Lights open spring drills

Spring is arriving in Havre, and on the campus of Montana State University-Northern, that means spring football.

Northern’s 2015 spring football session will be a new experience for all, as new MSU-N head coach Aaron Christensen will have his team on the field for the first time since he was hired as the Lights’ head coach back on Dec. 24.

Leading up to spring ball, Christensen has been hard at work with winter conditioning and recruiting. In fact, the Lights recently announced the signing of local prep Jaxon Simonson, a senior offensive lineman at North Star High School. Simonson, who played for his father at North Star the last four years, will join the Lights next fall.

But for now, it’s about the current Lights as they take the field for the first time since beating Rocky Mountain College last November in Billings, which ended a tumultuous 2014 season. Northern, which will be led heavily by running backs Zach McKinley and Mario Gobbatto, will have a lot of new faces at different positions this spring, as the Lights begin to install Christensen’s offensive scheme. Jake Eldridge, who guided the Lights as interim head coach last fall, is back at defensive coordinator, and he returns junior defensive end Tyler Craig, who led the Frontier Conference in sacks a season ago.

MSU-N will conduct practices every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4 p.m. at the MSU-Northern practice fields throughout spring drills. The Lights will conduct their first scrimmage April 4 and hold their spring game April 18 at 1 p.m. Northern hasn’t released its 2015 schedule as of yet, but the Lights are scheduled to play Montana Tech Sept. 5 at Blue Pony Stadium.