Glen Oaks Community College hardly had time to get accustomed to Cougar Arena before Kalamazoo Valley Community College's women's basketball team enjoyed a comfortable double-digit lead. As a result, the Cougars find themselves sitting alone atop the Western Conference standings with a 5-1 mark.

Coming off a stinging loss at Ancilla, sixth-ranked KVCC came out with a vengeance, opening with a 20-1 run en route to a 75-62 victory over the Vikings in Michigan Community College Athletic Association Western Conference action Saturday afternoon.   The Cougars expanded the lead to 39-12 with 4:22 left in the first stanza, but then Glen Oaks finished the half on a 12-4 run of their own to make it 43-24 at the half.

“To say that we got off to a good start would be an understatement,'' said KVCC coach Ron Welch, whose first-place team improves to 14-4 overall and 5-1 in the conference.  “The first 12-13 minutes of the game we did little wrong.  I thought our post play in the first half, particularly in the initial 20-1 run, was dominant and our pressure was creating a lot of problem for the Vikings.''
 
Freshman center, Kim Gear, powered the low-post game for KVCC, finishing with 11 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Sophomore forward Chelsea Acker added seven points and eight rebounds.  “We did a nice job of limiting their second chance opportunities,” continued the pleased Cougar coach.

Freshman point guard Sam Karasiewicz had 11 points and four steals.  “Spanky is usually more of a distributor for us, but today it was there for her a little more and she saw the opportunities.”  Said Welch.  Freshman Kendra Kutz (Three Rivers) and Melani Demler added 10 points apiece for the balanced Cougars.  

“It was great to see Kendra convert at the line.” Explained the veteran coach.  “She was a perfect 8-8 from the charity stripe.” Demler, the 5’10” freshman from Bridgman who has come on strong as of late, providing the Cougars with extra depth in the post also drew the coach’s praise.  “Melani certainly can score and is rapidly learning to be more of a physical defensive presence for us.”

”Probably the difference in the game was we put four kids in double-figures; they put one in double-figures,'' Welch said. “We have a lot of weapons and when they all play well, they're fun to watch!”

Sophomore Desiree Decker paced Glen Oaks (9-8, 3-3) with 10 points and was the only Viking in double figures. 6’3” freshman center Mandy Czapek had seven rebounds for the Lady Vikings, but didn’t get a lot of help as the GOCC team was out rebounded by the Cougars, 50-38.

“Glen Oaks kept chipping away throughout the second half and I thought their defensive pressure gave us a lot more trouble than I would like,''  Said a concerned Coach Welch. “The thing I'm concerned with is that we turned it over 32 times. We need to do a much better job of valuing each possession than we did. That’s not a knock on the Glen Oaks team – I thought that, to their credit, they out played us for a lot of the second half.  We were able to make enough plays at both ends though to get the job done, but the second half wasn’t a thing of beauty. We're still a work in progress.”