Senior Kerie Rudd finishes off a fast break.

The Lady Tigers left very little room for suspense as to who would win the Cross Cup Trophy for 2013 as they jumped out to an early lead over the Cougars of Kuyper College and never looked back.   The 83-26 victory means the Lady Tigers will maintain control of the trophy for the third consecutive year.  The victory also gets the Lady Tigers back to even at 9 wins and 9 losses, a difficult task after starting the season at 0 and 8.

All nine Grace players logged at least 17 minutes in the contest and scored at least four points.  Abby Schultz (Calvary Schools of Holland) paced the balanced attack with 17 points.  Anna Iwaniw (Kent City) had 14, Sydney Wildeboer (Kent City) scored 13, and Marissa Pelletier (Calvin Christian) had 12 points.

The Lady Tigers amassed a whopping 63 rebounds for the game.  Sarah Steenwyk (Zion Christian) led the rebounders with 12, while Marissa Pelletier and Anna Iwaniw completed their double-doubles with 11 and 10 rebounds respectively.  The Lady Tigers racked up 28 assists on the night with Amy Leszinske (Ravenna) leading with seven and Kerie Rudd (Battle Creek Pennfield) with six.

“It feels great to be back at .500 after our slow start,” Coach Renzema commented after the game.  “I am so happy the girls are starting to see the results of their hard work.  The challenge now is to not go back under because we have some difficult and critical games coming up. ”

The Lady Tigers will host Northland International University on Friday at 5 PM in a critical NCCAA Midwest Region contest.  They will follow that up with a home game on Saturday at 2 PM against a very good team from Silver Lake College.

Anna Iwaniw makes sure Amy earns the assist by finishing.

Amy Leszinske makes a nice pass in traffic.