Lights win in Butte, again

They say, it’s hard to beat the same team three times in one season. But the Montana State University-Northern Lights made the feat look pretty easy Saturday night.

On the road in Butte, the Lights were gunning for a third straight win over the Montana Tech Orediggers, and thanks to some hot shooting, Northern did just that with a 76-62.

Saturday night’s win also allowed the Lights to stay in the top half of the Frontier Conference standings with just four games left. Northern is 8-6 in league play, and trails LC State by just one game.

Northern head coach Shawn Huse credited his team for being extremely focused at Tech.

"We established ourselves tonight and stayed focused throughout,” Huse said. “Credit Tech as they continue to play very hard ... never letting us get away comfortably.”

The Orediggers did play hard, but the Lights proved to be tough, on both ends of the floor.

Northern made four early 3-pointers to quickly establish a double-digit lead, and by the end of the first half, the Lights were ahead 36-27.

MSU-N played even better offensively in the second half, as Tyler Chandler and Dylan Tatarka hit from beyond the arc to put the Lights back up by double digits. Tech cut the lead down several times, behind the hot hand of Lukas Vining. But in the end, the Lights’ defense, rebounding, and an 18-of-22 performance from the charity stripe in the second half turned out to be the difference.

“We weathered their attacks and pressure defense,” Huse said. “And I was very proud of our guys for picking up a big late-season conference road win.”

Balance was again the key for the Northern offense, which shot 44 percent and made eight threes. Chandler scored a season-high 18 points and knocked in four bombs, while Tatarka finished with 13. David Straughter added 10, and the Lights got a combined 15 points from young guards Kevin Oberweiser and Devin Bray off the bench.

On the other end, the Lights did have to weather one of Tech’s best offensive nights of the season. Vining poured in a career and game-high 26 points, while Chris O’Neil added 15. But the Lights held the rest of the Orediggers in check, and outrebounded Tech 39-24, while also forcing 13 turnovers.

The win was also yet another key one for the Lights, who are 5-3 on the road in conference play this season. Now, Northern (19-7) will try and gain even more ground on the road when it travels to UGF and Carroll this weekend, two places the Lights lost last month.

“Every game from here on out is a big one and our guys are playing good basketball,” Huse said. So we hope to keep that rolling as we have yet another quick turnaround versus another formidable foe on Thursday (UGF).”

After this weekend’s road games in Great Falls and Helena, the Lights and Skylights come home to wrap up the regular season with games against UM-Western Feb. 24 and Rocky Mountain College Feb. 25.

Tech steals one

The MSU-Northern women were also trying to beat Montana Tech for a third time this season. Tech however, had other ideas.

In the third meeting between the two teams to be decided by five points or less, the Orediggers edged the No. 11 Skylights 54-49 Saturday night in Butte. The loss was the first time the Skylights, who dropped to third place in the Frontier Conference standings, have suffered back-to-back losses all season.

“When you look and see that we shot 24 percent from the field and 20 percent from three, that’s not going to get it done,” Northern head coach Chris Mouat said. “You have to give Tech credit. They made big shots, they made the hustle plays, and they made plays down the stretch. But the bottom line is we have to shoot the ball better. We just have to get that fixed because I thought we fought our hearts out defensively.”

The Skylights did fight defensively. Northern allows a Frontier-best 54 points per night, and that’s all Tech got Saturday night. The Skylights also got off to the start they wanted, especially coming off a heartbreaking defeat to Lewis-Clark State Thursday night, as they jumped out to a 10-5 lead in the first period, and increased it to 13-5 at the start of the second. From there though, Northern went nearly seven minutes without a score, and the Orediggers outscored the Skylights 15-8 to lead 20-18 at intermission.

The third quarter was just as tight, as MSU-N 35-32 by the end of the stanza, and while Northern had the game down to a single possession on more than one occasion in the fourth period, the Skylights just couldn’t get the basket they needed to get over the hump.

“We got off to a great start,” Mouat said. “But then we went cold and they built up a pretty good lead on us. I thought our kids showed a lot of grit to fight back and give us chances down the stretch. But again, offensively, we just did not play well. We didn’t execute very well, and even when we did, we missed open shots we needed to make. So we have got to get that cleaned up.”

The numbers offensively weren’t pretty for the Skylights. Natalee Faupel led the way with 16 points, but 12 of those came from the foul line. Sierra Richards had a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds, but those were Northern’s only two double-digit scorers. Tech didn’t shoot a lot better, going just 37 percent for the game, but Monica Landdeck scored a game-high 17 points and made two key 3-pointers, while Kourtney Coverdell chipped in with 15 as the Orediggers improved to 7-8 in the Frontier.

Now, Northern, which fell to 8-6 in league play, must quickly shrug off the two road losses, because the Skylights (18-7) have two more tough road games still to play. MSU-N travels to UGF this Thursday and Carroll College, which is just one game behind the Skylights, Saturday night.

“We’ve got work to do,” Mouat said. “We have two more really tough road games, and then two really tough ones at home. So we’ll find out what we’re made of these last four games.”

Montana Tech 54, Skylights 49

Northern 10 8 14 17 – 49

Tech 5 15 15 19 – 54

MSU-N - Cydney Auzenne 1-8 0-0 3, Molly Kreycik 3-8 0-0 9, Natalee Faupel 2-11 12-13 16, Peyton Filius 1-4 0-0 2, Jacy Thompson 2-12 4-4 8, Katie Fertterer 0-0 0-0 0, Sierra Richards 4-10 3-3 11, Shiloh McCormick 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 13-54 19-20 49.

MT - Hattie Thatcher 1-10 6-6 8, Kimi Heng 0-1 0-0 0, Monica Landdeck 7-12 1-2 17, Bailey Armbruster 0-1 0-0 0, Kourtney Coverdell 6-11 1-2 15, Martha Dembek 3-7 2-2 8, Kaylynn Coverdell 0-2 0-0 0, Sammy McGree 0-0 0-0 0, Callee Remsen 0-1 0-2 0, Kaylee Zard 0-1 0-2 0, Shay Potter 1-2 0-0 2, Rachel Farris 2-5 0-0 4. Totals 20-53 10-16 54.

3-pt FG: MSU-N 4-20 (Auzenne 1-5, Kreycik 3-7, Faupel 0-1, Filius 0-2, Thompson 0-4, McCormick 0-1), MT 4-7 (Thatcher 0-2, Landdeck 2-3, Coverdell 2-2). Rebounds: MSU-N 36 (Richards 12), MT 42 (Thatcher 9). Fouls: MSU-N 14, MT 20. Fouled out: none.

Lights 76, Montana Tech 62

MSU-N - Kevin Oberweiser 0-1 0-0 0, Dylan Tatarka 3-6 6-6 13, Seth Christiaens 0-0 3-6 3, Ryan Reeves 2-7 0-1 4, William Walker 2-4 0-0 4, Tyler Chandler 5-10 4-4 18, Justin Dunsmore 1-4 4-5 7, David Straughter 2-6 6-6 10, Badhasa Margarsa 3-4 0-0 7, Charles Porter 1-1 0-0 2, Devin Bray 3-4 1-1 8, Adam Huse 0-1 0-0 0, Cameron Epps 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 22-50 24-29 76.

MT - Kale Guldseth 0-5 0-0 0, John Chapman 3-6 0-1 7, Dylan Pannabecker 1-3 1-2 3, Chris O'Neill 4-10 6-6 15, Carson Dummer 2-5 1-2 5, Lukas Vining 11-17 4-6 26, Flemming Okeke 1-2 2-4 4, Wyatt Harwood 0-0 0-0 0, Jordan Jones 1-3 0-0 2, Sione Tuai 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-51 14-21 62.

Halftime: Northern 36-27. 3-pt FG: MSU-N 8-20 (Tatarka 1-1, Chandler 4-8, Dunsmore 1-2, Straughter 0-3, Margarsa 1-2, Bray 1-2, Huse 0-1, Epps 0-1), MT 2-4 (Guldseth 0-2, Chapman 1-1, O'Neill 1-1). Rebounds: MSU-N 39 (Reeves 8), MT 24 (O'Neill 5). Fouls: MSU-N 18, MT 26. Fouled out: Reeves.