This weekend, the Grand Valley State volleyball team faced up against the Ferris State Bulldogs and the Northwood Timberwolves. The Lakers fell against the Bulldogs, but were able to secure a win against the Timberwolves to bring their GLIAC record to 4-5 and their overall record to 8-9.

Friday, Oct. 11, the Lakers had their Dig Pink match up against the Ferris State Bulldogs, the number one team ranked in the conference. GVSU coach Deanne Scanlon felt that coming out on the court with intensity was something that GVSU needed to focus on in this match.

“We watched a lot of film this week and talked about why Ferris is where they’re at so far and how they are a consistent and low error team,” Scanlon said. “We talked about how we needed to keep our errors to a minimum and be an intense team against them.”

Although the Lakers were able to come out with the intensity that their coach wanted them to, they were unable to beat the Bulldogs. The teams went into four very close sets. Ferris won the first two sets 25-22 and 25-21, but GVSU was able to come back and take the third set 25-20. The last set started with Ferris having a lead of 18-9 and eventually finish the set and match 25-17.

Even though the team lost, Scanlon felt that they have finally found the leader that they have been looking for within sophomore Ali Tompson, who tallied 22 kills that day. 

“As a young team we’ve been searching for that leader that can rally everyone around them,” Scanlon said. “I think that Ali Thomson did a very good job of that this week and even last week even though she is a sophomore, she is one of the most experienced on the team. She has taken her game to the next level this season.”

The next day, the Lakers went up against the Northwood Timberwolves and won all three sets. Each set was rather close, the first one being 25-15, the second 25-22 and the last 25-19.  

“We had to bounce back from Ferris and show up against Northwood, who isn’t a flashy team but they have grit and like to grind it out,” Scanlon said. “ I think that we did well even though we were physically and emotionally tired from Ferris.”

The win against Northwood pushed the Lakers into the No. 5  spot in the GLIAC conference, meaning that in next week’s Midwest Region Crossover in Indianapolis, Indiana, GVSU will be competing against the other top teams from the other conferences around the region.

“At the crossover the top six ranked teams in each conference will play the other top six and the bottom will play the bottom six. We’re happy to play with the top, we know that it will be hard to play tough competition and see where we stack up.” Scanlon said. “We challenged our kids and we’re excited that we made it into the top 6 and were excited to play at that higher level.”

The Lakers will be challenging themselves next week on Friday, Oct. 18 and Saturday, Oct. 19 in the nation’s largest collegiate volleyball tournament, the Midwest Region Crossover.