Women’s bas­ket­ball will be look­ing to get back to the GLIAC tour­na­ment, which they missed last year, for the first time since the 1998–99 season.

The team and head coach Tracey Dorow know that in order to accom­plish their goal, the team is going to have to work hard each game.

“We expect to com­pete hard every sin­gle night,” said Dorow.

Unlike a year ago when the team did not have any return­ing starters from the pre­vi­ous sea­son, this year’s squad has no short­age of expe­ri­ence. The cur­rent ros­ter sports three seniors and three juniors who will be able to pro­vide valu­able experience.

Senior guard Becci Houdek said she feels the team will be able to com­pete for a GLIAC title.

“We have basi­cally every­one return­ing so we have some expe­ri­ence and our young kids are look­ing good,” said Houdek.

Last year the team strug­gled on the road as the team went 1–14 out­side of Big Rapids en route to an 8–19 over­all record.

“We didn’t know how to han­dle adver­sity and we didn’t know what the GLIAC was all about,” said Dorow.

Dorow believes those expe­ri­ences have helped give the cur­rent squad a bet­ter mind­set and they are going to work hard to make a big impact in the GLIAC.

Junior guard Lindsey Pettit said the team can­not let lit­tle mis­takes get in the way of the team achiev­ing its expectations.

“We have been work­ing really hard on doing things right the first time,” said Pettit.

The team will be open­ing their 26-game reg­u­lar sea­son at home on Nov. 20 as they host Edinboro University. It will be the first of many bat­tles that the Lady Bulldogs hope to con­quer as they try to get back to the GLIAC tour­na­ment and prove that last year was a fluke.

Coach Dorow knows she has a team of fight­ers this year and they are going to be a team that is fun to watch.

“Each day we are prepar­ing for the bat­tles we will face dur­ing each game and we have a team of fight­ers,” said Pettit. n