What we saw this weekend

What a wild weekend of sports on the Hi-Line. From the MSU-Northern football team getting its first win of the season, to homecoming at Havre High School, and some crazy volleyball marathons up-and-down the Hi-Line, it certainly was action-packed.

Here's a few things that might not have been mentioned in Monday's sports page.

Whether it was Friday night or Saturday afternoon, Blue Pony Stadium was busy with crowd support this weekend. Both Friday's Blue Pony homecoming game and Saturday's Northern game against Western featured strong turnouts by fans, and that's exciting to see. The crowd support was great at both games.

Speaking of the Lights and Bulldogs, it's hard to believe, but, with all the passes being thrown between the two teams Saturday, there was just one interception. In a record-setting performance, Northern's Derek Lear was picked off just once in 45 pass attempts, while Western QB Jeff Logan put the ball up 35 times and wasn't intercepted. With that many plays and that many points, you usually don't see such a clean game, but the Lights and bulldogs were almost turnover-free.

And much has been made about Lear's amazing performance. It turns out, he actually threw for 532 yards, not the 485 that the DakStats had him for after the game. What's remarkable about that is, he attempted just 45 passes. In most games when a QB goes crazy like that, the attempts are somewhere in the 60's.

Fans of cross country should have took notice on Saturday too. The Havre Invitational is held in front of MSU-Northern, and if you couldn't tell, the course is about as grueling as it gets. There are fairly steep inclines and several key turns which alter the pace of a runner signifigantly. Kudos goes out to the Ponies for challenging themselves on that course all season long.