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ALLENDALE — It wasn’t the long arm of the law, but the long range of the shots that helped the Northern Michigan University men’s basketball team win on the road Saturday afternoon.

The Wildcats sank a season-high 12 3-pointers that helped them hold off Grand Valley State 78-70 and win their seventh game in a row.

Their streak is now more than halfway toward matching last year’s all-time program record-tying 13 consecutive victories, a string that began at almost the same time — just as November was turning into December — and didn’t end until early February last season.

Northern Michigan University’s Peter Lattos, top, gets fouled while going for a layup during a GLIAC men’s game played against Wisconsin-Parkside at Vandament Arena in Marquette on Dec. 7. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

With 10 of those wins coming in the GLIAC, it boosted that NMU team to its first conference regular-season title since the 1990s.

So far this season, four of the wins in the streak have come in the league for a perfect 4-0 GLIAC record and tie atop the conference with No. 4 nationally ranked Ferris State. Northern is 10-2 overall and received votes in a national poll last week, while the Bulldogs are 14-1 after losing their season opener.

Michigan Tech had also been in the first-place tie until Saturday, when the Huskies lost at Davenport.

The Wildcats have just one game this week, but it’s one of their biggest when they host MTU at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Vandament Arena. The WLUC-TV6 website shows that game and the women’s that precedes will be televised on Fox-U.P.

NMU’s losses this year came back to back just before the current win streak began, and both were in Minnesota to teams that were ranked in the nation’s top 10 at the time — Minnesota State-Moorhead and Minnesota-Duluth.

And actually the fourth win in the current streak came against another ranked team, then-No. 25 Upper Iowa.

Against Grand Valley on Saturday, the Wildcats made almost 40% of their triple tries — 12 of 31 for 39% to be exact — to offset even better long-range shooting by the Lakers, who were successful on 44% by making 10 of 23.

Interestingly, the two players who shared top scoring honors — NMU’s Dylan Kuehl and the Lakers’ Kaden Brown — each scored 21 points while making four 3-pointers, though Kuehl got his triples

Kuehl also made three steals and didn’t commit a turnover in 32 minutes court time.

Teammate Sam Privet carried a heavy statistical load, too, scoring 17 points and grabbing a game-high eight rebounds as he also didn’t turn the ball over in 31 minutes.

Northern’s Julien Smith added 15 points, including a trio of treys, while Gerald Gittens Jr. had eight points and three assists.

Another Wildcat starter, Brian Parzych, managed just three points but dished out easily a game-high seven assists to go with five rebounds.

Jalen Charity added in 14 points for Grand Valley, while Mason Docks scored 10.

Despite the final eight-point margin, the game see-sawed throughout with 13 ties and 16 lead changes, according to a game account from NMU Sports Information.

One key to Northern pulling out the victory was making 18 of 21 free throws (86%), including 8 of 8 in the final 65 seconds.

Way before that, though, neither team had more than a one-possession lead until Brown hit a 3 with 4:09 left in the first half to put the Lakers up 34-28.

They added a Brown layup a few seconds later to go up eight points before the Wildcats made a final push before halftime to whittle its deficit down to 38-36 at intermission.

Things remained the same to start the second half, with each of the first five baskets by the teams together either creating a tie, breaking a tie or changing the lead.

Then one of Kuehl’s triples he hit with 16:47 left gave NMU a 45-42 lead, an advantage they would hold onto for about 6 1/2 minutes.

They upped their lead to eight points twice in that span, 50-42 on another Kuehl 3 and 53-45 on a Jackson Dudek triple.

But the Lakers got the score back even, 53-53, with 10:15 to go on a Trevon Gunter trey before taking the lead for about a minute on a pair of free throws and a layup by Charity.

Yet another Kuehl triple evened the score 57-57 and erased the last lead GVSU would have. Though the Lakers soon retied it 59-59, Gittens hit a jumper with 6:33 remaining to put Northern ahead for good, 61-59.

He started an 8-0 run for a 67-59 lead, which expanded to 76-67 with 26 seconds left on a pair of Kuehl free throws.

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