David Archambeau/For the Gazette Michigan Tech guard Pete Calcaterra drives around a Wisconsin-Parkside defender during a game Thursday at the SDC Gym.

By DAVER KARNOSKY

dkarnosky@mininggazette.com

HOUGHTON — It’s been awhile since they have been here.

With an 80-54 win Thursday night, the Michigan Tech Huskies men’s basketball team are on a three-game winning streak as they topped the Wisconsin-Parkside Rangers at the SDC Gym in their GLIAC openers.

The Huskies improved to 5-3 on the season, and 1-0 in conference play, and they could not be more happy with where they are at, considering the Huskies have won 10 and 11 games each of the last two years, respectively.

“It’s awesome,” said Huskies coach Josh Buettner. “It’s been an interesting journey to get here, especially with these juniors and seniors, because of the last two years.

“Honestly, our record wasn’t very good, but by February, we were always one of the better teams in the league. I mean, the one year we made a run to the championship, and last year I felt like we were playing as well as anybody. You get yourself in tough road games in the tournament, you can get beat. That’s why we were really focused on trying to get off to a better start this year.”

With wins in the past three games over then-No. 3 Minnesota State-Moorhead, then St. Cloud State eight days ago, and now the Rangers, the Huskies are playing with confidence.

“Our guys have some confidence,” Buettner said. “We are trying to make sure we don’t give anything away, and that we’re constantly getting better.”

Within five minutes, the Huskies were already up 14-2, thanks to eight early points from junior guard Marcus Tomashek, who finished with a season-low 12 points. But, at the same time, the Huskies saw junior forward Dawson Nordgaard get 14, senior guard Pete Calcaterra put up 12, freshman guard Ty Fernholz score 12, and senior guard Adam Hobson add 10.

“I’m hoping there’s more and more of those,” said Buettner, when asked about having a game where Tomashek was not the team leader in points. “Obviously, it’s nice not to have quite the beating, and he did take quite a beating tonight. I mean, he still ended up on the floor several times in limited minutes, but that balance is huge. There’s going to be big games where, obviously, we’re going to need Marcus to go get us 20, 30 points, but when we can have these nights where there’s five guys in double figures, then you become really, really hard to guard.”

A big part of that balance was the play of Nordgaard, who is continuing to take steps to be more effective inside this season. With his 14 on Thursday, he has scored in double figures in seven of eight games this season.

“Just knowing that I got my teammates on the perimeter (makes a difference),” said Nordgaard. “When I’m in the post, if I see someone doubling, I know I have shooters that I can confidently pass it to, and they’ll make a play.”

Nordgaard felt that the team started the game the right way, and that is what led to a 22-3 advantage before the game was 10 minutes old.

“We came out with a lot of energy right away, and I think that really helped us,” he said. “We just kept it going throughout the whole game, and I think that the bench brought a lot of energy and it really helped us.”

Eight players came off the bench and scored at least one basket in the game for the Huskies, including Fernholz and Hobson, who led the way.

“I think it starts with we’re coming out pretty focused defensively, and then when we go to the bench, it’s some good defense too,” Buettner said. “We’re starting on that end of the court. We’re coming in locked in, competing, not giving up anything easy. I think we’re using that to kind of fuel our offense, which is good.”

Having Nordgaard and Calcaterra push things inside is opening up options on the outside for the Huskies.

“Our inside game has been really good,” said Buettner. “That’s opening some stuff up. When you can play inside all basketball, it’s something we haven’t had as much of the last two years, because I don’t know that Dawson was ready for it yet. Pete being at the four helps him create some of that inside game. Now that we can throw it in there again, it kind of opens up a lot of other things.”

UP NEXT

The Huskies return to action Saturday when they host Purdue Northwest at 2 p.m. in the SDC Gym.