Breaking Sports: Lights trounce Carroll in Frontier opener

MSU-Northern's Corbin Pearson, middle, splits two Carroll College defenders during Friday night's Frontier Conference men's basketball game in Havre.

Talk about a hot start. The Montana State University-Northern men's basketball team began defense of its Frontier Conference title in the best way possible - by thrashing rival Carroll College 85-66 Friday night at the Armory Gymnasium in Havre.

The Lights rode the wave from the 3-point-line as they went 12-of-20 and shot better than 60 percent from the field against the winless Saints. Northern got off to a strong start with a 13-3 run in the first half, behind two three's from Devin Jackson. Carroll closed the gap to 41-35 at intermission, but runs of 13-3 and 17-4 buried the Saints in the second half. During both spurts, Alfie Miller, Roshawn West, Jesse Vaughan and Allan Brown all nailed triples, as the Lights led by as many as 21 points.

Miller came off the bench to hit five three's and score a game-high 19 points. Vaughan added 17 points and Jackson scored 16. West chippedin with 12, while the Northern defense forced Carroll into 19 turnovers. The Saints (0-1, 0-8) got 17 points from Dennis Mikelonis.

Northern is now 1-0 in conference play and improved to 10-2 overall heading into Saturday night's home game with New Hope Christian. Tip off for that game will be 7 p.m. in the Armory.

For full coverage, see Monday's Havre Daily News.