Lights hope to regroup at struggling SOU

The Montana State University-Northern Lights are in a funk. And while they have to face their most daunting road trip of the season, for the first time ever, the Lights are playing the Southern Oregon Raiders while they’re in a funk, too.

Northern (1-7, 1-7) visits SOU (4-4, 4-5) Saturday afternoon in Ashland, Oregon, where both teams will be looking to break out of difficult losing streaks.

The Lights have lost five straight games since beating Carroll College back on Sept. 17. Meanwhile, the Raiders have lost an unspeakable four straight games, and not only have they fallen out of the Frontier Conference title chase, they will also miss the playoffs for only the second time in the last five years. SOU has went to back-to-back national championship games, winning the NAIA title in 2014.

Still, it will take a stern effort from the Lights to hand the Raiders a fifth straight loss, and give Northern its first win over SOU since the Raiders joined the Frontier five years ago. That’s because, in spite of recent struggles, including a blowout loss at UM-Western last week, the Raiders’ offense is still a juggernaut.

“They (Raiders) have struggled the last couple of games,” MSU-N head coach Aaron Christensen said. “But they are still a very good football team. There’s a reason they’ve played in the last two national championship games. They have a good offense, they’re well-coached and they have a lot of good football players.”

SOU leads the Frontier in total offense at 506 yards per game, and quarterback Jack Singler is the top passer in the league, throwing for 351 yards per outing. SOU also has a bevy of game-breaking wide receivers, including senior Matt Retzlaff, who has 65 catches for 901 yards and 11 touchdowns. Running backs Rey Vega and Shawn Tow are also dangerous, so, Northern’s defense, led by leading tackler Garet Fowler, as well as star linemen Tyler Craig and Patrick Barnett will be called upon to help a Lights’ squad which is giving up nearly 40 points per game, try and slow down the Raiders.

However, SOU has also been slowing itself down. Despite the gaudy offensive numbers, the Raiders have thrown 18 interceptions this season, and are seventh in turnover margin in the Frontier. So, the Lights’ secondary, led by Logan Sprouse’ three interceptions, may have opportunities to make plays this week.

Making plays is also something the Northern offense hopes to do against a reeling SOU defense. The Raiders allow 35 points per game are last in the Frontier in total defense and last against the run — and those stats bode well for a Northern offense desperately looking to get on track.

Of course, the Lights will turn to star senior Zach McKinley. Northern’s all-time leading rusher, has 875 yards on the season to go with seven touchdowns and is second in the Frontier at 103 yards per game. McKinley now has an incredible 4,512 yards with two games left in his career. And, with SOU’s struggles against the run, look for him and backup Jett Robertson to have a big day on the ground.

And if the Lights can do that, the passing game for junior starter Caleb McLaren should start to loosen up. Northern has made some big plays in the passing game in recent weeks, with Ethan Snow catching three touchdowns in his last two games, but the Lights have also thrown a lot because they have gotten so far behind. So getting off to a good start offensively, especially on the road, would be huge for a Lights’ offense that will have opportunities to put points on the board.

“The challenge for us is always the same,” Christensen said. “We need to make sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to do. We need to limit our mistakes in all three phases. When we do that, we have played pretty well. So that doesn’t change for us. We’ve got to take care of the things we can control.

“We go into every game trying to get a win,” he continued. “How we played the week before or the week before that doesn’t matter once Saturday comes. We just have to approach this game with the attitude that, nothing matters but what we do and how we play on Saturday.”

Saturday’s game between the Lights and Raiders kicks off at 1 p.m. P.D.T. in Ashland, Oregon. The Lights then return home to close out the season against the College of Idaho next Saturday at Blue Pony Stadium.