MSU-Northern Notebook: Star running backs put on a show

George Ferguson

Havre Daily News sports editor

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Since Saturday’s showdown between the Montana State University-Northern Lights and Montana Tech Orediggers was the last one of the season between the two, it was also going to be the last time fans on both sides of the rivalry got to see the two of the premier running backs in the NAIA go at each other as well.

And for them, it would be the last time they played on the same field.

Northern’s Zach McKinley has been running his way into the record books for the last four years, just as Tech’s Nolan Saraceni has done in Butte. And Saturday inside Blue Pony Stadium, the duo of former Montana high school greats, out on a spectacular display.

McKinley rushed for 115 yards and 5.7 yards per carry. His impact was immediate, as his first run, a 33-yard bulldozing play in the first quarter, set the tone for what turned out to be an efficient day against Tech. In fact, the Northern great had 58 yards after his first three touches, once again showing why he’s as special as they come when it comes to Frontier Conference rushers.

On the other side, Saraceni had a big hand in the crushing the Lights took Saturday. And, he more than likely kept McKinley from posting even bigger numbers against a Tech defense that allowed just 88 yards rushing coming into Saturday’s game.

Because Saraceni scored five times, ran for over 200 yards and averaged an incredible 14 yards per touch, McKinley wasn’t able to get the ball as much as he could have, simply because the Lights fell so far behind, they had no choice to go to the air more often. That was certainly part of massive impact Saraceni, a former Billings Senior star, had on Saturday’s game.

But no matter what happened on the scoreboard, it was clear, early and often in Saturday’s game at Blue Pony Stadium, that the two best backs in the Frontier, and perhaps in the country, were in their finest form, and each in their own way, put on a spectacular show for the fans of both teams one more time.

Rough Start, Again

For the second straight game in Blue Pony Stadium, the Lights were not the team that got off on the right foot. Instead, that was the Orediggers.

In Tech’s 63-7 win Saturday, the Orediggers needed just 3:38 of game time to put up 14 points on the Lights, and the Diggers led 21-0 with just over seven minutes of game time gone.

The start was eerily similar to the night game the Lights played against Eastern Oregon two weeks ago, in which the Mounties jumped on the Lights 14-0 in the first seven minutes of the game.

Saturday’s setback, as the Lights trailed 28-10 after just one quarter, was the result of a couple of crucial mistakes. Northern fumbled a kickoff after Tech scored its first TD of the game, while two other scores were direct results of blown coverages in the secondary.

But no matter how it happened, in their last two home games, the Lights have trailed by a combined score of 49-13 at the end of the first quarter.

“You just can’t get off to that kind of a start and expect to win in this league,” Northern head coach Aaron Christensen said. “And Tech got off to a great start today and we didn’t play well from the beginning.”

Rolling Along

The Orediggers raised a few eyebrows when they lost their season-opener at Carroll College back on Sept. 4. After all, Tech was ranked in the NAIA Top 10, was a preseason favorite in the Frontier Conference and was loaded with talent coming off a 2015 Frontier title and playoff run.

But that loss to Carroll sure doesn’t look so bad now.

After beating the Lights Saturday at Blue Pony Stadium, the Orediggers have reeled off six straight wins, including a sweep of the Lights. And, in doing so, Tech just seems to get better and better.

During the current win streak, Tech has become the No. 1 scoring offense in the Frontier, and that won’t change after Saturday’s offensive fireworks at Blue Pony Stadium. But on the other side, they also have the top scoring defense in the league, and, when a team has both, it usually means good things.

“Today was important that we played well,” Tech head coach Chuck Morrell said. “This is a big stretch of games for us, with three of our last four on the road. And with everything we’re trying to accomplish, all our goals still out in front of us, we needed to continue to play well, and I thought we did that today. With the games we have coming up, we needed to keep this momentum we have going.”

Tech does have a couple of big games coming up, starting with a crucial road game this Saturday at Rocky Mountain College. A win against College of Idaho is likely following that, and that would set up a game that could seal the league title when Tech travels to Southern Oregon Nov. 12.