As the 2011-12 women’s bas­ket­ball team hits the half-way point in the sea­son, the Lady Bulldogs are liv­ing up to their lofty pre-season expectations.

The Bulldogs improved to 8–4 over­all with a 6–1 con­fer­ence record after last week’s road vic­to­ries at Lake Superior State and Saginaw Valley State.

Last Thursday, Ferris State University took its bas­ket­ball show to Sault Ste. Marie as the Lady Bulldogs cruised past the pesky Lakers.

The game was close through­out as the Bulldogs held a minis­cule one point lead at the half, and with 12:31 remain­ing the game was still in jeop­ardy with the Bulldogs hold­ing the scor­ing edge 43–42.

During the final twelve min­utes Ferris Statue University amped up their efforts and even­tu­ally scored the final eight points of the con­test to bring the final score to 65–56, in favor of the Bulldogs.

“We have been mov­ing the ball really well and have really worked hard,” FSU senior guard Tricia Principe said. “The defense has been play­ing good and we’ve done a very good job exe­cut­ing our offen­sive game plan.”

Leading the way for the Bulldogs was fresh­man for­ward Christina Branch as she recorded a cov­eted double-double with twelve points and eleven rebounds. Also record­ing twelve points for FSU was junior guard Kylie Muntz and sopho­more for­ward Nikki Arner.

Two days later the Bulldogs trav­eled down to the val­ley to take on the Cardinals of Saginaw Valley State, which the Bulldogs have been win­less since 2004.

The streak was snapped as the Bulldogs cruised to a con­vinc­ing 66–48 vic­tory, while sopho­more guard Sarah DeShone stole the show with an out­stand­ing 31 point per­for­mance. However, it turned out the Bulldogs defense was the key to victory.

The Cardinals were held to a 31.9 shoot­ing per­cent­age and made only 15 field goals through­out the entire contest.

With the con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries they main­tained, the Bulldogs lead in the GLIAC North divi­sion with an impres­sive 6–1 mark. The Bulldogs’ clos­est com­peti­tor is Michigan Tech, who is still behind FSU by 1.5 games with a 4–3 record.

“We feel like we are right where we need to be at, every game just builds more con­fi­dence through­out the entire team,” Principe said.

The Bulldogs’ main focus going into the 2011-12 year was to win a GLIAC cham­pi­onship and they are still main­tain­ing that attitude.

The atti­tude, accord­ing to Tricia Principe, is still the key.

“We feel as if we win the GLIAC cham­pi­onship, every­thing else will just fall into place going into the NCAAs,” Principe said.

FSU’s women’s bas­ket­ball team plays Urbana University on Jan. 11 before con­tin­u­ing con­fer­ence play with a home game against Northwood University on Jan. 14.