Northern Michigan University’s Mackenzie Holzwart, left, dribbles around a Bay College defender during their exhibition game played at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Oct. 22. (Photo courtesy NMU)

MARQUETTE — The Northern Michigan University women’s basketball team started coming back and couldn’t stop themselves until the Wildcasts registered a 74-53 victory over visiting Southwest Minnesota State on Friday afternoon at the PEIF gym in Marquette.

Despite NMU hitting the first two baskets of the game, the Wildcats’ offense dried up for much of the rest of the first quarter as the Mustangs assumed a 16-10 lead after one quarter.

SWMS actually bumped its lead to 18-10 early in the second before Northern first erased that deficit, then took the lead by halftime.

NMU tied it 25-25 on a pair of free throws by leading scorer Makaylee Kuhn with 3:06 left in the first half. When Kuhn hit another pair of freebies with 1:07 left in the half, Northern took a 31-29 lead and never trailed again.

While the Mustangs did manage to tie it 33-33 early in the third, the Wildcats started pulling away a few minutes later, quickly increasing their lead to double digits, 47-37, with 2:44 left in the period on a Kayla Tierney 3-pointer.

Still leading 54-45 entering the fourth, NMU kept increasing its lead until it reached 21 twice, including the final score when Alyssa Nimz made a layup with 18 seconds to go.

Kuhn finished with 21 points, hitting 8 of 8 on her free throws to lead the Wildcats’ overall 12-of-13 (92%) performance at the stripe. She also hit her only 3-point attempt, dished out a game-high five assists and pulled down five rebounds, even finding time to make Northern’s only blocked shot.

Teammate Mackenzie Holzwart added 14 points and game highs of nine rebounds and five steals while making four assists. Tierney scored 11 points, hitting a pair of triples, while Jacy Weisbrod added nine points, five rebounds and two steals. Sarah Newcomer accounted for eight points, four assists and four rebounds.

Sam Wall paced SWSU with 12 points.

NMU (4-0) remains home to face former GLIAC member Ashland at 3 p.m. Tuesday for Marquette and Upper Peninsula Day, then hits the road for Minnesota on Thanksgiving weekend, playing at St. Cloud State on Saturday and at Minnesota-Duluth on Sunday. Both those games start at 2 p.m. EST.

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