Ashland.
 
 GVSU is fresh off of another successful weekend that saw them improve their conference record to 8-0 after home wins over Saginaw Valley State and Northwood. Both were low scoring affairs compared to the Lakers previous 13 wins with final scores of 64-46 and 67-51, respectively, but the Laker defense was staunch all weekend. 
 
Junior center Cassidy Boensch powered the Lakers to the two victories after averaging 24 points and 11.5 rebounds to go with seven total blocks and is now averaging 19.6 points and 11.9 rebounds on the season. After a relatively quiet weekend, for her standards, junior guard Jenn DeBoer is averaging 15.4 points and leads the team with 69 total assists after picking up 10 more last weekend. Fellow starters Maddie Dailey and Victoria Hedemark are each averaging 9.1 points this season while Natalie Koenig is adding nearly eight points per game as well. 
 
The Laker defense has given opposing offenses fits all season long all over the court. GVSU is first in the conference and second in the entire country in blocked shots - having racked up 93 rejections so far this season - and also rank first in the conference and eighth in the nation in defensive rebounds per game with 31.0. Around the arc, GVSU is holding opponents to just 27.6% shooting, which is third in the conference, and an overall shooting percentage of 34.8%. 
 
GVSU also ranks second in the conference and seventh nationally in both scoring defense (52.8 ppg) and scoring margin (24.6 ppg) while their 77.4 ppg scored is second in the GLIAC as well. 
 
The Huskies and Lakers played each other three times last season with the Huskies winning two out of the three but the Lakers had the last laugh when they bounced MTU out of the NCAA Regional Tournament with a 75-54 victory in the first round.
 
This season, the Huskies are averaging just 66.5 points per game but are allowing opponents to score just 58.9 points. While they don't score the most points in the league, the Huskies are an efficient offensive team as they are shooting 43.1% from the field and 33.7% from beyond the arc. They are also just behind the Lakers in the blocking category, rejecting 4.4 shots per game. 
 
Baillie McGirk is averaging a team-high 13.3 points per game and is shooting an efficient 55.2% from the field. Not far behind McGirk is Abbie Botz who is averaging 11.6 points and a team-leading 7.8 rebounds per game. Guards Ellie Mackay, Cassidy Trotter, and Hannah Hobson are all averaging at least nine points per game while McGirk (50.0%) and Mackay (44.9%) have been deadly from three. 
 
If there is a defense to rival the Lakers in the GLIAC it is Northern Michigan's squad. They are allowing a conference-low 50.8 points per game, 33.0% opponent shooting percentage, and 27.2% opponent three-point percentage while also being the top rebounding team in terms of rebounding margin. They are pulling down 12.9 more rebounds per contest than their opponents.
 
Two different Wildcats are averaging double digits. Jessica Schultz is scoring 10.4 points while shooting 56.0% and Lexi Smith is putting in 10.1 points of her own. On the flipside, three Wildcats are averaging at least five rebounds per contest with Erin Honkala leading the way with 5.8 while Schultz and Smith are both pulling down 5.1 per game. 
 
Following this weekend's contests, the Lakers will have a rare one-game weekend when they make the short trip to Davenport on Saturday, Jan. 26 for a 1:00 PM contest.