Lights do it again; Skylight comeback falls just short

The high drama in the Armory Gymnasium didn't end with the MSU-Northern Lights miracle win over Montana Tech Friday night. Instead, it carried all the way through Saturday's games with Lewis-Clark State. The No. 23 Lights erased a 17-point second-half deficit to beat the Warriors 88-84, while the No. 19 Skylights stormed back from a 22-point hole, only to fall to the No. 13 Warriors 58-49 on a wild Saturday night in Havre.

Despite six first-half 3-pointers from Alfie Miller, the Lights found themselves down 42-37 at half against LC State. Things got much worse as LCSC went on runs of 11-0 and 8-0 to take 60-43 lead with 13 minutes left. However, once again, Northern dug deep. Three's from Allan Brown and Miller, huge plays from Corbin Pearson, Mike LaValley and Will Perry, helped MSU-N go on a 16-2 run to get back in the contest. From there, the game was nip-and-tuck, but Pearson putback and another triple from Brown helped the Lights lead for good.

Miller went 8-of-10 from three and scored a game-high 26 points, while Perry scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds, and Pearson added 12 and seven. Jesse Vaughan also scored 10 points, while the Warriors got 23 points from E.J. Farris.

The win was MSU-N's fifth straight as the Lights improved to 9-3 in the Frontier and 21-5 overall. Northern is on the road to face UM-Western next Thursday night.

Meanwhile, in the women's game, the Skylights fell behind LCSC by a huge margin for the second time in seven days. Shooting just 11 percent in the first half, Northern trailed 32-8 at the break. The lead seemed insurmountable, but MSU-N rallied. The Skylights played much better defense in the second half, and at one point, cut the lead to seven points with 1:22 left. However, the Skylights couldn't quite get over the hump, falling to 8-4 in league play and 18-6 overall.

The Skylights, who travel to UM-Western Thursday night, were led by A'Jha Edwards 15 points and 15 rebounds.

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