Digging Down: Montana Tech 58, MSU-Northern 14

For the first time this season, the Montana State University-Northern football team took to its home field but, unfortunately, things did not go as planned for the young Lights.

Northern, which forayed into Frontier Conference play for the first time this season with Montana Tech in town, got outplayed from start to finish by the Orediggers, who trounced the Lights 58-14 Saturday at Blue Pony Stadium.

The loss drops the Lights to 0-2 on the season and 0-1 in the Frontier, which is not the way new head coach Aaron Christensen wanted to get his tenure at Northern underway.

"We obviously have a lot of work to do to improve," Christensen said. "We have a young team and we are going to continue to work at getting better. But, we have a long ways to go. All we can do is go back and look at what we did wrong and try to improve as much we can this next week."

As far as the game went, it did not take long for Tech to establish itself as the dominant team. Following a Tech fumble, the Lights took over in Digger territory but failed to take advantage and gave the ball right back on a Jess Krahn interception.

Then, on the ensuing posession, Quinn McQueary, who transferred to Tech from Montana State, hooked up with Chris Lachance on a 55-yard touchdown to put the Diggers in front 7-0. Yet, the first-quarter onslaught was far from over, as Nolan Saraceni scored two of his four rushing touchdown to help Tech build a 20-0 lead at the end of the first stanza.

In the second quarter, it was more of the same. Saraceni found the end zone for the third time and McQueary found Clay Cavender in the end zone, this time from 7 yards out to put the Diggers ahead 34-0 at the half.

Early in the third, Northern did show some fight and put together a 12-play 65-yard drive that was capped off when Krahn hit Kagan Khameneh for an 18-yard touchdown to put the Lights on the board.

"One thing about this team," Christensen said. "Is that they don't quit. They came out and they fought hard in the second half. We just were able to be a little more consistent in the second half and it was important for our guys to see some positive results there in the second half."

Yet, just as it seemed that MSU-N may have been mustering a comeback, the Diggers put it to bed and, to be specific, Saraceni did, thanks to a 62-yard touchdown run that broke the back of the Lights and gave Tech a 41-7 lead. Then, the next Tech posession, Zach Winfield put the icing on the cake with a 61-yard touchdown run that made the score 48-7.

But, as Christensen alluded to, the Lights never quit and, even in the game's waning moments, they still fought valiantly. And in the fourth quarter, that fight paid off, as Northern found the end zone on a 6-yard run by Mario Gobbato, that made the final score 58-14.

Although there wasn't much that went right for Northern in the loss, one thing that did was the play of running back Zach McKinley, who despite the loss, finished with 151 yards on 29 carries. Khameneh finished with three receptions for 36 yards, while Krahn ended up 13-of-27 for 115 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

"Zach is a great runner and he is also a great leader for us," Christensen said. "Things were tough today, but he still did some good things for us, but he is also a guy that we can point to off the field and say 'hey guys, this is how it should be done.'"

On the Tech side of things, McQueary was outstanding, completing 18-of-21 passing attempts for 246 yards and two touchdowns. Saraceni finished the game with 98 yards rushing, while Winfield ended up with 95. Alec Brey caught six passes for 57 yards for Tech, while Cavender finished with six for 46. Lachance had four for 78.

Northern will look to capture its first win of the season this Saturday, when the Lights will travel to Billings to take on Frontier Conference rival Rocky Mountain College. The Lights and Battlin' Bears will get things started at 1 p.m.

"Right now, we just have to focus on getting ourselves better," Christensen said. "I haven't had much time to look at Rocky, we will and we will study them, but the most important thing we can to get ready for them, it just to make ourselves better."