Baker A Big Key For Grand Valley Hoops
ALLENDALE, MICH. – The Grand Valley State University women’s basketball team is on quite the tournament run.
The Lakers are enjoying that postseason success thanks in large part to a trio of former area standouts, including Lindsay Baker of Warsaw.
Grand Valley State topped Drury by a 62-60 count in overtime Monday night to earn an NCAA Division II Midwest Region championship.
The Lakers, who are 25-9 on the season, will play in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division II Tournament next Tuesday night versus No. 16 Pittsburg (Kansas) State (29-5).
Baker, a 2013 WCHS graduate, is a junior guard for the Lakers. The 5-10 sharpshooter played her first collegiate season at NCAA Division I program Toledo University before transferring to GVSU.
Baker is one of the top reserves for the Lakers as she is averaging 7.1 points-per-game while playing 13 minutes-per-contest. She scored five points in the Midwest Region title game win Monday night and hit her 74th trey of the season to set a new single-season school record for 3-pointers.
Baker was a three-time All-Northern Lakes Conference selection at Warsaw and helped lead the Tigers to a pair of conference championships in 2010 and 2013. She helped the Tigers to a 24-2 mark during her senior season in 2012-13 as Warsaw won NLC, sectional and regional championships before losing 47-44 to Fort Wayne South in a Class 4-A semistate game.
The Lakers, who are just one win away from their first Final Four appearance in 10 years, have won tourney games by the scores of 72-70, 63-56 and 62-60 in overtime.
The duo of Taylor Lutz and Taylor Parmley are also key cogs for the Lakers. Junior guard Lutz, who played at Penn High School, has started all 34 games. She is averaging 6.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game. Parsley, a redshirt freshman who played at Mishawaka High School, is averaging 8.9 points-per-game.
Senior Brionna Barnett, a former standout at Elkhart Memorial High School, was averaging 10 points-per-game along with four assists as a starter through the first 17 games. The guard, who played her first two years at NCAA Division I Wisconsin Green Bay, is sidelined due to a back injury.