CHICAGO — Nothing wrong with trying on a fancy costume this time of the year for the Northern Michigan University women’s basketball team.

Usually wearing the practical duds of a great defensive team, these Wildcats found something with more sparkle on Monday night in dispatching GLIAC newcomer Roosevelt 90-52.

This was NMU’s highest scoring game of the season and only the fourth time the Wildcats have reached 80 points all season.

It was also the team’s highest offensive output since they scored 93 points against Lake Superior State in January 2019.

More importantly, the win Northern elevated back into a tie for second place in the league at 13-5, 19-7 overall. NMU is tied with Ferris State for second, and should have any tiebreaker on the Bulldogs after posting 27- and 30-point wins over FSU.

Grand Valley, ranked third in the nation, has clinched the conference title at 17-1 with an overall record of 27-2.

Wisconsin-Parkside is still nipping at the heels of the Northern and Ferris at 12-6, and the Wildcats meet Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at 6:30 p.m. EST Thursday in the second-to-last game of the regular season, which ends at 3-15 Purdue Northwest at 2 p.m. EST Saturday.

On Monday, Northern scored at least 20 points in three of the four quarters, taking a 34-25 halftime lead and putting it away in the third quarter by moving its advantage to 61-39 by the start of the fourth.

Sarah Newcomer led four NMU players scoring in double figures with 20 points, making 6 of 12 shots from the field that included a sizzling 5 of 7 on 3-pointers, a 71% success rate. She also was 3 of 3 on free throws and pulled down five rebounds.

Jacy Weisbrod added 16 points to the winning effort, making a trio of triples herself, while Negaunee High School product Alyssa Hill contributed 14 points by making 7 of 11 shots, all from 2-point range, and grabbing six rebounds.

Finally, Sydney Whitehouse came off the Northern bench to score 10 points as she made a pair of 3s and dished out four assists.

Alyssa Nimz led Wildcats rebounders with seven to go with two points and three assists, while Mackenzie Holzwart put on a passing clinic with a game-high seven assists as she scored five points.

Roosevelt (11-13, 9-9 GLIAC) was led by Marie Outlay with 11 points and a game-high seven steals.

NMU led in just about every statistical category, but especially with a 40-29 edge in rebounds and an incredible 27-12 edge in assists.

Those 27 assists, along with 13 steals and 33 field goals, were all season highs for Northern. In fact, the Wildcats hadn’t had a 27-assist game in at least two decades, according to NMU Sports Information.

Northern jumped out quickly, bolting to an 8-0 lead in the game’s first 3 1/2 minutes following a pair of 3s and a 2-point jumper by Newcomer.

Barely two minutes later, NMU had its first double-digit lead, 11-1, after a Whitehouse triple, but settled for a 20-12 advantage at the end of the opening quarter.

The Lakers — Roosevelt is the third GLIAC team with that nickname — got back into it by scoring the first six points of the second period to pull within 20-18.

But Northern stretched it back out to 34-25 by halftime before pouring it on in the third. The Wildcats needed a few minutes to get its lead back to double digits to start the second half, then put together a 9-0 run in 2 1/2 minutes later on in the quarter to up its lead to 53-34.

It got even bigger at 61-39 by the end of the period, then jumped into the 30-point range for all of the final 6 1/2 minutes, finally expanding to 40, 90-50, on an Ava Bates layup with 1:40 left.