MARQUETTE – Familiarity bred a close, competitive women’s basketball game at the Berry Events Center on Thursday night.

On paper, Northern Michigan University looked like a decided favorite against Lake Superior State. The Wildcats entered the game in third place in the grueling GLIAC North Division and tied for fourth overall in the 16-team league.

The Lakers, meanwhile, were a distant seventh in the North.

But the game started close and stayed that way right down to the final buzzer before the Wildcats pulled out a 69-64 victory to bump their record to 11-6 overall and 9-4 in the league.

Senior All-GLIAC guard Alyssa Colla bailed out the Northern offense, scoring a career-high 33 points that included a 4-of-6 night from 3-point land and 7 of 8 free throws.

“We were fortunate that Alyssa made some baskets down the stretch,” 10th year NMU head coach Troy Mattson said.

LSSU had more than the usual familiarity with Northern since first-year head coach Kristen Rogers had been an NMU assistant the past three seasons.

In a bit of foreshadowing for this game, the Lake State website biography on Rogers quotes Mattson as saying, “She has a great idea about the GLIAC, knows the players and their tendencies.”

Of course, Mattson had done his homework on the Lakers, too.

“They were the top 3-point shooting team in the league, so we decided we wanted to try to take that away from them,” he said.

That they did. The Lakers entered the game averaging nearly 21 triple tries a game. On this night, they had but one, a trey knocked down by April LaCross late in the first half.

“That really goes against what we usually want to do, to keep teams from getting to the rim,” Mattson said.

But the Wildcats gave layup opportunities to LSSU, though to their credit, many were contested and caused the Lakers to miss a number of what initially looked like easy chances.

At the other end of the court, the Lakers’ smaller, quicker players bottled up the NMU offense and kept the Wildcats on the perimeter throughout much of the first half.

Only after several adjustments did Northern, led by Colla, find ways to close in on the basket.

“Lake Superior is a tough team, just like they were last year,” Colla said about a team that upset NMU in Marquette a season ago.

Said Rogers: “This was one of our better efforts.”

One of her players, Westwood product Megan Manninen, agreed.

“We kind of knew they would try to take that away,” she said about her team’s 3-point shooting. “We had some bigger post players in there and that helped.”

Statistics showed the lead changed hands 14 times on Thursday as the teams were never more than a possession apart until LaCross hit her 3-pointer late in the first half.

It keyed an 11-2 run that gave Lake State its biggest lead, 32-26, at halftime.

The Lakers, who fell to 7-10 overall and 3-10 in the GLIAC, kept the lead for the first 7 1/2 minutes of the second half. That was when Colla hit back-to-back 3s – the first a long-range shot, and the second, two minutes later, a traditional “and-one” three-point play.

The teams traded the lead for a few more minutes until sophomore Bre Gaspervich hit a triple with 8:17 to go that gave Northern the lead for good.

In this supposed mismatch, the Wildcats should’ve pulled away for the easy victory. Though Northern extended its lead to 54-46, they weren’t able to run away and hide.

LSSU kept hanging around until the final minute, when Tamara Novic made a layup with 47 seconds to go and LaCross a jumper with 13 seconds left to cut NMU’s lead to 64-62.

In desperation, the Lakers fouled Colla immediately on the ensuing inbound pass and she made both free throws.

Just after entering the game for the first time, teammate Alyson Matkovich was fouled with a second left and she hit 1 of 2 free throws for the final margin.

Colla added five rebounds, two assists and a steal to her big scoring night. Fellow senior guard Lauren Gruber added 13 points and five rebounds.

After some cold early shooting, Courtney Lemon pulled down a game-high eight rebounds and scored eight points, including a pair of 3s in the second half.

Kandace Crittendon scored 20 points for the Lakers, Novic had 11, and Mackenzie Edwards and Natalie Peterson 10 each. Manninen had two points and three assists in 22 minutes of playing time.

Thursday was the start of three games in five days for the Wildcats, who host Northwood at 11 a.m. Saturday, then go to Michigan Tech for a 5:30 p.m. game Monday.

LSSU heads to Houghton to play the Huskies at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.