MSU-N Daily Diary: Skylights give back on the eve of their NAIA opener

The Montana State University-Northern Skylights certainly had the Loyola Wolfpack on their minds when they woke up Wednesday morning in Billings.

That's because Wednesday was Northern's final day to prepare for tonight's NAIA national tourney opener against the Wolfpack, which takes place at 8 inside the Rimrock Auto Arena.

But they also took a break from preparations for a community service outing in Billings, which is part of the NAIA's Champions of Character program for teams that make it to the national tourney level.

Northern spent part of its day with students at Arrowhead Elementary in Billings, doing various activities with the children, such as playing games in the gym, talking to the kids about fitness and being active, as well as just spending time as role models.

"As players, it's very rewarding to spend time with the kids," MSU-N junior Brandy Lambourne said. "To be on the other end of the spectrum. When we were kids and had college athletes come and spend time with us, it made a big impact. So it was good to just give back and have those kids go home excited about not only sports, but life aspects."

Indeed, the Skylights are also active in the Havre community as well, and they understand the importance of giving back, and Wednesday was a day to do that.

And yet, Wednesday was also about basketball.

The Skylights had an early morning practice Wednesday inside the Fortin Center at Rocky Mountain College, where they went over final preparations for their big game with Loyola.

Northern also watched plenty of basketball, too.

The national tournament got under Wednesday morning, and in the evening, MSU-N was there to cheer on its fellow Frontier Conference teams in the field. Northern watched UM-Western, a No. 6 seed, knock off Columbia of Missouri Wednesday night at the Rimrock Auto Arena. Western defeated Columbia 63-53, and will play No. 2 seed Oklahoma City Friday morning.

Northern was also on hand to watch the host Rocky Mountain College Battlin' Bears fall to No. 1 seed Freed-Hardeman, 62-52. The Bears put up a great fight against the top-ranked team in the country, a team the Skylights fell to by 10 points as well, back in November.

"We always like to go pull for the other Frontier teams," MSU-N head coach Chris Mouat said before the Skylights left for Billings. "We spend all season beating each other up, but we want to see each other do well once we get here. So we'll watch as many of those games as we can."

Of course, those Frontier teams, including top-seeded Lewis-Clark State, which plays this afternoon, will get to pull for the Skylights tonight as they try to advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time in the last three seasons.