By Jackson Heiden
Despite freshman guard Sally Merrill’s dominating double-double in front of the home crowd, the Grand Rapids Community College women’s basketball team lost big, 84-50 to No. 7 Lake Land Community College.
“They’re the defending national champions for a reason,” said GRCC head coach David Glazier. “It’s a new lineup but still has a lot of talented kids.”
The Raiders kept pace with the Lakers for a majority of the first quarter until the Lakers went on a 14-0 run before the end of the first quarter. By the end of the quarter, the Raiders would have a lot of work to do being down 22-7.
Starting the second quarter, the Raiders came out looking strong, going on a 6-0 run, narrowing the gap to 27-15.
“We had to relax,” Glazier said. “We had to stop trying to speed up to what they were trying to speed us up to. We also just needed to move, we were kinda just standing around.”
The Lakers quickly put an end to the Raiders’ run, turning things back around to their pace, finishing the second quarter up 40-17.
“We have to come out and try to win the second half,” Glazier said. “You get into a game like that and you have a feel for what it’s going to be and what it’s not going to be, so we just looked to win one quarter at a time.”
The Raiders tried their best to mount a comeback, scoring more points in the third quarter than any other quarter up to that moment in the game. The Lakers fast pace offense was too much to handle as the Lakers were up 64-33 at the end of the third.
Struggling to score within the paint, the Raiders managed to score 17 points in the final quarter of the game, but the Lakers stormed by the Raiders, 84-50.
Merrill led the team with 17 points along with 12 rebounds and three assists. Freshman forward Grace Lodes followed Merrill with 13 points along with four rebounds, three blocks, and a steal. Freshman forward Allison Kellogg contributed with eight points and five rebounds.
The Raiders will be on Christmas break following today’s game and they plan on taking full advantage.
“We’ll take the next week off,” Glazier said. “We’ll come back the last week of December and hit it hard.”
The Raiders will start the new year up, jumping right into conference play as they take on Mid-Michigan Community College on Monday, Jan. 3 at 5:30 p.m. at the Gordon Hunsberger Arena.
“They’re tough,” Glazier said. “They have a bunch of scorers so we’re really going to have to lock it in. It’s a new coach but they can still score.”
