Lights crush Blue Hawks in home opener

Everyone knew heading into Saturday's MSU-Northern football home opener at Blue Pony Stadium, that emotions were going to be running high. The Lights knew it, the Dickinson State Blue Hawks knew and the fans knew it. But the Lights turned that emotion into a dominating 40-17, non-conference win over the Blue Hawks, giving MSU-N their first win of 2014.

Playing in their first home game in 11 years without Mark Samson, the Lights played inspired football, riding a four-touchdown, 209-yard rushing performance from sophomore Zach McKinley, and six sacks from the MSU-N defense to what was the Lights' fourth straight win over DSU.

For the second straight week, Northern also scored on its first possesion as McKinley punched in an 8-yard run. DSU answered with a field goal, but an 11-yard TD pass from Travid Dean to Trevor Baum, and a five-year McKinley run, led to the Lights building a 21-3 lead in the second quarter. The backbreaker for the Blue Hawks came with three minutes left in the half when the Lights marched 80 yards and capped the drive with a 2-yard McKinley score.

The Lights led 27-3 at the break and got two Jordan Reuschhoff field goals and a 66-yard McKinley run in the second half to win going away.

"I'm really happy for this team," said interim head coach Jake Eldridge. These kids have worked so hard. They've went through a lot of ups and down, two-a-days, last week's game at Tech, and everything. So this is great to come home and play as well as they did, and I'm very proud of them."

Dean finished the game with 280 yards and two scores, while sophomore running back added 66 yards on the ground, and the MSU-N offense racked up 589 yards and 303 on the ground. The Northern defense allowed just 171 total yards to a DSU offense that totaled nearly 400 against Rocky Mountain College last week.

The Lights (1-1, 0-1) return to Frontier Conference play when they host Rocky next Saturday in Havre.

For complete coverage of Saturday's game, see Monday's Havre Daily News.