On the road and weathering a thunder-filled storm, the Hope College women's basketball team emerged as outright champions of the MIAA.

The nationally-ranked Flying Dutch clinched the outright MIAA regular-season title with a 73-58 victory at Trine University on Saturday.

Hope (22-1,14-0 MIAA) holds a four-game lead in the MIAA standings with two regular-season games remaining. 

The Flying Dutch (No. 4 WBCA/No. 6 D3hoops) will be the top seed and host the semifinals and finals of the MIAA Tournament on Friday-Saturday, Feb. 23-24 at DeVos Fieldhouse.

Playing together and being consistent is what head coach Brian Morehouse attributes to the preseason runner-up Flying Dutch proving the basketball community wrong. 

"I think a lot of people need to think about what they thought about this team last July, August, September, and I don't think many people were picking us. No coaches in our league picked us to win the championship except for one, because you can't vote for your own team," said Morehouse.

"I just think that this team has overcome a lot of other people's expectations that might have been lower and they have taken it upon themselves to not listen to what everybody else thinks and really make their own mark. I think they played with a chip on their shoulder all season, knowing that nobody picked them."

Hope secured its 14th outright MIAA championship and 20th overall. The Flying Dutch shared MIAA titles with Trine the past two seasons. 

The last outright MIAA title for Hope came during the 2019-20 season.

Sophomore Sydney Vis, Hope's leading scorer over Trine, assisted in the second-half charge that led the Flying Dutch to outscore Trine (16-7, 10-4 MIAA) by a 40-24 margin in the second half. 

The Byron Center, Michigan native, and South Christian High School graduate scored 13 of her game-high 20 points during the second half. 

Trine rallied to take a 34-33 halftime lead by outscoring Hope by a 23-11 margin during the second quarter.

The Flying Dutch outscored Trine 15-11 during the third quarter and 25-13 during the fourth quarter.

Hope took back the lead just two minutes into the third quarter on a Keegan Kaiser layup. The Flying Dutch did not relinquish that lead for the remainder of the game. 

Junior guard Jada Garner (Midland, Michigan / H.H. Dow) netted nine of her 13 points during the fourth quarter. Garner went 4-of-6 from the field, burying two 3-pointers. 

"We just talked at halftime about doing your job, if you're supposed to be doing 'X' on defense, then get in your spot," said head Morehouse. "We needed to play better team defense to go along with playing better individual defense, and I thought in the third quarter we really locked down, the offense got going a little better, and then it was just kind of like a boa constrictor, and we just kept squeezing and squeezing and squeezing with our defense I just thought we stayed so consistent in the second half defensively."

"We're all about balance, for us to be the best version of ourselves, it means that we are sharing the ball and that we have high assists. When we share the ball and get each other open shots, we're just better and it means that we're playing together and that has been this team's M.O. ever since we started last September. We might not have a First Team All-American but we've got a lot of great players who play well together."

Freshman Terin Maynard (Grand Rapids, Michigan / Jenison) was part of the balanced offense for Hope, pouring in 11 points. 

Junior Courtney Lee (Fishers, Indiana / Heritage Christian) and Kaiser (New Albany, Indiana / Floyd Central) each netted 10 points in the win. 

Lee nabbed a game-high 13 rebounds against Trine. Hope out rebounded the Thunder, 48-30.

Morehouse mentioned 'game MVP' when speaking of Lee's performance against the Thunder. 

"Just as far as the 13 rebounds, I thought she was incredibly good on the defensive end. We asked her and Raven to do some different things today and they were really really good at it"

Trine's Erin Sherwood and Sidney Wagner each tallied 12 points. 

The Flying Dutch return to DeVos Fieldhouse for their next game on Wednesday, Feb. 14, at 6 p.m. against Adrian College. It is Senior Night.