Feb. 15, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Emersyn Koepke, Marlene Bussler and Myron Brewer all had career nights helping the Grand Rapids Community College women's and men's basketball teams defeat Muskegon Community College on Wednesday.
David Glazier's women's team earned its biggest win of the season by defeating Muskegon 62-55. The rivals had won 16 of the previous 19 against GRCC, including three in a row.
"Extremely proud of the effort we played with tonight," Glazier said. "This was a big win in a big moment of this season and it came against a really good team in Muskegon."
Koepke was a huge spark for GRCC, especially early on, scoring eight of the team's 21 first quarter points. She finished with a career-high 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting and seven rebounds.
Bussler's career-high 12th assist to Karissa Ferry with 1:36 remaining broke a 55-all tie. GRCC hung on after several defensive stops and five big free throws.
Ferry finished with her second career double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds. Sally Merrill added a game-high 16 points.
The team is now 13-7 and moved into second place in the conference with a 7-3 record.
The men's team jumped out to a nine-point lead, but Muskegon came back to take a 43-41 lead going into the break.
The visitors extended the lead to six points in the second half, but GRCC went on a 12-0 run and never looked back, leading by as many as 20 to win 95-78.
Brewer was one of 12 GRCC players to score in the game, including a career and team-high 19 points on 7-of-11 from the field, and four of the team's 10 total three-pointers.
The Raiders shot 51.4 percent overall from the field and 34.5 percent from behind the arc.
Danyel Bibbs finished 6-of-10 for 14 points and a team-high seven assists. Chris Coleman and Herman Brown added 13 and 12 points respectively.
GRCC snapped a two-game skid to improve to 16-7 overall and 5-5 in the conference, holding on to third place.
The men's team is in action again on Thursday, Feb. 16 for a 6:30 p.m. tip-off against the junior varsity of Aquinas College. The women don't play again until Feb. 18 at Alpena Community College.
This story was reported by Ben Brown.