ST. LOUIS, MO. – The Grand Valley women's basketball team opened their season with a bang this afternoon. The Lakers traveled down to St. Louis for a matchup with Missouri-St. Louis, and came away with a dominant 81-55 victory in which they never trailed at any point in the game.
Emily Spitzley got the scoring started early in the first quarter, as she buried a three-pointer on the Lakers first possession of the game. GVSU continued to push the lead, as
Joslyn Brennan went on a 6-0 run by herself to put the Lakers up 14-2.
Hannah Kulas would answer a Triton three with one of her own later in the quarter, and GVSU led 19-9 after the first 10 minutes of play.
The two teams traded buckets to start the second quarter before a
Nicole Kamin triple pushed the lead up to 13 at 27-14. From there the Lakers controlled the quarter, ending on a 14-4 scoring run, highlighted by consecutive threes from
Emily Spitzley and
Hannah Kulas, as GV took a 41-18 lead into the break.
The Tritons started the third quarter hot, cutting the Lakers lead down to 16 points midway through the quarter, but after a quick timeout, GVSU responded with a 12-2 run to end the quarter, with threes from Droste and Kamin, and back-to-back layups from
Courtney Sharland, to push the lead to 66-38 with one quarter to play.
Grand Valley would increase the lead to as much as 33 points after a 5-0 run to start the fourth period. From there the Lakers held onto control of the game and cruised to a 26-point win to begin the season.
Emily Spitzley led the Lakers with 12 points on 5-8 shooting, while also grabbing five rebounds.
Joslyn Brennan added 11 points, while
Hannah Kulas had 10 points and four boards.
Ellie Droste had nine points and three assists, and
Nicole Kamin had eight points in her first game as a Laker. In all, eight players made their career debuts, with Kamin,
Lexi Plitzuweit,
Paige Vanstee,
Macy Bisballe,
Megan Crow,
Molly Anderson,
Avery Zeinstra, and
Sarah Cunningham all seeing action on the floor.
As a team, the Lakers shot 60% from the field, and over 43% from distance, while outrebounding UMSL 33-22. The defense forced the Tritons into 21 turnovers and held them to just over 40% from the field and 31% from deep.
Up Next
Grand Valley stays in Missouri for a matchup with Maryville tomorrow afternoon at 2pm. The Lakers return home next Friday and Saturday to play Tiffin and Findlay in the opening weekend of home basketball.
