David Archambeau/For the Gazette Michigan Tech forward Janie Tormanen attempts a layup between a pair of Davenport defenders during a game Thursday at the SDC Gym in Houghton.

HOUGHTON — At halftime, the Michigan Tech Huskies women’s basketball team found themselves down by five points, 32-27, to the Davenport Panthers Thursday night at the SDC Gym. A 49-point second half helped drive the Huskies to their ninth win of the season, 76-66, over the Panthers.

Huskies coach Sam Clayton said that she did not pull any punches between halves in an effort to impress upon her squad a sense of urgency, especially defensively.

“I’m going to be honest, it wasn’t too nice,” she said. “I don’t regret what I said, by any means, but it hopefully gave them a little fire and motivation, because we didn’t seem to have it in the first half. So it was zero changes of game plan, and a lot more executing the game plan.”

The team responded well, holding the Panthers to just nine points in the third quarter while scoring 20 themselves. They followed that up with a 29-point fourth quarter to extend their lead to 10 before the final buzzer.

Fifth-year forward Janie Tormanen had her fourth straight game where she finished in double figures with 22 points, a career high for her in Black and Gold, and nearly a double-double thanks to eight rebounds as well.

For Tormanen, taking advantage of how teams are defending her when she shares the floor with junior forward Maja Kozlowska has been a boon for her, as she finds more favorable matchups.

“I guess knowing when to post and when I have an advantage (helps),” said Tormanen. “I’ve been a post my whole life, and having Maja, who’s bigger, more of a true five, to have their post guard her, I feel like I’m always at an advantage on their defender, because they’re best post defender’s on Maja. So, I think just playing quickly, knowing when to seal, and my teammates being a lot better at finding me, having post entry. I said earlier we’ve been practicing that, so I don’t know, just knowing when to be aggressive, when it’s 1-on-1, and when to kick. They let me go a lot 1-on-1 today.”

The Huskies, who are now 9-10 overall and 6-5 in GLIAC play, also got strong minutes, especially in the second half, from freshman guard Kendall Standfest, who finished her night with 13 points and eight rebounds, despite not scoring a point in the first half.

“She stayed aggressive, and I think that speaks volumes, to not score in the first half, and our team wasn’t playing as well, but she was able to still bring a confidence and energy, attack the basket hard, whether she was scoring or not, because she also had four assists,” said Clayton. “She was creating for other people when she was attacking, too. So, great to see that out of her, and I hope she continues to do that.”

Senior guard Isabella Lenz also got to double figures, scoring 11 points, none bigger than a 3-pointer with time expiring at the end of the first quarter, which pulled the Huskies back within eight, 20-12, at the time.

Clayton was not happy with the game’s first 10-20 minutes.

“Obviously (we had a) slow start,” she said. “Disappointing, because we’ve had a few of those, and I feel like we should be past that. Ultimately, it’s on me. I have to get us ready in practice. I have to find a way to get them to come out with that fire. So, much of it was we were just so slow on our defensive rotations, even just our ball screen execution, how we were defending.

“We just weren’t sharp. We weren’t sharp. So, we have to prepare them better. So we will be prepared coming into Saturday. Obviously, (that game is) going to be even tougher, but great to see the response in the second half. We didn’t just shut down and continue to spiral, but we’re able to really slow them down in the third and then get our offense going.”

In the second quarter, Tormanen had a strong sequence about halfway through the second quarter when she made a layup, drew a shooting foul, and then put one off the glass and in. With her seven points in that stretch, the Huskies whittled down the Panthers’ early advantage to one, 22-21.

While the Panthers did widen that lead back up to five by half time, that was as far ahead as they could get from there. To start the second half, the Huskies eliminated that advantage in a quick sequence that saw sophomore guard Alyssa Wypych drain a 3-pointer and Tormanen draw a foul and make both free throws to even things at 32-32 in just 50 seconds.

“At that point, it was huge,” Clayton said. “How you come out is huge, and that’s to start the game, that’s to start the half, to start each quarter. That’s all the time. So, it was huge that we were able to come out like that in the second half, get a couple big buckets, get some stops and really turn things around.”

Less than four minutes later, Lenz and sophomore guard Dani Nuest hit back-to-back 3-pointers nine seconds apart to put the Huskies up seven, 40-33.

From there, the Huskies never let the Panthers get any closer than four points from that point forward.

UP NEXT

The Huskies return to action Saturday, as they host the top-ranked Grand Valley State Lakers at 12 p.m. at the SDC Gym.