In a pair of home games at Jim Wink Arena over the weekend, the No. 7 nationally ranked Ferris State women’s basketball team increased their win streak to nine games by sneaking by the Northern Michigan Wildcats on Thursday, Feb. 1 and the Michigan Tech Huskies on Saturday, Feb. 3.
The Bulldogs (16-2, 10-1 in GLIAC) remain perfect when playing at home, as they sport a 7-0 record in the Jim Wink Arena following their 71-66 victory over the Wildcats (13-7, 7-4 in GLIAC) and a 63-54 win over the Huskies (10-9, 6-5 in GLIAC).
The Wildcats dominated Ferris State in the first half, putting up almost 20 points in the second quarter alone compared to the Bulldogs’ nine. The score at halftime was 40-26 in favor of Northern Michigan.
Despite going into the third quarter down 14, head coach Kurt Westendorp did not waver.
“We talked in the locker room about how we couldn’t wait until there’s like five minutes to go in the game to have our comeback,” Westendorp said. “We talked about those first five minutes. To win the third quarter 30-8 and to get a lead by then. I was thinking it might take a little longer to kind of overcome it, but we overcame it right away with just tons of great energy.”
An aggressive second-half start led to the 30-8 run in the third quarter by Ferris, where they denied the Wildcats chances to score for the first five minutes of the quarter.
One of the players who stepped up in the second half was junior guard Kadyn Blanchard, who was scoreless in the first two periods. Blanchard scored a total of 15 points in the third and fourth quarters. This type of scoring eruption was expected after she crossed the 1,000 career points milestone last week.
“To be able to do it in three years and to be able to do it with this team just means so much,” Blanchard said. “I think God has everything and does everything for a reason because I hit it in Saginaw Valley. I’m from the Saginaw area so all of my family and friends were there too.”
Blanchard missed the majority of last season with an injury. Alongside her 15 points, she finished the game with four rebounds and four assists.
Ferris continued their winning weekend with a victory over the Michigan Tech Huskies on Saturday.
The contest featured two teams trading the lead until the fourth quarter when the Bulldogs finally pulled away. The lead changed hands 14 times, and the score was tied eight times throughout the contest.
In the fourth quarter, there was a team effort on defense and rebounding the ball. Senior forward Chloe Idoni had another huge game, scoring 21 points. It marked her second game in a row surpassing 20 points.
Westendorp was all praise for the opposing Huskies and the resolve that his team kept to win the game.
“They didn’t panic. We weren’t perfect in everything that we were doing, but we shored things up at the moment that it counted the most,” Westendorp said. “I want to keep giving credit to Michigan Tech because they’re just a really hard basketball team to guard the way they really stepped out here. It’s like they just do such a good job and I want to really credit them because they do such an awesome job of moving the basketball posting up everybody. You know, it took a lot of effort on our kids on the defensive end.”
The Bulldogs hold the best record within the GLIAC (10-1) and have seven games left in the regular season. Ferris State’s next game will be back on the road against the Lake Superior State Lakers on Saturday, Feb. 10. Ferris will return home against Saginaw Valley on Thursday, Feb. 15.