Although both teams still played with the same intensity of a rivalry game, the No. 11 MSU women’s basketball team (15-1 overall, 3-0 Big Ten) made it eight consecutive meetings — and 16 of the last 17 — that they walked away with a victory against the Wolverines.

“Anytime you come into Ann Arbor or they come to East Lansing, it’s always going to be an exciting game and we always want to come out with a win no matter what the streak is,” senior forward Kalisha Keane said.

The game went right down to the wire with the Spartans prevailing, leaving the Wolverines with a 9-7 record.

“It doesn’t matter what the records are or how early it is in the season, or how late,” MSU head coach Suzy Merchant said. “This is just a very heated rival game and they play extremely well at home. No question about it. We knew there would be intensity, but we do feel like our MSU fans were here in full force. I don’t feel like we were on an island out there.”

It started with the crowd of 5,991, which is an attendance record for a women’s basketball game at Crisler Arena. Expecting U-M fans to be rowdy, it was actually the Spartan fans who made the most noise, with chants of “Let’s Go State,” echoing through the building before the Wolverine marching band unsuccessfully tried to drown them out.

The game started sloppy. The score stalled at 5-3 for three minutes as MSU did everything it could to give the Wolverines the game by committing nine turnovers, in the first 10 minutes.

With the Wolverines pushing the score to 15-8 and the Spartans unable to get the ball in the paint, Merchant looked for the team’s leaders to step up before the game got out of hand.

With 11:16 remaining in the first half, it was junior forward and co-captain Lykendra Johnson who sprung the Spartans to a 10-0 run, making the score 18-15 with 8:07 remaining in the first half.

“(Johnson) had some travels, some turnovers she doesn’t usually have out of the gates and then she got a little organized,” Merchant said. “(She) got herself back into focus mode and when she does that, she’s certainly an aggressive rebounder.”

Johnson went on to grab eight rebounds in the first half, an amount she would more than double by the end of the game. She finished the game with 17 points and the Spartans needed each one of her career-high 17 rebounds to seal the victory.

“She was a warrior for us,” Merchant said.

The Spartans brought a 27-22 lead into the locker room at halftime, but they still were searching for production from their other two senior leaders, Keane and guard Brittney Thomas.

Keane, the Spartans’ go-to scoring threat couldn’t find her rhythm, scoring just two points in the first half.

“Shots weren’t really falling in the first half,” Keane said. “I took shots out of rhythm and not really within the offense, and in the second half I wanted to come out and take good shots and I feel like that’s what kind of got us into a flow offensively.”

And aggressive Keane was, scoring nine of the team’s first 14 points in the second half.

Merchant said the key to Keane’s success was when U-M switched to the box-and-one defense, something that caught the Spartans by surprise last year but were ready for this time around.

“I said (to Keane), ‘You’re going to help us win this game if they go to this,’ and she’s such a team kid it doesn’t matter to her,” Merchant said. “Obviously she’s a talented player and we run a lot through her, but anytime you’re (facing) box-and-one you got to become a great screener and a slip guy and you’re going to draw a lot of attention which is going to open up other people. To Kalisha’s credit I thought she did a great job of understanding what that was all about.”

Behind Keane, who finished with 12 points, and Johnson, the Spartans raced out to an 11-point lead in the second half, but the Wolverines kept it close cutting the lead to five with 45 seconds left.

The Wolverines, frustrated and desperate, began committing hard fouls on Thomas, forcing her to earn points at the charity stripe. With a sore thumb and a bloody knee, Thomas limped to the free-throw line three consecutive times and each time drained both free throws, not allowing U-M to sniff the lead.

“I’ve been playing with Brittney four years now and it was almost like a déjà vu kind of thing,” Keane said. “I think the last time she was here she was in that same position, and she is always able to step up and knock down big shots for us.”

Thomas fouled out with 10 seconds left, but she already had iced the game for the Spartans.

Not only did the Spartans dominate the boards, 41-24, but the key to the game couldn’t be any more obvious down the stretch. With one senior on their team, the Wolverines lacked the same leadership the Spartans have had all season.

Senior forward Cetera Washington summed it up best.

“With Brittney, Lykendra, myself and whoever else is out there, we always know to bring it into a huddle and we know that going (into the final minutes) we need a huge stop and we count on each other for defensive help and one-on-one’s,” she said.

“We really hold each other accountable.”