Breaking Sports: Skylights shock Warriors

The MSU-Northern women's basketball team sure knows how to bounce back. On Friday night at the MSU-Northern Fieldhouse, the Skylights shrugged off last week's setback at Rocky Mountain College by stunning the nationally-ranked Lewis-Clark State Warriors, 55-48.

Northern's defense and its ability to outrebound the much taller Warriors was paramount. The Skylights set the tone in the first five minutes by grabbing five offensive rebounds en route to a 27-20 halftime edge. Northern held LC to just seven points through the first 14 minutes of the contest.

And the Skylights led from wire-to-wire, though the Warriors did their best to mount a charge. Laramie Schwenke and Jordan Bruursema hit back-to-back 3-pointers and the Skylights led 48-39 with eight minutes to play. But from that point, they would not hit a field goal the rest of the game. And they had to watch LC cut the lead all the way down to two points with 2:08 left. But a huge steal and blocked shot by Bruursema as well as a stellar 7-for-8 free throw performance by the Skylights in the final 1:30 helped them hold off the Warriors and spring the huge upset.

Schwenke scored 16 points and Nikki Tresch chipped inw ith 15. Bruursema, Laci Keller and Kylee Denham combined to pull down 20 of Northern's game-high 34 rebounds, including 10 on the offensive end. LC came in as the leading rebounding team in the country, but the Skylights won the battle of the boards, 34-28.

With the win, Northern is 3-3 in the Frontier and 16-4 overall. The loss was just LC's third of the season. The Skylights get another national power Saturday night when they host No. 20 Westminster at 6 p.m.

For full coverage, see Monday's Havre Daily News.