Despite a slow start to the game, the No. 12 Grand Valley State women's basketball team would pull out an 87-73 victory over the Northwood Timberwolves after shooting 61.0% (36-of-59) from the field. The victory pushes the Lakers to 23-2 overall and 16-1 in conference action while Northwood falls to 11-14 overall and 8-9 in the league. 
 
The Lakers were able to knock down 9-of-20 (45.0%) from beyond the arc to help their overall shooting percentage surge to a new season-high. It was a slightly different victory for the Lakers as they usually use their presence down low to create separation in the game but ended up tied at 46-all in points in the paint and actually fell in the rebounding battle, 33-23. Natalie Koenig and Victoria Hedemark combined to go 7-of-9 from deep to help create the separation there. 
 
Koenig tallied a season and team-high 24 points after going 9-of-12 from the field and 5-of-6 from deep. She also chipped in four assists and a pair of rebounds. Junior forward Maddie Dailey had herself an impressive game as well, dropping 21 points on 9-of-15 from the field to go with five rebounds, three assists, and two blocks. 
 
Three other Lakers finished in double digits, as Cassidy Boensch went for 17, Jenn DeBoer for 11, and Hedemark for 10. 
 
The Timberwolves jumped out to a quick start, nailing their first three-point attempt of the afternoon before following it up with a quick layup after a Laker turnover. Koenig finally got the Lakers on the board at the 6:41 mark with a layup but it was quickly answered with another Timberwolf jumper. After falling behind 11-2 with just 3:39 left in the quarter, the Lakers started to find some momentum on the offensive side, cutting the lead to just three, 13-10, before a buzzer-beating layup from Northwood put them up five, 15-10, at the end of one. 
 
To start the second quarter was all Northwood, as they would use a 6-3 run to start off and push their lead to nine, 21-12. DeBoer quickly answered with a three however and that was followed up with back to back buckets by Dailey to slash the Timberwolf lead to just two, 21-19, with just over three minutes gone. Despite having more success offensively, the Lakers couldn't bridge the gap for most of the rest of the quarter, trailing by as few as one and by as many as five. That trend would end soon enough though, as a DeBoer jumper with 2:49 on the clock would spark a 7-0 run after a Kiri Tiemeyer layup and Koenig triple found the bottom of the net for the Lakers first lead, 33-31. A final Timberwolf bucket with 0:40 seconds before the half would knot things up 33-33. 
 
A Boensch layup and Koenig triple would sandwich an NU three-pointer to give the Lakers the two point lead early in the third, 38-36. After trading buckets, the Lakers would go up by four after back to back layups from Boensch. They would maintain that four-point margin late into the quarter but an and-1 layup from Northwood's Grace German would cut the lead to just one, 54-53, heading into the fourth and final quarter.
 
After going up three to start the fourth quarter, the Timberwolves quickly nabbed the lead back from the Lakers after a three and a jumper. Things would continue to go back and forth before the Lakers would go up by six, 75-69, after back to back buckets from Boensch and Dailey at the 3:35 mark. That lead would continue to swell over the final few minutes as the Lakers would slowly pull away from the Timberwolves and a Dailey layup would bring it to the final 87-73 score. 
 
GVSU will close out the 2018-19 regular season with three home games, starting with Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech next weekend (Feb. 21 & 23) before finishing with cross-town rival Davenport on Feb. 28.