Saints march away from Lights

For the second straight season, the Montana State University-Northern Lights got off to a great start with a non-conference win. Still, the young Lights knew after beating Arizona Christian back in August that, the Frontier Conference would not be easy.

And it’s obviously not.

Saturday in Helena, the Lights suffered their third straight Frontier loss of 2019, falling to Carroll College 54-26 inside Nelson Stadium, a venue the Lights still haven’t won in.

Carroll, which under new head coach Troy Purcell is trying to rebound from three straight losing seasons, has now won two straight. And while Northern had the Fighting Saints in a tight battle at halftime, Carroll proved it’s headed in the right direction with a 31-point explosion in the second half.

The Lights trailed the Saints just 23-13 in the first half, as Brenden Medina threw a pair of touchdown passes to Marvin Williams Jr., in the second stanza, the second of which came with just :54 left in the half.

From there however, the Saints wouldn’t give the Lights a break. On the opening drive of the second half, Medina was intercepted and one play later, Matthew Burgess scored on a 29-yard run to put the Saints up 30-13. Two drives later, Devan Bridges connected on a 10-yard strike to Tony Collins to put the Saints up 37-13, and while Medina would answer with another score by Williams Jr., Carroll would salt the game away with its next drive.

Leading 37-20, the Saints marched off a 20-play, time-consuming drive that ended in a Major Ali touchdown, making the score 44-20, and from there, the Lights never really threatened again as the Saints improved to 2-1 in Purcell’s inaugural season.

“When we were good, we were really good,” MSU-N head coach Andrew Rolin said. “But when we didn’t execute, when we didn’t do our jobs, you see what happens against a really good team like Carroll.”

And in many ways, it was an old-school type of Carroll win, as the Saints rushed for 307 yards, while holding Northern’s offense to just 49 yards on the ground. Burgess ran for 117 yards, the newcomer’s third straight 100-yard game, while Bridgewater threw for 173 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.

On the other side of the coin, Northern piled up offensive numbers through the air. Medina threw for a career-high 389 yards, with four touchdowns, but was intercepted twice, which gives the MSU-N offense 11 turnovers in its three Frontier games. Williams Jr., had a breakout game with three scores and 123 yards on eight catches, while Bryce Bumgardner had 88 yards and a score, and Damari Caul-Davis added 69 yards on three catches.

Defesnively, safety Japperi Powell had a huge game for Northern with 16 tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss.

Still, the turnovers and Northern’s inability to get anything going on the ground — the Lights rushed for just 49 yards despite racking up 438 yards of offense — was the difference.

“It comes down to who executes at a higher level,” Rolin said. “And they (Saints) did that better than us. We played well at times, really well actually. But whether it was not being in our gaps on defense, and giving up those long runs, or making mistakes at key times on offense, we just didn’t execute at a high enough level.

“But those things are all fixable,” Rolin added. “The talent is there, we have the guys. The culture is in place. We know we’re a good football team. But it’s matter of growing up fast and executing at a high level all the time, not just some of the time.”

The Lights (0-3, 1-3) come back to Blue Pony Stadium for a homecoming battle with surging Montana Tech this Saturday. It’s Northern’s final game before the annual bye week. Tech beat Southern Oregon Saturday to improve to 2-1 on the season.

Carroll 54, MSU-Northern 26

MSU-Northern 0 13 7 6 - 26

Carroll 14 9 14 17 - 54

First quarter

CC: Shane Sipes 43 pass from Devan Bridgewater (Josh Kraft kick)

CC: Tony Collins 7 pass from Bridgewater (Kraft kick)

Second quarter

CC: Major Ail 5 run (kick fail)

MSN: Marvin Williams Jr. 45 pass from Brenden Medina (kick fail)

CC: Kraft 32 field goal

MSN: Williams Jr. 17 pass from Medina (Hunter Riley kick)

Third quarter

CC: Matthew Burgess 29 run (Kraft kick)

CC: Collins 10 pass from Bridgewater (Kraft kick)

MSN: Williams Jr. 58 pass from Medina (Troy Dayak kick)

Fourth quarter

CC: Ali run (Kraft kick)

CC: Kraft 36 field goal

CC: Griphen Le 38 run (Kraft kick)

MSN: Bryce Bumgardner 5 pass from Medina (kick fail)

Individual statistics

Rushing: Northern, Cameron Taylor 9-29, Jett Robertson 6-18, Keagan Stroop 2-3, Brenden Medina 4-(minus 1). Carroll, Matthew Burgess 16-117, Kaleb Adams 10-65, Griphen Le 4-51, Major Ali 11-49.

Passing: Northern, Brenden Medina 25-41-2-389. Carroll, Devan Bridgewater 11-20-0-173.

Receiving: Northern, Marvin Williams Jr. 8-123, Bryce Bumgardner 7-88, Damari Cual-Davis 3-69, Jake Horner 2-38. Carroll, Shane Sipes 6-129, Joe Farris 2-19, Tony Collins 2-17, Jaden Harrison 1-8.