The No. 9 nationally-ranked Grand Valley State women's basketball team earned a tough GLIAC road victory over the Michigan Tech Huskies on Thursday night (Jan. 17) to improve to 16-1 overall and 9-0 in conference play. In a defensive battle, the Lakers managed to pull out an 18-point victory over Tech, 53-35, behind junior guard Jenn DeBoer's 27 points and junior center Cassidy Boensch's career-high 21 rebounds. 
 
The Lakers improve to 16-1 overall and 9-0 in GLIAC play before they head to Marquette, Mich. to take on a tough Northern Michigan team (12-4, 7-1 GLIAC) on Saturday afternoon (Jan. 19). Michigan Tech falls to 10-7 overall and 6-3 in the conference. 
 
In the defensive struggle, DeBoer was the Lakers' shining light on offense as she went 11-of-19 from the field (3-of-7 from three-point) and 2-of-2 from the charity stripe en route to her game-high 27 points. She also pulled down six rebounds and added a steal. While Boensch shot an uncharacteristic 3-of-12 from the field on the night, she pulled down a game, season, and career-high 21 rebounds to go along with her 12 points and four blocks to get the job done elsewhere on the court. She was also 6-of-6 from the free throw line. Junior forward Maddie Dailey also added 11 points of her won to go along with eight rebounds and two steals. 
 
As a team, the Lakers were an impressive 16-of-17 from the free throw line compared to MTU's 3-of-4. GVSU also dominated the paint as evidenced by their 46-23 rebounding margin. Both teams scored 16 points in the paint as well. 
 
GVSU found itself down early in the first as the Huskies used three quick three's and a jumpshot to take an 11-4 lead with just over five and a half minutes to go on their home court. A jumper and layup from DeBoer would be followed by a pair of Boensch free throws to cut the Husky lead to just one, 11-10 where the teams would remain for the next two minutes of a low-scoring first quarter. 
 
The Lakers turned out to make the perfect adjustments at the quarter break, as they would hold the Husky offense scoreless for nearly 12 straight minutes in the late parts of the first quarter and early parts of the second. While the Laker defense held taut, the offense was able to knock down a couple of buckets as they quickly found themselves up 14 with 4:16 to go in the half, 25-11. The teams would trade buckets back and forth over the next four minutes until a Elizabeth Kelliher layup and a pair of Cassidy Trotter free throws would end the first half scoring to cut the Laker lead to nine, 29-20. 
 
Boensch would put the Lakers back up by double digits in the first minute and half of the third quarter with a layup but MTU quickly answered with a few buckets of their own to but the lead to eight. Neither team could get anything going offensively, as just 15 total points would be scored between the two teams but four points in the last 1:17 of the quarter would give GVSU the 12-point margin, 38-26, over the Huskies heading into the final stanza. 
DeBoer would open the fourth with another three to put GVSU up 15, 41-26, but that would quickly dwindle down to 10, 43-33 with 6:37 on the clock after a short MTU run. After the lead was cut to eight after a Husky layup, GVSU never looked back as they quickly pushed the lead back to double digits before driving it home with a 10-0 run to take the game by 18 points, 53-35. 
 
Again, GVSU will be back in action this Saturday (Jan. 19) when they travel to Northern Michigan for a 1:00 PM tipoff.