Lights sign star guard Gabe Porter

The recruiting season is in full swing at Montana State University-Northern, and Lights’ men’s basketball coach Shawn Huse is getting into full swing, too.

Last week, Huse announced the signing of 6-0 guard Gabe Porter to an NAIA national letter of intent. Porter comes to Northern from Walla Walla Community College, where he spent the last two seasons starring for the Walla Walla squad which on the 2017 NWAC championship.

“Gabe is an intense basketball player who is excited to be coming to MSU-Northern and to Havre,” Huse said. “He’s excited about enhancing our tradition.”

This past season, Porter not only helped Walla Walla win the NWAC championship, but he finished second in the entire conference in scoring, averaging 22 points per game. He also averaged three assists, two steals and three rebounds per night, while shooting 90 percent from the foul line. Porter also played his high school ball in Walla Walla, Washington, as well.

“His ability to shoot, get to the basket and defend is exceptional,” Huse said. “He plays with a great deal of fire, energy, toughness and competitiveness. Simply put, Gabe is a winner. Players with his type of passion are the ones you want in your program. He speaks/texts with me almost daily, asking what we need to work on to be even more successful next year. It’s refreshing to have a player who just signed already extremely invested in our team, school and the community. He also gelled extremely with our returners on his visit and they are very excited he chose to be a Light.”

Porter is the first signee of 2017, for the Lights, who went 21-11 last season and advanced to the Frontier Conference semifinals.