UNIVERSITY CENTER -- James Toohey scored a game and season-high 18 points with five rebounds for the Saginaw Valley State University Men's Basketball team, but that was not enough as the Cardinals dropped their GLIAC opener on Thursday (Nov. 29) night to Michigan Tech by a final score of 61-56.

SVSU was in a back-and-forth battle with the Huskies for much of the opening half, leading by six points with the score 23-17 at the 7:31 mark after consecutive buckets from Fred John Jr. A triple from Toohey with 5:51 showing gave the home team its largest lead of the game of seven points at 26-19. 

Michigan Tech worked its way back from there, scoring 13 of the final 15 points to take a 32-28 lead into the halftime break. 

The Huskies worked the lead up to double digits with just under 10 minutes to play in the game and led by as many as 12 points (53-41) as 7:14 remained to play. 

The Cardinals, however, would not go away and rattled-off six straight points to cut the deficit to 53-47 after an Avery Lewis layup with 4:33 to go.

After Tech pushed the lead back to seven points, Saginaw Valley got four straight points from Toohey to trim the Husky lead to 54-51 with 2:47 remaining.

Michigan Tech worked its way back out to a seven point lead though and maintained the edge throughout, closing-out for the 61-56 win.

Inside the Boxscore

• Toohey's game-high and season-high of 18 points garnered him Meijer "Player of the Game" honors. He added five rebounds as well, going 7-13 shooting and 3-6 from beyond the arc.
• John grabbed a game-high 11 boards and had eight points with an assist. The 11 rebounds are a season-high for the junior.
• Myles Belyeu added 10 points with four rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block. 
• Tech shot 41.4% from the floor while the Cardinals hit at just a 36.2% clip. 
• The Huskies posted a slim 40-37 edge in rebounding and 32-28 advantage in points in the paint.
• Michigan Tech's bench had 22 points compared to SVSU's eight.
• Each team had 10 turnovers in the matchup. 

Up Next...

Saginaw Valley continues at home for a Saturday (Dec. 1) GLIAC matchup versus Northern Michigan University. Tip-off is set for 3:00 p.m. at O'Neill Arena. The Wildcats are coming off a 76-64 loss at Northwood on Thursday night.

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