MARQUETTE, Mich. â€Â“ For the past 10 meetingsbetween the menâ€Â™s basketball teams from Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan University everything always went the Huskies way.  The last win for the â€Â˜Cats overthe Huskies was a 72-66 victory in Marquette during the 2000-01 season. 

Well that changed on Tuesday night at the Berry Events Center as the â€Â˜Cats took control of the game early and never looked back to breakthe skid at 68-56.  NMU with the win picked up their first GLIAC win of the season(1-6) and are now 6-10 overall on the campaign.  MTU is now 12-4 overall and5-3 in the conference.  Dean Ellis moved one victory closer to the all-time NMUmark as he currently has 298 career wins at NMU.  The record is 300 wins heldby Glenn Brown.  

NMU jumped out to a 12-2 lead about four minutes into thegame.  Then the Huskies chipped away at the lead and did have it down to fivepoints with 4:01 left in the half.  To end the first half the â€Â˜Cats went on a7-2 run.  Ricky Volcy made all seven points during the run on twothree-pointers and a made free throw.  NMU held the Huskies to 26.1 percentshooting (6-23) from the floor for the first 20 minutes.  The â€Â˜Cats were 11-24for 45.8 percent.

The second half of the game was all â€Â˜Cats.  NMU held thelead the entire half as the Huskies could only get as close as five points(54-49) with a little over five minutes left in the game.  Matt LePage made alay-up and a free throw then add Ladi Kabatâ€Â™s lay-up and free throw and theâ€Â˜Cats were up by 11 points about 30 seconds later at 60-49. 

MTU cut the NMU lead down to nine points with about threeminutes left in the game at 62-53, but that would be as close as the Huskieswould get on Tuesday night.  Jake Suardini made back-to-back lay-ups down thestretch to seal the win for the â€Â˜Cats. 

R. Volcy led all scorers with 26 points for the game andadded a game-high eight rebounds.  LePage added 17 points while Marco Volcyadded 12 in the win.  Josh Buettner was the lone Huskie to hit fordouble-figures with 16 points.  NMU had 16 assists on the night as four camefrom M. Volcy.  MTU committed 15 turnovers on the night.  The â€Â˜Cats registeredseven blocks and eight steals for the game.

NMU was 50 percent from the floor (25-50), 8-20 from the arc(40 percent) and 10-15 from the free throw line (66.7 percent) for the night. The â€Â˜Cat defense held the Huskies to 21-56 from the floor for 37.5 percent and4-18 from the three-point line (22.2 percent).  Both teams had 33 rebounds.

The â€Â˜Cats will take on Ashland on Saturday (Jan. 22) in aGLIAC match-up.