Sports

GVSU's Jasmine Padin makes a shot in the second half against Hillsdale.

Lakers avoid slump behind weekend wins

By Emanuel Johnson GVL Sports Editor
2/7/2010

After two tough losses to UP opponents last weekend, the conditions were prime for the Grand Valley State University women's basketball team to head into a slump in the same manner it did last season after losses to the same opponents.

This year, however, the Lakers managed to avoid a dramatic downturn with two weekend victories. The team blew out the University of Findlay 77-51 on Thursday before downing Hillsdale College 77-67 on Saturday.

Though the score indicated a dominating Laker performance, the game against Hillsdale was anything but. The Lakers (16-5, 13-3 GLIAC) had major issues in transition defense through much of the game. The Chargers finished the game with 10 fast-break points and 10 points off of turnovers.

The Lakers had a fairly consistent offensive output, but their production was nearly negated by Hillsdale's 3-point shooting. The Chargers converted four attempts from range in the first half en route to a 35-33 deficit at halftime.

But it was the 13 attempts the Chargers jacked up that caused the Laker defensive zone to lose balance and open up scoring opportunities.

GVSU head coach Janel Burgess said Hillsdale's style of play forced her to make changes at halftime.

"We made a couple of adjustments and did a good job in the second half," she said. "We opened up a little more and didn't play the high post as much. We were running like crazy people (in the first half). Once we contained ourselves a little more, our guards were opening up and finding the next pass easier instead of sucking into the high post."

The adjustments helped, but the Lakers couldn't completely stop the 3-pointers from falling. Hillsdale hit two 3-pointers in the first 5 minutes of the half before going the rest of the game with just one more.

"We dug down deep and knew that we wanted to win the game," said sophomore guard Jasmine Padin. "Our coaches were telling us to jump high side because they wanted to penetrate middle, and that's what we did. Even we gave up baseline, our weak-side help was there. Once we buckled down and played tough defense, we sealed the deal."

Once the Lakers grabbed the lead with 10 minutes remaining, they didn't give it up for the rest of the game. Despite suspect transition defense and inconsistent perimeter defense, GVSU went up by as much as 11 points in closing out the final seconds of the game.

"It was toughness down the stretch," Burgess said. "We held them defensively, especially in the final 15 minutes. We were really aggressive offensively in drawing 'and ones' as the game progressed. We made it to the free throw line 28 times, and even though we only made 18 of those shots, it was still huge for this young team to be able to do that."

Sophomore guard Kelly Kretz finished with a team-high 20 points and five rebounds. Freshman Briauna Taylor notched a double-double of 13 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. The two made up 33 of the team's 35 points off of the bench.

Kretz said she had taken advantage of holes in the Charger defense en route to her career-high point total.

"They were putting a lot of pressure on the wings, so there were a lot of backdoor opportunities," Kretz said. "Our post players, especially the twins, were able to make the backdoor even more wide open when they got the ball. They probably had a lot of assists to me because they found me wide open under the basket."

The Lakers will hit the road this week for rematches with both Northern Michigan University (Thursday) and Michigan Technological University (Saturday).

sports@lanthorn.com

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