Most teams watch their league standings religiously, knowing the wins and losses of every team they will come across as the season churns along.

The Grand Valley State women’s basketball team is not one of them.

“We don’t really look at records; we really don’t,” said head coach Mike Williams. “We try to throw them out and look at every team we play in the GLIAC as good.”

This strategy clearly served the Lakers well on Saturday, Jan. 27, when they doubled up (and then some) the Purdue Northwest Pride 78-36 to improve to 17-3 (10-2 GLIAC), while Purdue Northwest falls to 3-14 (2-10 GLIAC).

Once again, it was guard and reigning GLIAC Player of the Week Natalie Koenig who led the Lakers with 19 points, including going 5-7 from 3-point rage. Guard Jenn DeBoer added 12, and forward Taylor Parmley scored 11.

“I just wanted to keep it up,” Koenig said. “(I) came off a good week last week and knew I could keep it up. I’m just out there to do whatever I can do to help the team, and whether that’s defense, whether that’s getting to the basket, making plays, shooting 3s, whatever it is, I just want to help the team get a win.”

Though the Lakers did not lack any scoring on the night, defense was the name of the game for GVSU, as 36 points is the fewest allowed by them in a single game in the last two seasons.

The Pride managed to score only 7 points in the first quarter and 4 in the third quarter, as well as only 14 points in the entire second half on 5-30 shooting.

GVSU’s defense held their opponents to 26-percent shooting from the field and 11.1 percent from 3-point range.

“Coach just puts such a big emphasis on staying in front and being tough on the defensive end and just working to stay in front,” Koenig said.

Unbelievably, the Lakers’ 42-point victory could have come by an even greater margin had they continued to play their signature hardball style of basketball down the stretch.

“I thought we did a good job staying the course,” Parmley said. “We didn’t have any huge letdowns, and a lot of the time, when we go up 30, we let them sneak up, but I think we kept that point margin far apart. I think we just need to work on not fouling down the stretch when things aren’t going our way. 

“There’s a lot of times where, like I said, we are up 30 and we just relax a little bit, and when we relax, that’s when the good teams are going to sneak back up on us, and we can’t have those lulls to beat teams like Tech.”

With the victory, the Lakers have won four straight and 10 of their last 11 but face a tall task as they will travel to the Upper Peninsula to take on the Michigan Tech Huskies (15-3, 9-2 GLIAC)—a team responsible for one of the Lakers’ three losses this season—on Thursday, Feb. 1, at 5:30 p.m. in Houghton, Michigan.