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Explosive MSU-N offense closes fall camp with a bang

The Montana State University-Northern Lights might have not known who their 2017 starting quarterback was going to be before Friday morning's live scrimmage at the MSU-Northern practice fields. But one thing Northern knows for sure is, the offense can score, whoever is running it.

The Northern offense scored four touchdowns and senior Tommy Langley booted a pair of long field goals as MSU-N ended two weeks of fall camp Friday, and went into game week against Rocky Mountain College on a high note.

"We had a great camp, our offense looked sharp," senior tight end Kagen Khameneh said. "We're throwing the ball down the field like I've never seen before. We have all these young guys who have stepped right in. We have great chemistry on this team. We'll find out soon enough who the quarterback is, but I feel comfortable with all of them. I'm just really ahppy with where we're at right now."

The Northern offense should be happy. On just the third play of the day, junior tailback Trey Blanchard busted off a 30-yard touchdown run - the start of what would be a big day for the entire Northern offense.

Junior Tommy Wilson led the first drive at quarterback, but things didn't slow down when junior Holden Maki got his turn. After a couple of short passes, Maki zipped a ball over the top of the Northern secondary to Bryce Bumgardner for a 30-yard score.

Next, it was freshman Bryce Missey's turn at the helm, and again, the Lights didn't miss a beat. Missey completed a pass up the sideline to freshman Marvin Williams, then he threw a fade to Bumgardner in the corner of the endzone. The play was well defended by not one, but two Lights, but Bumgardner, who had a team-high four receptions, somehow can down with the ball for his second score of the day.

Langley would add field goals of 30 and 40 yards before red-shirt freshman Dylan Cook capped the scrimmage with a touchdown drive. Cook completed three short passes, and ripped off a powerful first down run, before finding freshman Xavier Alefaio for a 22-yard score.

In the race for the starting QB job, Wilson appeared to be the leader as he led the only drive with essentially the first-team offense. Maki was the leading passer on the day however, so head coach Aaron Christensen still has a tough decision on who to name as the starter for next Saturday's opener at RMC.

But overall, the Lights' offense was extrememly effective in the scrimmage, as Northern completed 20-plus passes to nine different receivers. On the defensive side, MSU-N did record four sacks, while linebacker Steven Fernandez led the way in tackles and nearly came up with one interception.

"That's the thing about these scrimmages," Christensen said. "Someone always wins, and not everyone's happy. The offense did play really well. The quarterbacks all looked comfortable moving the ball."

And while the young MSU-N defense may not have been happy to surrender 34 points in Friday's scrimmage, the Lights still broke camp very excited and enthusiastic about the season to come.

"We're miles ahead of where we were the last two years," Khameneh said. "In the spring, we all said, we're gonna do this. We're gonna play as one team. We're gonna do it together. And that's carried over into this camp. It's all been about the team. So I'm just really excited about where this team is headed this season."

The Lights will have the next two days off, before returning to practice Monday to begin preparing for next Saturday's opener in Billings. For complete Northern football previews, see the Havre Daily News next Tuesday-Friday.

 

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