By Gina de Haan

The Knights capped off the regular season with a win, defeating the Hornets 85-71, boosting their record to a perfect 25-0 with a 16-0 conference mark. With this victory, the Calvin women's basketball team finishes the first undefeated regular season in school history.

In a fast-paced first half, shots were falling early for both the Knights and the Hornets. Just five seconds into the contest, Kally Verkaik knocked down a three-point basket. But Kalamazoo's Hannah Maness quickly answered, hitting a three-pointer of her own to tie the game. The Knights took back the lead off of a layup by Hannah Acre. Kally Verkaik earned a steal and capitalized down low, making the score 7-3. However, a three-pointer from Kalamazoo's Emily Lindsay would cut the Knights' lead back to one with 18:19 remaining in the first half.

The two teams would go back-and-forth in scoring, but with the midpoint of the first half approaching, the Knights began to pull away. A layup by Kalamazoo's Perri Nicholson brought the score to 18-17 still in Calvin's favor, but Anna Timmer responded with a made layup of her own. Ali Spayde added to the Knights' effort, hitting a three-pointer to extend Calvin's lead to six. A pair of free throws by Tiffany Karger and a jumper by Breanna Verkaik made the score 27-19. A steal in the backcourt and a jumper by Kayla Engelhard put the Knights ahead by double digits with 8:44 remaining in the first half.

In the first half of the contest, Calvin shot 17-31 from the floor (54.8%), 4-10 from three-point range (40%), and went 12-12 from the free throw line.

Although the Hornets outscored the Knights 41-35 in the second half, their efforts weren't enough to overcome Calvin's sizeable lead.

The Knights made 52.7% of their field goals while Kalamazoo scored only 39.7% of its shots from the floor.

Anna Timmer led Calvin in scoring and rebounding, finishing with 14 points and eight rebounds. Breanna Verkaik followed, with 13 points. Ali Spayde had nine second-half points, finishing with a total of 12; Kayla Engelhard also contributed 12 points. Kally Verkaik and Hannah Acre grabbed five rebounds apiece; Verkaik added 10 points and Acre eight. Calvin's bench contributed 42, nearly half of the Knights' total points.

Emily Lindsay of Kalamazoo led all players in scoring with a career-high 23 points, while Querubin Dubois chipped in 15 points and seven boards.

"Kalamazoo has a great team this year – probably the best team they have had since I have been at Calvin," said Calvin head women's basketball coach John Ross. "This was our third game of the week so there is always concern about energy level but to our credit, we matched Kalamazoo's intensity and kept it going for 40 minutes. Now we have to put the regular season in the past and focus on tournament basketball. We know that we will need to raise our intensity that much more because it is tournament time."

Calvin will host Olivet College (14-11, 9-7 MIAA) in the MIAA Tournament semifinal game next week Wednesday, February 25. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. at Van Noord Arena.