The Ferris State women’s basketball team took down the Spring Arbor Cougars in an home-opening exhibition game on Wednesday, Nov. 29 at Jim Wink Arena.
The Bulldogs’ (3-0, 0-0 in GLIAC) 85-70 win over Spring Arbor (7-2, 2-1), a NAIA school, will not go down in the win column but will act as a bridge into GLIAC play.
Coach Kurt Westendorp believes this game, despite it being an exhibition game against a NAIA school, was good experience for the team.
“[Spring Arbor] is talented and also high character,” Westerndorp said. “A lot of teams can get down 24-8 after the first quarter and they can fold. But they’re definitely a bunch of high character kids with a lot of talent. Their coach does a really good job. That’s why this game was awesome for us to play. Yes, we had to knock off a little bit of rust after the Thanksgiving holiday, but playing a team that did some things to give us trouble … it’s a different kind of style than we played our first three opponents. It’s a different kind of style that we might see a couple GLIAC teams employ. It was a really good game for us to kind of have to learn a couple things.”
The Bulldogs started the game out hot, outscoring the Cougars 24-8 by the end of the first quarter. Spring Arbor’s slow start came back to bite them over the course of the game, never being able to bring the score within five despite the Cougars’ productive play.
Despite being down, the Cougars kept the game competitive until a fourth quarter rally where the Bulldogs went on a run scoring 10 points in three minutes. During the three-minute stretch, Spring Arbor only responded with three points of their own. The run and a pair of free throws from Claire Erickson sealed the game in favor of Ferris.
Senior center Chloe Idoni was the leading scorer for Ferris ending the game with 21 points. Idoni started the game slow offensively, only having 7 points to her name by the end of the first half. To combat this, she placed an emphasis on getting touches for her team in the second half.
“We knew that we were able to get the ball inside easily. We knew we could get post touches and Chloe missed some shots [that she] usually makes in that first half,” Westendorp said. “We were trying to get her the ball with a little better position in the second half and she really did a nice job of settling into the game.”
Alongside her 21 points, she also had two assists, four rebounds, five blocks and four steals. Idoni also recently took home GLIAC women’s basketball player of the week honors.
Westendorp knows the upcoming conference games will be a tough challenge for his squad, but is very confident that they’ll rise to the occasion and come out on top.
“We know that the intensity level is gonna go up a little bit, we know we’ve got to play better than we did tonight,” Westendorp said. “That’s what November basketball is all about, learning and getting better. So hopefully with this win we can take some momentum on the road going into GLIAC play.”
Ferris’s next matchup was scheduled for Dec. 1 against Great Lakes Christian, but it was postponed.
Ferris will start a long road stint, which will include two conference games in a row this month. Their first interconference contests will be on the road against Purdue Northwest on Dec. 7 and against Wisconsin Parkside on Dec. 9.