Frontier has new applicants

The Oct. 29 deadline for schools to apply for membership to the expanding Frontier Conference has passed.

And on Tuesday afternoon, Frontier commissioner Kent Paulson announced four schools have applied for membership to the league.

Dickinson State University, as expected has applied to become a full member, while Jamestown College, Southern Oregon University and Menlo College have applied to be associate members. All three would likely participate in football and wrestling only if accepted to the Frontier, while DSU would participate in all Frontier Conference sports.

In all, the Frontier invited seven schools to apply for membership including the aforementioned schools, as well as fellow Dakota Athletic Conference holdovers Mayville State and Valley City State. Azusa Pacific was also invited, but the school said early in the process it would not seek membership to the Frontier in any capacity.

The next step in the expansion process will be for current Frontier presidents, athletic directors and administrators to meet in Billings on Dec. 6-7 for a vote on the existing applications.

It's not shocking the Carroll College Fighting Saints clinched yet another Frontier Conference title with their 42-3 win over UM-Western last Saturday in Helena.

It's a little more amazing however that the Saints have now won a remarkable 11 straight conference championships, and even more incredible is the fact they haven't lost a league game in their last 40 outings. Montana State University-Northern was the last team to beat Carroll. That loss came back in October of 2006 in Havre, and no Frontier school has knocked the Saints off since.

Rocky Mountain College came the closest so far this season, losing to the Saints by a combined nine points in two games. But with two games left in the regular season, Carroll is steam rolling towards the NAIA playoffs. The No. 2 Saints enter their final two games against Montana Tech and MSU-N averaging a gaudy 42 points per game on offense and a stingy 16 points per on defense. Both stats are Top 5 in the NAIA and with a lot of veteran players on both sides of the ball, there's no reason to think the Saints won't make a deep run in the playoffs this winter.

The fallout of a stunning outcome last Saturday in Havre, when Eastern Oregon came back from a 34-7 deficit against MSU-N can still be felt.

The Mounties (5-3, 5-4) took sole possession of second place in the Frontier and can likely pad that lead in the league standings this weekend when they host winless UM-Western. For their efforts, EOU also got a player of the week out of the deal, as senior defensive end Seath Kimball was named the league's defensive player of the week after registering four sacks against the Lights.

Heading into last Saturday's game at Blue Pony Stadium, Northern defensive end Travis Hjort had the league lead in sacks, but Kimball went past Hjort with his four sacks of MSU-N quarterback Derek Lear. Hjort also registered a sack on Saturday, and now trails Kimball by two. Kimball leads the NAIA with 10 sacks while Hjort is second with eight. Kimball led the nation in sacks a year ago.

There's no doubt Northern is likely still stinging from its loss to EOU. The Lights played perhaps their best half of football in two years when they raced out to a 32-point halftime lead. But what's tough to swallow is the fact the Lights have now lost two games to a very good EOU team by a combined seven points, and overall, three of MSU-N's five losses this season have been by less than a touchdown.

"This one's tough, because now we've lost a lot of games by pretty close margins," MSU-N head coach Mark Samson said. "And we had chances to win all of them. So that's pretty frustrating. But all we can do is put this behind us and go down and try and get a win against Rocky."

Northern is still within striking distance of a .500 season and has been one of the best teams in the Frontier since the Oct. 9 bye week. But wins in the last two weeks won't come easy for MSU-N. Saturday, the Lights travel to Rocky Mountain College (4-4, 4-5) and they wrap up their season with a trip to Carroll on Nov. 13.

The Bears are sitting in a position to finish off their best season in a long, long time. With a win Saturday over the Lights, Rocky would finish the conference season .500 or better for the first time in the last seven seasons.

While Carroll, EOU, Northern and Rocky have all played well since the bye week, the same can't be said for Montana Tech and UM-Western. The Bulldogs (0-8, 0-9) are still winless after their loss to the Saints last week, while Tech (4-4, 4-5) has lost three games in a row, including a 48-38 setback last Saturday in Billings. The Orediggers are still getting MVP-like numbers from Matt Komac, but the losses of running back Skylar Knuchel and defensive end Stephan Burns to injuries has taken its toll.

And Tech is in jeopardy of finishing behind the Mounties and Bears in the league standings, especially with a visit from arch rival Carroll next on the slate this Saturday in Butte.