MARQUETTE – After suffering a tough last-second loss Saturday against Tiffin, the Northern Michigan University men’s basketball team almost had to deal with another one on Sunday.

The Wildcats opened on an 8-0 run and held a 23-point advantage during the first half against Ohio Dominican. The Panthers mounted a huge comeback but Northern held the Panthers off for a 75-71 win.

Jordan Perez led NMU (4-6, 2-4 GLIAC) with 17 points, while Isaiah Johnson notched his first double-double as a Wildcat with 13 points and 10 rebounds. ODU’s Ronnie Williams led all scorers with 29 points. Northern also outrebounded the Panthers 47-31.

“It was certainly a key win for us, especially after the heartbreaker (Saturday),” NMU head coach Bill Sall said. “I thought we played way better, but consistency is what we are striving for and we are not there yet.

“We had some good performances. We had (Marcus) Hall (with 15 points) and Perez in double figures. That’s the first time we’ve had that this year and we’ve been dying to have that happen.

“I’m really happy for Isaiah. You always hope that your freshmen in that second semester start to get it figured out and I thought he did a great job of that tonight by coming in and not having fear and grabbing rebounds and making some active plays. That was great to see.

“Everybody contributed and this is a nice stat sheet to see. When every player that played scores for you and also gets a rebound, that’s huge. We need to continue to do those sorts of things and those are the effort plays that we need to see continue as we go down this stretch.”

The Wildcats started by feeding the ball inside, and with two treys by Perez, they built a 20-3 lead. Northern kept its hot shooting touch and continued to build the lead. However, the visiting Panthers (3-9, 0-6 GLIAC) didn’t go away and went on an 11-0 run to close out the first half, pulling within 12 points at the half, 34-22.

NMU built its lead up to 16 points again less than five minutes into the second half.

But the Wildcats couldn’t deliver the knockout blow to ODU. The Panthers started to hit shots from beyond the arc, especially Williams, who finished with five triples. NMU still held an 11-point advantage around the midpoint of the second half thanks to a layup by Alex Mustert and a 3-pointer by Hall, but ODU kept chipping away.

Williams knocked down another 3 with 8:30 left to cut ODU’s deficit to six at 56-50, and later, he hit two free throws to pull his team within four.

“We got very tense, I thought,”?Sall said. “If you look at where we were defensively, we were so good in the first half because we played a little more intense.

“We didn’t do that to start the second half, for whatever reason, and now we’ve got to figure those sorts of things out because we kind of let them back in the game.

“Now on this (the offensive) side, we got a little tight, so now we’re missing layups. I don’t even want to know how many we missed today that were around the basket, but a lot of them.”

Northern never relinquished its lead, though, and answered every big shot that the Panthers had. When Dominican’s Michael Simon hit a long 3-pointer with 3:45 left, Northern guard Terry Nash made a jumper and then with 2:30 left, found Hall in the corner.

Hall then knocked down a trey, bringing the Wildcats’ bench to its feet. Williams hit two more treys including one with 11.2 seconds left to keep ODU hanging around, but Nash made four straight free throws down the stretch to clinch the win.

“That’s what a senior needs to do for you and he (Nash) did it,” Sall said. “He stepped up to the table and that’s what we expect.”

The Wildcats begin a four-game road trip Thursday at Ashland and Sall thinks that it was important to enter this leg of the season with a win.

“Confidence is a big thing and that’s why a win here was big,” Sall said.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 246. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.