Rocky too much for the Skylights in Frontier quarterfinals

No team has given the Montana State University-Northern Skylights more fits this season than the Rocky Mountain College Battlin' Bears. Still, while the Skylights lost to the Bears in all three regular season meetings, they were hoping the fourth time against the Bears would be the charm.

Rocky, however, would have none of it.

Tuesday night in Billings, the No. 24 Bears pulled away from the Skylights, 72-46 in a Frontier Conference quarterfinal inside RMC's Fortin Center. The loss eliminated the Skylights from the Frontier tourney, and ended their season with a 13-18 record.

"First off, credit Rocky," Northern head coach Chris Mouat said. "They broke us down, they were really good inside and out, and they really forced us into a poor shooting night.

"On the other hand, we have to shoot the ball better than we did," Mouat added. "We have been very good defensively all season long, but when we shoot it as poorly as we did tonight, that just puts way too much pressure on defense, and it just wasn't good enough tonight."

The Bears on the other hand, were plenty good enough. Against a stingy and confinement Northern defense, Rocky came out firing, shooting 56 percent in the first half, and jumping out to a commanding 23-8 lead. Northern did respond in the second quarter, and only trailed 37-23, but, it just wouldn't be enough, as the Bears used a 22-13 run in the fourth quarter to put the Skylights away.

"They jumped all over us," Mouat said. "They really punched us in the mouth to start the game. They were really good. But I am proud of our kids for responding to it. They dug themselves out of that early hole, and tried as hard as they could to fight their way back into the game, and I'm proud of them for that."

The short-handed Skylights, playing without injured starter Tiara Gilham, did fight hard in Billings, but it wasn't enough as Rocky shot 52 percent from the field, made four second-half 3-pointers and out-rebounded the Skylights 35-27. Markaela Francis was huge for RMC, scoring 20 points and grabbing nine rebounds, while Justyn Juhl added 16 points to help RMC (20-11) advance to Friday night's semifinals.

"Our kids rallied and I'm proud of them for that," Mouat said. "But they (Bears) were too much for us tonight. No excuses. They were just better than us tonight."

In their final game of what was a season of near-misses, the Skylights shot just 33 percent from the field and 25 percent from beyond the arc. Allix Goldhahn hit three triples and scored 13 points, while Sydney Hovde added 10 and Peyton Kehr chipped in with seven.

And it was indeed a season of close calls. The Skylights fought through injuries and a difficult non-conference schedule, only to come up short on so many chances to beat many Frontier teams on many nights. They played 16 conference games against nationally ranked opponents, and, when all is said and done, were a much better team than their record would indicate.

"We did continuously improve, and grow," Mouat said. "You saw that in conference play where we had so many chances to beat a lot of really good teams. And I'm really proud of the way our kids battled through adversity all year long. We had a lot of kids step up and grow into important roles. And we always seemed to bounce back, no matter how tough things were, our kids played hard and always showed resiliency, every single night. I'm proud of them for that, and I really do believe we were playing our very best basketball at the end of the season, and we preached that all year long, to just grow and get better and they did that this season."

Rocky Mountain 72, Skylights 46

MSU-Northern 8 15 10 13 - 46

Rocky Mountain 23 14 13 22 - 72

MSU-N - Jessica Curl 0-4 2-2 2, Sydney Hovde 4-5 2-2 10, Gokce Aslan 3-9 0-0 6, Allix Goldhahn 4-9 2-2 13, Peyton Kehr 3-5 0-0 7, Sabin Keo 1-4 0-0 2, Petra Sellin 0-1 2-4 2, Jada Nicholson 0-0 0-0 0, Hailey Nicholson 2-8 0-0 4, Lily Hilderbrand 0-7 0-0 0. Totals: 17-52 8-10.

RMC - Brooke Jones 3-4 2-2 9, Justyn Juhl 5-6 3-3 16, Markaela Francis 9-12 2-4, 20, Kloie Thatcher 3-6 2-2 9, Alecia Chamberlain 2-7 1-2 6, Alexi Smith 1-1 0-0 3, Kiana Corpus 1-1 0-0 3, Marissa Van Atta 1-7 2-2 4, Antuanisha Wright 0-2 0-0 0, Jessica Ellsworth 0-0 0-0 0, Olivia James 1-4 1-1 3. Totals: 26-50 13-16.

3-pointers: MSU-N 4-16 (Goldhahn 3,, Kehr 1), RMC 7-14 (Jones 1, Juhl 3, Thatcher 1, Smith 1, Corpus 1). Rebounds: MSU-N 27 (Hovde 6), RMC 35 (Francis 7), Fouls: MSU-N 13, RMC 11. Fouled out: None.