Skylights going after more goals

When the Montana State University-Northern Skylights nearly knocked off eventual NAIA national champion Oklahoma City in the 2014 NAIA Sweet 16 last March, it was a bitter loss, but was also the culmination of an incredible season.

Yes, the 2013-14 season was one the Skylights, and throngs of Northern fans would never forget. But it was also going to be hard to top.

A year later however, the Skylights have indeed topped their magical run of last season, and they are hoping that over the course of the next eight days in Independence, Missouri, that they can reach heights that haven’t been seen in Havre since the 1993 Skylights won an NAIA national championship.

“I think everybody knows what we want the end result to be,” said Northern senior and Frontier Conference Defensive Player of the Year Taylor Cummings as the Skylights prepared to leave for their second straight national tournament Sunday. “It’s been an incredible season. It’s been a lot of fun. But we still have goals we want to get, and we’re going to do down there and focus on each game, and try and get those goals.”

Goals have been a part of Northern’s season from day one, and the Skylights have achieved a lot of them. But getting back to the national tournament was certainly one of the biggest on their list. And head coach Chris Mouat said it’s his team’s veteran presence and its resiliency that has led the Skylights to this point.

“I think the thing that stands out the most is, this team has never gotten too low, they’ve always bounced back,” he said. “Whether it was a tough loss, or an injury, we’ve never let the season get away from us. We always bounced right back from those types of things. Even right from the start, not having Rachelle Bennett, that was a huge loss to our team. We weren’t sure where we were going to be without her. But players stepped up and filled that role all season long, kind of by committee. So I think the biggest thing for us has been, just being able to be consistent and being able to fight through adversity. This team has shown a lot of heart and character this season.”

And what a season it’s been. The Skylights went 11-3 in the Frontier and a whopping 27-5 overall. Yes, there were tough losses on a schedule that saw Northern play seven games against nationally ranked opponents in a two-month stretch, but at the same time, there were so many more highs than lows.

MSU-N was again a national leader in defense, allowing just 50 points per game. The Skylights ranked in the NAIA’s Top 20 in 18 different statistical categories, and they achieved big goals like finishing high enough in the Frontier to host a Frontier semifinal game and reach the conference championship game. They swept rivals Lewis-Clark State and Carroll College, beat arch rival UGF twice, and played two epic games against now four-time Frontier champion Westminster.

And all of that has led Northern back to the national tournament, and the veteran Skylights couldn’t be more excited to be there.

"I am really excited. It's been our goal all year long, so it's a big deal," said MSU-N senior Taybra Teeters. "I think everyone wants to get further than we did last year. I mean, we would love to win the whole thing, but definitely we want to go further than we did last year.

"We are pretty excited. It's always going to be our goal to go every year but actually make it two years in a row that's great," added sophomore guard Molly Kreycik.

Goals have been a part of the Skylights’ progress from day one, and now that the national tournament is finally here, they have some new goals on the agenda. Northern is seeded third in its quarter of the 32-team draw, and has been ranked in the NAIA Top 10 for the last two months. That’s a little different than when the Skylights went to the national tourney a year ago, as somewhat of an underdog. But now, as the Skylights prepare to face Lindsey Wilson in the first round of the national tourney Wednesday afternoon, they aren’t underdogs anymore. Instead, they are a team with national respect, they bring the Frontier Player of the Year in A’Jha Edwards, the Defensive Player of the Year in Taylor Cummings and the league’s Coach of the Year in Mouat. They are going to Missouri with experience and talent, and they are going have played in one of the toughest, if not the toughest conferences in all of NAIA women’s basketball.

Yes, Northern has already set the bar high this season, and that’s why the Skylights’ goals for the national tournament are also very high.

“I am pretty excited. I have heard a lot of good things about it and I think it will just be a good time to spend with your teammates and enjoy it,” said freshman sharp shooter Jacy Thompson. “We want to keep winning. That's my goal and that's the goal of my team. We just want to keep playing.”

“I think the conference has prepared us greatly just because every week we ended up playing a ranked team on one of the nights if not both nights, so we had to play ranked teams no matter where we played,” Kreycik added. “So I think that helped us a lot.”

“It’s very exciting,” said First-Team All-Conference sophomore Natalee Faupel. “To get another opportunity to play at the national tournament, to be one of the last 32 teams playing this season, that’s been a big goal of ours. And we know we belong there. We know can go down there and make noise. We just have to play our game, like we have all season. And we just have to focus on each game, one at a time.”

Indeed. If the Skylights play like they have for much of the 2014-15 season, they will likely do more than just make noise, and they’ll have a great opportunity to go even further than they did in the magical season of 2013-14. And while the team is relatively the same as it was a year ago, these Skylights are heading to nationals to face Lindsey Wilson Wednesday, a much different team in so many ways.

“We’re a lot more confident now,” Edwards said. “We’ve been there and we know what to expect. Of course it’s now going to be easy, but we also know we can compete there. And I think the biggest thing is, I think we know we can play even better than we have. We know we can get even better still.

“We’ve achieved a lot this season,” Mouat said. “But they’re still hungry. That’s what I love about this team. They haven’t allowed many letdowns and they’ve always strived to be better. They work hard every day to get better. And we’re going into this tournament with more experience, with great senior leadership, and we’re still hungry. We still have goals we want to achieve. So it has been an incredible season already, but they also don’t want it to be over either.”

An incredible season is putting it modestly. The Skylights have, in simple terms, been one of the very best teams in the NAIA this season. And they’ve clearly been one of the best in a loaded Frontier that’s sending a grand total of five nationallyranked teams to the Big Dance this week. And while things seemed like they couldn’t get much better than they did during an incredible year last season, they have, and, the Skylights’ senior leader is not at all surprised. And she won’t be surprised if her team keeps this incredible season going for at least another week.

“It’s crazy because I don’t look at this season like that,” Cummings said. “I never doubted that we would have the season we’ve had. With this team, how many great players we have, how close we are and knowing how hard we work, I expected it. I expected us to be where we’re at. We had goals and we went out and got them, and now we want me more.”

The Skylights’ next goal is to beat Lindsey Wilson in the first round of the national tournament. Northern faces off against the Blue Raiders at 4:45 p.m. M.S.T. Wednesday in Independence, Missouri.