They dropped anchor in Pittsburgh, again.
The Grand Valley State women’s basketball team has won a second consecutive Division II national championship, steamrolling Indiana (Pa.), 72-49, on Saturday at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
It was the third national championship in women’s basketball for the Lakers (36-1), who also won it in 2006 under now-Minnesota head coach Dawn Plitzuweit. She was in attendance Saturday with her daughter, Lexi, on the current team. Plitzuweit made it after Minnesota’s loss to UCLA in the Division I Sweet 16 on Friday night.
Grand Valley State dominated from the start Saturday, leading 17-8 after the first quarter and 41-24 at halftime against an Indiana team that was making its first appearance in the national-championship game.
Indiana, playing about an hour from its campus, made a slight surge early in the third quarter, but redshirt senior guard Paige VanStee (Middleville) drained a 3-pointer to make it 46-29 with 6 minutes, 31 seconds left.
VanStee scored Grand Valley’s first 10 points of the second half, and finished with 25 points and nine rebounds. Redshirt senior guard Nicole Kamin (Escanaba) and sophomore forward MacKenzie Bisballe (Lake City) each scored 18. The Lakers had 13 blocks; Bisballe had five, and Kamin and VanStee each had three.
Junior guard Teresa Maggio had 20 points to lead Indiana (31-4), which shot 30% to the Lakers’ 62.2%.
BOX SCORE:Grand Valley State 72, Indiana (Pa.) 49
The 23-point win was the largest margin of victory in the Division II title game in 30 years.
With just over 2 minutes left, Grand Valley State subbed out all five of its starters, who left the court waiving their arms, met by a huge ovation from traveling Lakers fans. The confetti cannon went off with 1:23 left, causing a several-minute delay in the game’s finish. Grand Valley State players actually helped clean up the confetti.
Grand Valley State, among the gold standards in Division II athletics, has won 33 team national championships since 2002, across all sports. Women’s soccer (2013-15) was the last Lakers team to win consecutive national titles.
The Lakers are the first team to win consecutive Division I women’s basketball titles since Lubbock Christian, which won in 2019 and 2021 (there was no tournament in 2020). Grand Valley State is the seventh program to win at least two straight national championships in women’s basketball.
Grand Valley State, coached by Mike Williams, who lived in Plitzuweit’s basement when he first became an assistant on the Lakers staff in the early 2000s, closed out the season on a 15-game winning streak; its only loss this season was to rival Wayne State in Detroit in February. The Lakers got revenge for that defeat, beating the Warriors earlier in the NCAA Tournament.
The Lakers beat their six NCAA Tournament opponents by an average of 26 points.
GVSU women’s basketball national titles
▶ 2005-06: 33-3 (head coach: Dawn Plitzuweit)
▶ 2024-25: 38-2 (Mike Williams)
▶ 2025-26: 36-1 (Williams)
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Another Grand finale! GVSU wins back-to-back national titles in women’s hoops
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