By Journal Sports Staff

MIDLAND – The Northern Michigan men won for the second time in three games when they defeated Northwood 82-69 on Saturday afternoon for their second victory away from home and first true road victory of the season.

The Wildcats, who also defeated Southern Wesleyan 80-52 at the Kentucky Wesleyan Classic in late November, improved to 6-12 overall and 4-10 in the GLIAC. Northwood, vying for a top-eight position for a berth in the league postseason tournament, slipped to 10-10 overall and into a tie for ninth place in the GLIAC at 6-8.

NMU looked to have put the game away by halftime, leading 45-27 with one of its highest-scoring halves of the season. But the Timberwolves used an 8-2 run to start the second half and pull with 12, 47-35, just 2 1/2 minutes into the half.

They remained that close for several minutes until Northern ran off its own 11-3 run to take a 62-42 lead with 12:15 left, capped off by freshman Isaiah Johnson’s tip-in after he made four straight free throws. NU never got closer than 13 points the rest of the way.

Despite coming off the bench and only playing 11 minutes, Johnson was among four double-figures scorers for the Wildcats with 11 points. He made every free throw, 2-pointer and 3-pointer he attempted.

Johnson’s 6-for-6 day at the free-throw line was just the tip of the iceberg for Northern, which not only was a perfect 15 of 15 at the stripe but made more than 50 percent of its 3-pointers – 11 of 21 for 52 percent – and exactly half its 2s, 17 of 34.

The Wildcats’ Marcus Hall led all scorers with 19 points as the junior guard made four triples and didn’t commit a turnover in 35 minutes court time. Sophomore guard Jordan Perez added 16 points, also hitting four treys, while senior guard Terry Nash had 11 points, five assists, three steals and four rebounds.

Junior center Alex Mustert added nine points and two blocked shots to his game-high nine rebounds for Northern.

Northwood was led by Zach Allread and Dylan Langkabel with 12 points each as Maurice Jones added 10 points and three steals.

The Wildcats built a 15-3 lead less than five minutes into the game as Hall hit a pair of 3s; Nash made two layups, one resulting in a three-point play; and Mustert sank two layups.

The lead remained in double digits for all but two short instances for the rest of the first half.

The Wildcats return home to the Berry Events Center to take on Upper Peninsula rival Michigan Tech at 8 p.m. Monday. Like Northwood, the Huskies are just outside the postseason bubble at 6-8 in the GLIAC.

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