Lights aim for more road wins

It’s pretty safe to say, the Montana State University-Northern Lights are on a roll. But for that roll to continue, the Lights will have to keep playing well far from home.

Northern (7-5, 18-6), which won at Rocky Mountain College and UM-Western last week, continues its six-game Frontier Conference road swing with games at Lewis-Clark State tonight, and Montana Tech Saturday night.

The Lights made a big leap forward with their two road wins last weekend, and they did it with shooting and defense. In their two wins, MSU-N buried 28 3-pointers and held Rocky and Western to 12 points below their normal scoring average.

Northern, which gets balanced scoring, led by David Straughter and Ryan Reeves, who average 10 points each, as well as great shooting from Tyler Chandler, Cameron Epps, Badhasa Margarsa, Justin Dunsmore and freshman Devin Bray among others, will use the same formula to hopefully continue its recent success on this road trip.

The Lights are also looking to pull off a rare feat of sorts tonight, and that’s beating LC State twice at home. MSU-N beat the Warriors in Lewiston back in December, before dropping the rematch in Havre three weeks ago. Tonight’s rubber match will be crucial because the Lights and Warriors (8-5, 18-7) are neck-and-neck in the Frontier standings.

“LC-State will be a challenging opponent this third time around, I am sure,” MSU-N head coach Shawn Huse said. “We like how we are playing right now, yet we understand it will take a solid all-around effort to have success on their floor again. Slowing down their scoring on defense, and getting good scoring opportunities on offense will be the keys if we expect to rebound from the loss they gave us last time we matched up.”

In that loss, the Warriors were the ones who shot the lights out. And with high-scoring Doug McDaniel, and the inside-out play of Zavon Jackson and Ty Higbie, LCSC is a very potent offensive team, even when going up against the top scoring defense in the Frontier, which Northern has.

And while Thursday night’s game will be a tough one, Saturday’s will be, too. That’s because the Lights are trying to buck the adage that it’s impossible to beat a team three times in one season. In Butte Saturday night, Northern will try to do just that. The Lights have beaten Montana Tech (1-12, 7-17) by double digits twice, including in the first meeting back in December in Butte.

However, a slumping Tech, which has lost four straight, is still a dangerous Tech. The Orediggers have double-digit scorers in Chris O’Neil and Lukas Vining, and they have plenty of size in the post. So no doubt, Huse and the Lights won’t take the Diggers lightly.

"They (Orediggers) have a lot of weapons, no matter what their record says,” Huse said. “We need to be on our toes defensively as they can knock down shots when open. They play very hard and work well together on defense. We will need to execute well, and especially on their home court."

And still, the Lights have been an outstanding road team thus far. Northern is 4-2 in Frontier road games and two more wins this weekend would go a long way towards the Lights securing a top three finish in the Frontier, and at least one home game in the league playoffs.

Tonight’s game between MSU-N and LC State tips at 7:30 P.S.T. in Lewiston, Idaho. Northern’s visit to Tech will tip at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night in Butte. The Lights travel to UGF next Thursday and Carroll College next Saturday.