Great Lakes Wire

On the road against the top-ranked team in the nation, the Northern Michigan women's basketball team faced a challenging game but ultimately fell to Grand Valley State Lakers with a score of 81-71 on Saturday afternoon. This marks Northern Michigan's first conference loss of the season, bringing their record to 3-1 in GLIAC games and 9-3 overall. Meanwhile, the Lakers improved their record to 13-1 and remain undefeated in conference play at 4-0. The match was notable for being Grand Valley's closest win this season.

Northern Michigan played without its leading scorer, Jacy Weisbrod, for the second consecutive game. The team relied on contributions from all players, with Alyssa Nimz leading the Wildcats with 17 points. Freshman Sydney Whitehouse achieved double figures for the first time in her career, scoring 11 points. Five other players scored six or more points each.

Grand Valley State's Rylie Bisballe stood out as she led all players with a double-double of 22 points and 11 rebounds.

Mackenzie Holzwart provided seven assists for NMU, six of which were made during the first half, contributing to NMU's advantage of 17-11 in assists over Grand Valley. However, NMU committed more turnovers than GV, with a total of 14 compared to GV's seven.

After scoring only 47 points in their previous game against Davenport, NMU's offense showed improvement. Nimz started strong by hitting a corner three-pointer and later converted another while drawing a foul for a four-point play. Whitehouse and Kayla Tierney also added three-pointers during the first quarter as NMU shot an impressive 50% from the floor and narrowly led at 23-22 after one quarter—the highest-scoring opening quarter for NMU this season.

The second quarter saw Grand Valley take control with a decisive 12-2 run that put them ahead at halftime with a score of 46-38. Despite some offensive struggles early in the second quarter, NMU finished strong by making four out of their last five shots before halftime.

In the third quarter, Holzwart hit another three-pointer to cut into Grand Valley’s lead early on. A subsequent 7-0 run brought NMU within four points at one stage; however, GVSU closed out that period strongly to maintain their lead at nine points going into the final quarter.

Grand Valley extended their lead further as they began the fourth quarter with another dominant run which left them comfortably ahead by sixteen points midway through that period—a gap too large for Northern Michigan to close despite promising performances from freshmen guards Addison Pyletski and Whitehouse who combined efforts late on.

Looking ahead, Northern Michigan prepares for rivalry week when they will host Michigan Tech Huskies on Thursday January ninth at Vandament Arena starting at half past five p.m.