Basketball fever: one win, one loss

This past Saturday the men’s basketball team faced the ultimate rivalry game. Facing Calvin College at the 200th rivalry match, the Flying Dutchmen played their hardest to bring home the win. Calvin won 82-80 in the final seconds of the game. Although Hope did not win this game, we still lead the rivalry in wins with a 103-97 record. The game started intensely with Jason Beckman (’19) and Riley Lewis (’20) scoring the first 13 points within the first 12 minutes. The Flying Dutchmen held the first lead of 17-16 which lasted the next eight minutes. Sophomore Preston Granger hit a notable career high with 23 points in addition to grabbing 14 rebounds. The Knights, however, were not going to give up easily.

By halftime Calvin pushed the score to 38-36. The tight-knit game continued until the end. With four seconds left on the clock and the score being 82-80, Beckman rushed to try to put the game into overtime but was unsuccessful. Head coach Greg Mitchell commented on the defeat saying, “A season is all about staying the course and as disappointed as I am about the loss, I’m equally as proud of all these guys in staying together and being gritty. Disappointment after disappointment, it’s tough to keep that resolve. But I think we do have that resolve, and I’m proud of our guys for that.” The women’s team also fought with the same intensity found at the rivalry match and won against Alma College.

The Saturday game ended with a huge lead of 83-51. Two sophomores, Mallory Gerber and Ashleigh Thomas, lead the team on an aggressive attack. Initially, the first and second quarters of the game started off slow. By the end of the first, the girls had scored 14 points and by the end of the second they had scored 18. Hope college had a considerable lead of 27-11 when Thomas landed two free-throws. By halftime, The Dutch held onto the lead with 32-21. Alma got within a five-point difference by the first few minutes into the third quarter. The Flying Dutch were not about to hand the game over. A strong defense forced Alma into 26 turnovers and by the end of the third quarter Hope’s lead was up by 19 points with a score of 58-39.

Only one minute and 41 seconds left in the game, Courtney Barnes (’21) scored a layup with the assist of Arika Tolbert (’20). This gave Hope its largest lead of 34 points and ultimately their strong victory. This win caused Senior Karen Gingras-Hoekstra to move to fourth place on Hope’s all time scoring list. The men’s next home match is against Alma at 3 p.m. this Saturday. The next upcoming match for the women’s team is this coming Staurday at 3 p.m. against St. Mary’s. Make sure to come out and support our Flying Dutch in the future!