The women’s bas­ket­ball team dropped its con­fer­ence opener to Grand Valley

The women’s bas­ket­ball team split their first two home con­tests of the season.

Ferris started off the home sched­ule with a 74–66 win over the Lewis Flyers on Nov. 24.

Ferris jumped out to a five point lead early in the first half and took a 30–25 lead into the half on 54.2% shoot­ing from the field.

After hold­ing the lead for the begin­ning of the sec­ond half, the Flyers bat­tled back to force a 50–50 tie with 7:42 left to play. The Bulldogs proved to be too much as they went on 24–16 run at the end to seal the victory.

Leading the way for Ferris was junior guard Becci Houdek, who dropped in 14 points and six assists. Sophomore guard Lindsey Pettit put up 13 points and junior for­ward Amy Joostberns added 12 points and six rebounds. Pettit said the team was deter­mined to start the home sched­ule on a pos­i­tive note.

“Winning the home opener was huge for us,” said Pettit. “It’s impor­tant for us to keep Wink Arena as ‘our house’.”

Following the vic­tory against Lewis, the team started off the con­fer­ence sched­ule on Monday with a con­test against rival Grand Valley State.

Ferris came out tough against the Lakers on defense in the first half, hold­ing Grand Valley to 28.6% shoot­ing in the half. The strong defense allowed the Bulldogs the jump out to a 10-point lead with 8:56 left in the half.

Despite hold­ing the lead for 15 of the 20 min­utes in the first half, the team could not hold on as the Lakers man­aged to grab a slim 24–23 lead at halftime.

Grand Valley took the momen­tum out of half­time and never looked back, as the Lakers held the lead for the entire sec­ond half and held the Bulldogs to 33.3% shoot­ing in the half to claim the 57–43 vic­tory. Head coach Tracy Dorow said the lack of sec­ond half offen­sive was due to poor pass­ing and miss­ing some open shots.

“Our inex­pe­ri­ence showed through tonight,” said Dorow. “I think our passes weren’t crisp and some of the shots we just flat out missed. We def­i­nitely have some things to work on.”

Ferris shot just 19% from the 3-point line and com­mit­ted 20 turnovers in the game. Grand Valley had 19 second-chance points, while the Bulldogs man­aged only two. The team made just four of eight free-throw attempts as well.

For the Bulldogs, Houdek scored 12 points while sopho­more guard Kelsey DeNoyelles added 11 points and three rebounds.

Ferris will con­tinue the cur­rent home stand tomor­row with a matchup against the Ashland Eagles, which enter the game 2–1 over­all on the sea­son. The Eagles are scor­ing 74.6 points per game this sea­son, while the Bulldogs are scor­ing 62.5 points per
game.