Women's Basketball Cruises To NCAA Bid; Throttle Edgewood 69-43
Feb. 28, 2004
The Lakeland College Women's Basketball Team earned the program's fourth NCAA Tournament bid with an easy 69-43 victory over visiting Edgewood College Saturday afternoon in Sheboygan in the championship game of the Lake Michigan Conference Tournament. The Muskies will find out who and where they play next Sunday evening following the complete tournament selection.

"We've worked hard all season to get to this point and now that we're here we're looking forward to the second season," said 10th year head coach April Arvan, who has led the program to all their bids.

Lakeland (22-5) jumped out to a 36-21 halftime lead and erased any shred of doubt by pouring it on in the second half for the easy victory. Edgewood (13-15) stayed close in the first few minutes by knocking down four early three-pointers, but struggled overall and shot just 25.8 percent (8 of 31) in the first half.

Renee Steinert tallied 11 points and Aubri Rote nine to give Lakeland the halftime margin. The Muskies were much sharper from the field with an impressive 50 percent shooting effort including three of nine from beyond the arc.

The second half was more of the same as Lakeland outscored Edgewood 33-22 while clearing the bench late in the game. The Muskies defense was even more stifling as they held the Eagles to just 23.1 percent (6 of 26) shooting in the second half which made it a miserable 24.6 percent shooting effort overall for Edgewood. Lakeland was 11 of 26 in the second half (42.3%) to finish at 46.3 percent for the game.

The Muskies also clobbered Edgewood on the boards with a whopping 45-28 difference. The only negative stat for Lakeland was the 23 turnovers they committed, but they balanced that out by forcing 19 Eagle turnovers.

Lakeland was led by Steinert with 19 points and Kristi Thill came off the bench to add 11. Rote added seven rebounds to her nine points while Jenna Boehm led the team with nine boards.

Gwen Strohmeyer led Edgewood with 12 points and Katie Hensgen added 11.

This was the third time the two teams met this year and Lakeland emerged victorious each time. Lakeland won 72-36 in December in Madison and 71-51 at the end of January at Lakeland.

After the game the Muskies celebrated by cutting down the nets to the delight of the home crowd, who serenaded lone senior Casey Thousand by chanting her name in unison.

"I'm just so happy for our team and especially for Casey," said Arvan.