Local Sports Briefs

Faupel, Stroh named MSU-N

Athletes of the Year

A pair of outstanding Montana State University-Northern athletes were honored recently for incredible seasons. Northern held its annual All-Sports Banquet last week, where the Female and Male Athlete of the Year awards were given.

Northern senior basketball player Natalee Faupel was named Female Athlete of the Year. Faupel led the Frontier Conference in scoring, while being named First-Team All-Conference for the third straight year, as well as NAIA First-Team All-American for the second straight season. During her final year at Northern, Faupel also became the Skylights all-time leading scorer.

MSU-N senior Ben Stroh was named the Male Athlete of the Year. Stroh, a native of Chinook, won the 184-pound NAIA national wrestling championship last month in Topeka, Kansas. Stroh, who transferred to Northern from the University of Wyoming, was also named the NAIA Wrestler of the Year.

State A/C Track moved to Laurel

The 2017 Class A/C state track meet has been moved, as announced by the MHSA Tuesday afternoon. The meet was scheduled to be held May 26-27 at Missoula County High School Stadium, but has been moved to Laurel for the same dates.

The track at the stadium in Missoula is being replaced, and concerns on whether it would be done in time prompted the move to Laurel.

Havre's Staples helps

Thunderblades at nationals

While there are spring sports going on across the country, another thing that generally happens in the spring are big hockey tournaments and one involving a team from Montana took place recently.

The Montana Thunderblades are a U14 Bantam hockey team, and last week in Orlando, Florida, they took part in the Tier 2 USA Hockey National tournament. After a valiant effort that included reaching the national championship game, the Thunderblades, a Montana Select All-Star team that features local Havre athlete Bridger Staples, finished as the national runner up.

The Thunderblades knocked off the South Carolina Stingrays in the semifinals of the tournament last Saturday, before losing 6-2 to the Portland Junior Winterhawks Sunday morning.

Sign up for Middle School Tennis

Havre head tennis coach George Ferguson is offering Middle School Tennis for boys and girls grades 6-8. The session runs each Monday night through May 8. Each session goes from 7 to 8 p.m. To sign up, call Ferguson at 390-4142 or just come to the next session. Cost is a donation of one can of tennis balls.