By Journal Sports Staff

BIG RAPIDS – The Northern Michigan University men’s basketball team couldn’t dig itself out of a big hole early and lost 96-79 at Ferris State on Saturday afternoon.

Though a Marcus Hall jumper gave the Wildcats a brief 2-0 lead, Northern found itself in a 17-4 deficit less than seven minutes into the game as the Bulldogs’ James Chappell scored seven points in a span of less than two minutes.

NMU slipped to 4-9 overall and 2-7 in the GLIAC with the loss while Ferris improved to 12-3 and 6-3.

Hall, a junior, led Northern scorers with 19 points as he hit on 3 of 4 3-pointers. Sophomore teammate Jordan Perez added 14 points while senior guard Terry Nash had 11 points, five rebounds and three assists. Freshman point guard Naba Echols added nine points to a five-assist, three-steal effort.

The Wildcats worked their way back into the game after falling into the early hole, going on an 11-5 run after that to get within 22-15 midway through the first half.

But Northern wouldn’t get closer than six points before the break and trailed 43-36 at halftime.

A Perez 3-pointer briefly got the deficit back to six, 45-39, a minute and a half into the second half. But when Ferris hit a layup by Drew Cushingberry and jumper by Jared Stolicker 40 seconds apart, it built the lead into double digits where it would stay the rest of the way.

Chappell and teammate Quentin Ruff led all scorers with 20 points apiece as five Ferris players reached double figures scoring, including Stolicker with 17 to go with a game-high 12 rebounds.

The Wildcats return home to play Saginaw Valley State at 8 p.m. Thursday.

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