Northern golf teams excited to host an invite

It won't be in Havre, not yet anyway, but the Montana State University-Northern golf teams have their own invitational now.

The Lights and Skylights, of head coach Dave Boles, open their season Sunday and Monday, by hosting the MSU-Northern Invitational in Shelby.

The tournament will be played at Marias Valley Golf Club, and will be a 54-hole event featuring Northern, the University of Providence and Rocky Mountain College.

It's been some time since Northern was the host of its own event, and while it's being played 90 miles west of Havre, the tourney is a great jumping off point for what shopuld be an exciting season for the Lights and Skylights.

Boles is particularly excited about the prospects for the women’s golf team, especially with the addition of incoming transfer Jenna Jensen, who transferred to Northern from Corban University.

“Jenna is a very accomplished golfer,” Boles said. “I was surprised when she called me, but she is coming here for the nursing program. I think she might be one of the best, if not the best golfer I have ever had with the program here. I think she has a chance to be one of the top women golfers in the Frontier this season. I don’t want to put that pressure on her, but I think she has the potential to do really well.”

Corban, which is also an NAIA school, competes in the Cascade Collegiate Conference and thanks to Jensen’s contributions, the school won the regular season and tournament championship in 2016, while Jensen was the individual medalist at the conference tournament. The Warriors also qualified as a team for the NAIA tournament that season.

The rest of the Skylights roster will include some holdovers such as Whitney Bahrns, Diana Ball and Carrigan Cummings.

While the Skylights are getting an influx of talent from Jensen, the men’s golf team is going to be relying on returning standouts Devin Bray and Jerod Boles to lead the way this season.

“Devin right now is the No. 1 and Jerod is the No. 2,” Boles said. “But they are both pretty close at the top.”

In addition to Brey and Jerod Boles, the Lights will be relying on incoming freshmen Trent Nowell and Ethan Partch, as well as an a transfer Zach Hould, who came to Northern from Montana Tech.

“We are going to have some inexperience. Ethan, Trent and Zach have never played collegiate golf before,” Boles said. “And I keep telling them about playing 36 holes, but you don’t really know that feeling of being physically tired but still having to gut it out and score well, so that will be something that will be good for them.

“I think that both teams can move up a couple spots in the standings if we can get everyone on the same page on the same day,” Boles added. “It seems like you have two golfers go well one day and a different golfer do well another day, so if we can just get some consistency going, we should be fine.”

The MSU-N Invite will get underway Sunday morning at the Marias Valley Golf Club in Shelby.