The NMU men’s basketball team earned their first road win at Michigan Tech in five years with a 67-62 win Monday, Feb. 2 at SDC gym in Houghton.
Head coach Bill Sall said the team hit the court with intense energy to make the rivalry game a strong matchup.
“We really came in with great focus-we wanted to put the revival back in the rivalry,” Sall said. “We took a lot of shots, but in the same breath we made them in that game. I was really impressed with our players getting great looks and shots.”
The ’Cats made 61 percent of their shots in the first half going 14-23 from the field and 6-9 behind the arc.
Sophomore guard Marcus Hall led the ’Cats scoring 17 points, while senior forward Chavis Mattison scored 16 points and put up 11 rebounds for his third double-double this season.
Tech’s senior guard Ben Stelzer finished the match with 37 points.
Sall said the team had to play a full 40 minutes to complete the win.
“Michigan Tech is a good team. I knew they weren’t going to go quietly,” Sall said. “I thought Ben Stelzer really came out and focused – it was an incredible offensive drive by him. We’ve been through a few times where we couldn’t get over the hump to complete a win, but we made some timely possessions to work the clock and even though they got really close, I thought we played great.”
Tech went on a 16-4 run in the final four minutes of the game to cut NMU’s lead to 65-62 with 16 seconds remaining in the game.
NMU led 55-39 until Michigan Tech went on a 16-4 run with 4:05 left in the game.
The Wildcats ended the game going 8-8 at the free-throw line.
Freshman guard Jordan Perez said the ’Cats matched up well with the Huskies.
“I felt like we did the best we could have done,” Perez said. “The only thing that kept them in the games was the threes Stelzer was knocking down from wherever he wanted to, but besides that we held everyone else to single digit scoring.”
Stelzer scored 37 points for the Huskies shooting 11-20 and 9-10 from behind the arc.
NMU finished shooting 23-45 from behind the field outscoring Tech’s bench by a 35-0 margin.
The Wildcats will go on to face the Grand Valley State University Lakers 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 5 at Fieldhouse Arena in Allendale, Mich.
The Lakers are on a six-game losing streak with a 5-10 conference record and 9-12 overall and are in last place of the eight-team GLIAC North Division.
Grand Valley’s offense is averaging 69.7 points per game. GVSU’s senior guard Ryan Sabin is leading the Lakers’ offense with 290 points and averaging 13.8 per game.
Sabin is leading the GLIAC free throws averaging 92.7.
NMU will continue their road trip against the Ferris State University Bulldogs at 3 p.m. Saturday Feb. 7 at Jim Wink arena in Big Rapids, Mich.
Ferris is ranked first in the North Division GLIAC, averaging 79.9 points per game with 38.5 rebounds.
Ferris is riding a three-game winning streak, and has only lost one GLIAC match this season with a record 14-1 in the GLIAC and 18-3 overall.
Senior wing Drew Lehman is ranked third in the conference for points per game, averaging 18.8.
The Wildcats fell to Ferris in a 61-58 defeat Saturday, Jan. 17 at Berry Events Center.
Perez led the Wildcat offense in the loss with 21 points.
Sall is 1-2 against Ferris, his former team, in his two seasons as NMU’s head coach. Sall served as the Bulldogs’ head coach from 2002-13, where he led the Bulldogs to four GLIAC titles and two NCAA tournament appearances.
Perez said the team’s chemistry has grown helping the ’Cats pull out wins.
“We’ve just started to come together as a group and we’ve been playing our best basketball lately,” Perez said. “Everything’s clicking for us right now and it feels great. We just have to make sure we don’t get too high or too low and just keep playing how we know best.”
