One Down: Skylights sink Argos

The Montana State University-Northern Skylights are one of the best defensive teams in all of NAIA women’s basketball. And, against one of the top offensive teams in the Frontier Conference, the Skylights, with a little help from their assistant coach, showed why they are so revered defensively.

On Thursday night, in front of a big Armory Gymnasium crowd, the No. 2 Skylights shut down the visiting UGF Argos, in a 73-53 victory. And, Nicole Yazzie’s help was a big reason why Northern was tenacious and so prepared defensively.

“UGF has a great offensive team,” said Northern junior Natalee Faupel, who not only poured in a game-high 27 points, but also helped shut down the Frontier’s leading scorer, UGF’s Nneka Nnadi, who managed just three points. “They have so many players who are just great scorers. So stopping them as best we could was a huge goal of ours, and coach Yazzie really helped us with that. She played the part of Erin Legel this week. Erin is such a great player and she’s so hard to guard, and having coach Yazzie do that this week, it really helped us prepare.”

Legel is the two-time defending Frontier scoring champ, and the engine that makes UGF go. And while she did score 25 points, she was just 9-of-24 shooting, and MSU-N head coach Chris Mouat said Yazzie, who was a four-time All-American at Westminster, helped the Skylights preparations tremendously.

“Erin Legel is a great, great scorer, and she showed that at times tonight,” Mouat said. “But, I thought we really stepped up and executed defensively. We got off to a great start defensively, and having coach Yazzie in practice made a big difference. It’s very hard to simulate the things (Legel) can do in practice, but coach Yazzie was an incredible player and she can do those things. So I know it helped us out a ton tonight.”

Of course, the Skylights made a big difference on the other end of the floor, too. Northern shot a solid 48 percent from the field, and thanks to a three buckets inside from backup forward Jessica Anderson, and big 3-pointers from Molly Kreycik and Jacy Thompson, the Skylights opened up a 29-17 lead late in the first half. A four-point play by Legel to end the half cut Northern’s lead to 32-26 at the break, but the way the Skylights were executing defensively, they were certainly in good shape.

“Jessica Anderson gave us a huge spark in the first half,” Mouat said. “And I was really proud of the way we played offensively. We executed our offensive game plan really well, and when you’re defending as well as we were, that really helps.”

What also helped was Faupel going off in the second half, as well as timely buckets by Kreycik and Thompson.

That trio combined for a 12-0 run which gave MSU-N a 44-28 lead early in the third quarter. And while Legel sparked a 7-0 UGF run, Kreycik would nail a shot at the buzzer to put the Skylights ahead 52-39, and with Faupel pouring in 13 points in the final stanza, MSU-N would win going away.

“Natalee had a really big game for us,” Mouat said. “She made big shots, and stabilizing big shots whenever things got iffy. She defended really well and was a great leader for us tonight.

“I also thought Molly Kreycik had her most complete game as a Skylight,” he continued. “She made big threes, she had eight assists and she defended really well. She gave us a big, big boost tonight.”

Faupel wound up 9-of-18 from the field and 8-of-8 from the foul line, while also dishing out five assists. Thompson, despite foul trouble, hit three treys and scored 10, while Kreycik scored 12 points, had eight assists and five rebounds. Anderson gave MSU-N eight points, while Sierra Richards scored six and pulled down eight boards.

But, as good as Northern was on offense, the Skylights’ tenacious defense stole the show. The Argos came in averaging 77 points per night, with Nnadi leading the league at 20 points per game. But, in the end, Northern held Nnadi down, got 6-4 center Whitney George in major foul trouble, and held the Argos to just 35 percent shooting, and a 2-of-12 performance from the 3-point-line.

“They (Argos) can really score, from anywhere on the floor,” Mouat said. “So you have to get stops when you can, and we did that tonight. I’m really proud of the way this team defended tonight. It’s not easy to hold UGF to 53 points, so that’s going to go along way for us going forward.

“This is a really good win,” he continued. “Against a really good basketball team. And I’m just very proud of our team for the way they prepared and the way executed tonight.”

With a 20-point win over the Argos, the Skylights can now turn all their attention to tonight’s NAIA Game of the Week against No. 5 Carroll College. It’s a highly-anticipated showdown, but it’s also one the Skylights didn’t look ahead to, and that’s why they played so well on Thursday night.

“We were focused on UGF,” Faupel said. “We knew, and coach Mouat stressed that with how good they (Argos) are, if we overlooked them, and worried about Carroll, this game could have went the other way. We wanted to make sure we started 1-0, and now that we did, we’ll go into the game against Carroll feeling very confident.”

Tonight’s huge game between Northern and Carroll will tip at 6 inside the Armory Gymnasium. It’s Carroll’s first game of the weekend, as the Fighting Saints play at UGF Saturday night.

No. 2 Skylights are 13-1 overall, 2-1 in Frontier; Next up: vs No. 5 Carroll tonight at 6

Skylights 73, UGF 53

Great Falls 8 18 13 14 53

Northern 11 21 20 21 73

UGF - Erin Legel 9-24 5-5 25, Brice Henning 2-5 0-0 4, Nneka Nnadi 1-2 1-2 3, Stephanie McDonagh 5-13 0-0 10, Molly Herron 0-4 2-2 2, Elyce Donaldson 1-1 0-0 2, Whitney George 1-4 3-4 5, Morgan Grier 1-5 0-0 2. Totals 20-58 11-13 53.

MSU-N - Jacy Thompson 3-8 1-2 10, Katie Fertterer 0-0 0-0 0, Brandy Lambourne 0-0 0-0 0, Natalee Faupel 9-18 8-8 27, Rachelle Bennett 1-4 5-8 7, Peyton Filius 0-1 0-0 0, Molly Kreycik 4-5 2-2 12, Jessica Anderson 4-8 0-0 8, Cydney Auzenne 1-3 1-2 3, Sierra Richards 3-6 0-0 6. Totals 25-53 17-22 73.

3-pointers: UGF 2-12 (Legel 2-6, McDonagh 0-5, Grier 0-1), MSU-N 6-11 (Thompson 3-3, Faupel 1-3, Bennett 0-2, Kreycik 2-3). Rebounds: UGF 32 (Henning 7), MSU-N 35 (Richards 8). Fouls: UGF 18, MSU-N 16. Fouled out: Grier.