HOLLAND - The Hope women's basketball team handed Calvin its first league defeat of the year, defeating Calvin 70-48 in front of more than 3,400 fans at Hope's DeVos Fieldhouse Saturday afternoon. With the win, Hope (20-1 overall, 11-1 MIAA) moves within a half-game of Calvin (18-3 overall, 12-1 MIAA) with Hope having played one less league game than Calvin.
The Knights opened the game strong. Senior Jill Thomas connected on a three to open the game. Calvin eventually fell behind by six points, but cut the lead shortly before half. With three minutes left in the half, Hope exploded to a 10-0 run, led by some hot shooting and ball-handling from Hope's Liz Ellis.
Calvin entered halftime trailing by 14 points.
With a tall task before them, the Knights came out of halftime strong, scoring seven straight points, including two lay-ins from Calvin's Ally Wolffis. But the Dutch remained poised, and had an answer for Calvin's offensive spurt. Hope then went on another big run, and its stifling defense held Calvin scoreless for seven minutes.
Calvin got some late offense from some of the reserves, but the game was far out of reach by that point.
Ellis led all scorers with a career high 16 points. Calvin's Carissa Verkaik contributed a team-leading 11 points and eight rebounds for the Knights.The loss stands as a startling contrast from when the rivals met in Grand Rapids, when Calvin stunned then top-ranked Hope 56-55.
"We didn't come into this game with the same confidence this time," said Verkaik.
The Knights also gave credit to the Flying Dutch who entered the game ranked fourth in the d3hoops.com Top 25 poll while Calvin came in ranked 20th.
"All the credit goes to Hope. They were great today," said Calvin junior guard Jill Thomas. "We will go back to practice on Monday and start working hard again."
The Knights committed 34 turnovers in the loss with Hope scoring 38 points off of Calvin's turnovers. Saturday's game marked the 100th meeting of the two teams since 1966. Calvin leads the all-time series 62-38. Saturday's game also marked the 92nd game for the Hope women's basketball team at DeVos Fieldhouse. The Flying Dutch are now 91-1 at DeVos Fieldhouse all-time with their only loss coming to Calvin in January of 2007.