KENOSHA, WIS. – The Grand Valley women's basketball team got a historic effort from Emily Spitzley to complete a comeback and pick up an 83-73 overtime victory tonight over Parkside. Spitzley scored her 1,000^th career point as part of a career-high 31-point effort to lead the Lakers to a win. The win moves GVSU to 13-1 overall, and a perfect 4-0 in GLIAC play.
 
GVSU got out to a 4-0 lead, before Parkside clawed back to go up 7-4. Spitzley tied it at seven with the first of her five threes of the night. The Rangers retook the lead at 12-9, before another triple from Spitzley retied the contest. A 5-0 run to close out the quarter for the Rangers gave them a 17-12 lead after 10 minutes.
 
Parkside was able to increase the lead up to eight points early in the second period, but a 5-0 run from Nicole Kamin cut it down to three points at 24-21. After a Ranger basket, Spitzley cut the lead back down to two with an and-one layup. Parkside bounced back after that and didn't let the Lakers get any closer the rest of the half and pushed the lead up to six at the break, leading 35-29.
 
Hadley Miller brought the deficit down to three once again, as she hit a triple, bringing it to 35-32. From there, the Rangers went on an 11-3 run to gain their largest lead of the game at 46-35. GVSU cut into it a bit the rest of the quarter, but still trailed 50-43 going into the fourth quarter.
 
The Rangers went back up by 10 to start the fourth quarter, but GVSU went on an 11-0 run, capped off by threes from Spitzley and Ellie Droste to give them their first lead since the first quarter at 54-53. The three from Spitzley put her over the 1,000 point mark for her career, and was the third three from her in the game. After Parkside hit two free throws to retake the lead, Spitzley gave the lead right back to GVSU with another three-pointer. The two teams traded buckets down the stretch, before Parkside took a 70-67 lead with 27 seconds remaining. The Lakers got the ball to their hot hand in Spitzley, and she delivered once again, drilling her fifth three of the night to tie the game at 70, and after a defensive stop from GVSU, the game was headed to overtime.
 
It was all GVSU in the extra five minutes, as they outscored the Rangers 13-3 in overtime to pull away for the win. Nicole Kamin opened the scoring with two free throws, followed by a 6-0 Hannah Kulas run to put GVSU up eight. From there the Lakers made all their free throws and iced the game away to stay perfect in GLIAC play.
 
Spitzley was on fire from the opening tip, scoring 14 points in the first half, then sparking the comeback with 11 fourth quarter points to finish with a career-high 31. She was 11-18 from the floor and 5-9 from three, while also grabbing seven rebounds. Ellie Droste added 12 points and five assists, while Nicole Kamin and Abrie Cabana each had 11. Hannah Kulas had nine points and six boards off the bench, and Hadley Miller tied her career-high with 10 rebounds.
 
UP NEXT
Grand Valley stays on the road this weekend, as they travel to Hammond, Indiana to take on Purdue Northwest on Saturday at 2pm.