Justin Kuehl

HOUGHTON — Michigan Tech only held the lead once, but that was plenty as the Huskies rolled Northern Michigan University 73-51 in a men’s college basketball game played at Student Development Complex Gymnasium on Tuesday.

Negaunee High School graduate Trent Bell scored 10 points and pulled down an MTU-high eight rebounds in the victory that kept the Huskies atop the GLIAC North at 9-5 in the GLIAC and overall. NMU is last in the tightly contested North, but only three games back of the Huskies at 6-8.

NMU was led by Justin Kuehl with 10 points.

The Wildcats opened the scoring with a Tre Harvey layup less than 30 seconds into the game, but it was all Tech for the rest of the first half.

MTU tied it 2-2 on an Owen White jump shot less than 30 seconds later, then took the lead for good when Carter Johnson sank a 3-pointer about two minutes in.

Those Husky baskets were part of a 12-0 run that made it 12-2 about five minutes in.

While the Wildcats kept their deficit in single digits for awhile, another Tech 9-0 run made it 26-8 with 7:56 left in the first half on a White triple.

Finally, MTU completed the first half with an 11-2 run over the last 3 1/2 minutes to make it 49-20 at halftime.

This game’s runs turned in Northern’s favor at times in the second half. After falling behind by a game-high 32 points at 52-20 soon after intermission, NMU went on an 11-0 run culminated by a Noah Parcher layup with 14:54 left to get within 52-31.

But the Wildcats wouldn’t whittle their deficit to under 20 points at any point the rest of the way.

Dolapo Olayinka added eight points and a team-high seven rebounds for NMU.

White finished with a game-high 22 points for the Huskies, including four 3-pointers, as he grabbed six rebounds. Teammate Eric Carl added 13 points with a trio of triples.

There were several statistics that went in NMU’s favor despite the lopsided final margin. The Wildcats made 17 of 20 free throws (85 percent) to just 2 of 5 for Tech, and Northern had 12 steals, though the Huskies had just 13 total turnovers.

NMU returns to Marquette for its final home series of the regular season against Davenport at 1 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.

One more series follows, at Purdue Northwest on Feb. 26-27, with game times yet to be announced.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.