Northern Michigan University freshman Makaylee Kuhn, front left, and Michigan Tech freshman Sara Dax, second from right, scrap for the ball in their GLIAC women’s basketball game played at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Thursday night. (Journal photo by Ryan Spitza)

“If we come play with that type of toughness and energy, we’ll have a chance.” — Troy Mattson, NMU women’s basketball head coach, on the Wildcats’ upcoming GLIAC Tournament game at Wisconsin-Parkside

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MARQUETTE — If there are any positives for the Northern Michigan University women’s basketball team to take into next week’s GLIAC tournament, it’s that they’re playing a lot better as of late.

Back on Dec. 15, the Wildcats suffered a huge blowout to rival Michigan Tech in a 40-point defeat in Houghton.

Thursday night was the rematch night at the Berry Events Center in Marquette, and NMU played a much tighter game this go-around, but ultimately fell to MTU for the seventh time in a row in a 51-48 heartbreaker.

The Wildcats wrapped up the regular season with a 13-15 record and a 10-10 mark in conference play, good enough for the No. 5 seed in the GLIAC tournament.

With its win, Tech clinched a spot in the tournament as the No. 7 seed, finishing 11-16 and 9-11.

Northern head coach Troy Mattson said it was the second quarter that cost his team, getting outscored 20-6 after going up 14-7 after one period.

“We played well, I think both teams played well on the defensive end,” he said. “It wasn’t easy out there and we just had a really bad second quarter. We had a couple of people in foul trouble that we didn’t want in foul trouble, and that kind of affected our offensive end.

“I was very happy with the effort we gave and the plays that we were making to give ourselves a chance to win.”

NMU will travel to No. 4-seeded Wisconsin-Parkside (15-13, 12-8 GLIAC) on Tuesday with a clean slate for Mattson and his team.

“We’ll set our sights on Parkside and if we come play with that type of toughness and energy, we’ll have a chance,” he said. “Everybody is 0-0 and we have a great example with our team from a year ago. We had an incredible tournament run. We’re playing better, we’re not quite there yet, but we’re playing better and we can go on a little bit of a run. We’ll see what happens.”

Tech held a 27-20 lead at halftime and it was a tightly contested game in the second half.

The third quarter ended with a 36-31 Huskies advantage as Northern’s Amber Huebner was able to cut her team’s deficit to two points with a triple when there was just under seven minutes to play. That made it 40-38 before Tech’s Ellie Mackay answered with a deep ball of her own to bring the Huskies lead back to five.

A pair of free throws from NMU’s Jessica Schultz brought the Wildcats within one point at 45-44. Erin Honkala picked up a steal for Northern after that and went up for the go-ahead jumper, but it rimmed out as the Huskies continued to hold the narrow lead.

Tech went up 51-48 with 25 seconds remaining and the Wildcats forced a turnover, allowing them to set up for one final shot.

Freshman Makaylee Kuhn was the one to take that shot, sending a prayer from the right corner, but the shot went beyond the rim and the Huskies picked up the rebound and ran the remaining few seconds off the clock.

Mackay and Cassidy Trotter paced the Huskies with 14 points apiece while Abbie Botz added eight.

NMU was led by Kuhn with 19 points while Schultz had 15.

Tech was just over 36 percent shooting for the game, going 17 of 47. NMU was a hair worse, going 15 of 53 from the field for 28 percent.

The Wildcats had 44 rebounds to Tech’s 26. Honkala picked up 13 of those while Botz had five for the Huskies.

Tech will travel to No. 2-seeded and nationally No. 4-ranked Grand Valley State (26-2, 18-2 GLIAC) to open the GLIAC tournament on Tuesday.

Email Ryan Spitza at sports@miningjournal.net.