Saints steal playoff win from Skylights

The Montana State University- Northern women's basketball team was surging. The Skylights were surging at the end of the regular season, and were surging for much of Wednesday night's Frontier Conference playoff game at the MSU-Northern Fieldhouse. But in the final moments of a wild game Wednesday night, it was Carroll College which made the final push. Carroll got two crucial turnovers in the final :17 seconds and overtook the Skylights 58-57 to advance to semifinal round, while Northern's season came to end. Northern was up 57-55 with :59 left to play in the game, but Carroll's Alex Dunn made a layup to tie the game, then a full-court press by the Saints forced Northern into a Dunn steal which led to two her making a free throw to put the Saints up by one. But the Skylights had the ball for a final game-winning possession. However, with the clock winding down, MSU-N's Zivile Gaizutyte couldn't and Taylor Keller couldn't connect on a pass which eventually skipped out of bounds as time ran out on MSU-N's season. "We didn't finish, we didn't execute at crucial times," MSU-N head coach Chris Mouat said. "We had turnovers and missed free throws down the stretch and you just can't do that. "Give Carroll all the credit in the world too," he added. "They are a very good team, and they did execute down the stretch. They made they plays when they had to and they found a way to get it done at the end." Indeed, the Skylights, who committed 22 turnovers on the night and missed several free-throw opportunities in the final four minutes, played well in a defensive slug fest for much of the game. Northern forced the Saints into 19 turnovers and Carroll went the first seven minutes of the game without a field goal. The first half was slow-paced and low-scoring, but the Skylights got a pair of 3-pointers by Awilda Hernandez and led 20-17 at halftime. "That was an interesting first half," Mouat said. "I thought both teams just played really hard. Our defensive effort was very good. And I thought we did a nice job of executing our offense for a good portion of the second half. But we just didn't do that down the stretch. We just didn't take care the basketball when we needed to." The Skylights went up by as much as nine points midway through the second half as Hernandez continued to shoot well from the outside. But the Saints refused to go away, and several Carroll three's helped the Saints to a 10-2 run which pulled them to within two points with just under three minutes left in the game. From there, MSU-N tired to hang on, but had to do it without star guard Samm Schermele, who fouled out with 1:44 to go. And Dunn took over for Carroll, scoring seven of the Saints final nine points. Gaizutyte paced Northern with 14 points and 14 rebounds, while Schermele also poured in 14 points. Taylor Keller added nine points and Jordan Bruursema scored six points off the bench, all in the second half. Carroll (17-13), which advances to play top-seeded Westminster Saturday night in Salt Lake City, got 12 points each from Dunn and Jill Jagelski. Meanwhile, Northern finishes the year at 16-15. The Skylights came a long way this season under one of the most difficult schedules in all of NAIA women's basketball. "Because of where we started, both back in November and in conference play, where we were 2-6 at one time, it shows a lot about what this team did this year that we were in a position to host this game tonight," Mouat said. "They made huge strides both as a team and as players this season, and the fact that we battled back and hosted a playoff game, finishing fourth in this league, I'm really proud of the kids and what they accomplished this year.