Frontier Notebook: Frontier hoops races still too close to call

The halfway mark in the Frontier Conference men’s and women’s basketball season has now come and gone. And that means the race to the Frontier Conference championships is now in the stretch run.

Looking back at the first half of the season, there were some impressive runs and some surprise ones too.

On the men’s side, Lewis-Clark State ripped off 10 straight wins before suffering a loss at Rocky Mountain College last Thursday. The Warriors bounced right back and knocked off UM-Western in Dillon last Saturday night.

Meanwhile, Carroll College has won eight of its last nine games, and is now a half game ahead of LCSC in the Frontier standings. Those two squads have the inside track on the regular season title, and they still have to play each other on Feb. 12 in Helena, which could end up being a de facto regular season title game.

UM-Western can’t be counted out just yet either, but the Bulldogs are two games behind both Carroll and LCSC, while RMC is the only other squad with has a .500 record in league play.

On the other side of the coin, there is also a tight race to stay out of the Frontier cellar. MSU-Northern and UGF are tied at 3-7 right now, while Montana Tech is 1-9. The Lights and Argos play each other one more time in Havre, while Northern has two games left against the Orediggers.

The women’s Frontier standings eerily resemble the men’s, with LCSC and Carroll threatening to run away from the rest of the league. The Warriors are currently on their own 10-game winning streak, while the Saints are two games behind in second place.

However, the middle of the pack is more hotly contested than on the men’s side. UGF, Northern and Rocky are all separated by just one game, and those three teams each play each other once remaining. There’s also a big contest to see who isn’t left out of the Frontier tournament, between arch rivals Tech and Western. Both teams have two conference wins, and they also play each other just once more. The winner of that game Feb. 20 could likely eliminate the other from the postseason.

Stat Sheet Stuffers

Ten games into the Frontier season, there are plenty of players putting up some great individual numbers. On the women’s side, that’s certainly the case at UGF.

Argo junior Nneka Nnadi leads the Frontier in scoring at 17 points per game, while teammate Erin Legel is second at 16 points per night. MSU-N’s Natalee Faupel is third at 15 per night, while Jacy Thompson is fifth at just under 15 points per game.

UGF’s Whitney George is leading the Frontier in rebounding at eight per outing, while she also averages just over three blocked shots per night, which is among the NAIA leaders. LCSC’s Caelynn Orlandi leads the league in assists at six per game, while Carroll’s Brittney Johnson leads the Frontier in steals with 44 on the season.

RMC senior Roby Nyby is the leading scorer on the men’s side. Nyby is averaging 21 points per night, which is well ahead of Tech’s Jalen Coates and Carroll’s Zach Taylor. Northern senior Warren Edmondson is ninth in the Frontier with his 13 points per night.

Western’s Dexter Williams Jr. is the league’s leading rebounder at eight per game, while Taylor leads the league with five assists per night. Western’s Shyke Smalls has 45 steals on the season, while LCSC’s Jake Wiley tops the league with his 1.47 blocks per outing.

Award Winners

Western’s Dexter Williams Jr., and Carroll’s Katie Estey were named Frontier Conference Men’s and Women’s Player of the Week.

Williams Jr., a 6-4 senior, averaged 25 points, 7.5 rebounds, three assists and two steals per game last weekend. He was 17 of 30 in field goals (57 percent) including 4 of 8 (50 percent) from 3-point-range. From the free-throw-line, he was 12 of 18.

Estey, a 5-6 senior, averaged 18.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, five assists and 2.5 steals in Carroll’s wins over UGF and Northern last weekend. She was 10 of 26 from the field, 7 of 16 in 3-point field goals and 10 of 11 from the free-throw- line.

Northern’s Natalee Faupel and David Straughter were also nominated for the awards.