Lights dig one out against the Orediggers

The Montana State University-Northern Lights have had a really good homestand. And they weren't about to let their most recent four-game stretch inside the Armory Gymnasium not end on a high note. Even if the Montana Tech Orediggers had other ideas.

Friday night in the Armory, the Lights erased a late second-half deficit to beat the Orediggers 69-65, capping a three-game winning streak at home dating back to last Saturday night's win over No. 2 Carroll College.

And while it was a thrilling win for Northern, head coach Shawn Huse pointed out that, Tech didn't make it easy on the Lights.

"I thought Tech came in here ready to go," Huse said. "They played really well, and they didn't make anything easy for us. Especially defensively, I thought they were very tough, and in that first half, we just couldn't get anything going against them. So while we didn't shoot it as well as we would have liked, Tech deserves a lot of credit for that.

"But I'm really proud of our guys," he continued. "It was a quick turnaround from Wednesday night to tonight, and I thought our guys did a great job of being prepped and ready to go."

No doubt, the Lights were ready. But so were the well-rested Orediggers, and on the strength of several driving layups by Troy Owens Jr., the Orediggers went on a 13-0 run and led 19-11 early on. Mascio McCadney and Adam Huse would hit back-to-back 3-pointers to briefly stem the tide, but big shots by Derrius Collins and Taylor England down the stretch would send the Orediggers into halftime leading the Lights 36-29.

"We didn't come out and shoot it as well as we have been," coach Huse said. "But I do think we defended pretty well in that first half, and we were really good on the boards, and those things were big for us to stay in it."

The Lights would ultimately dominate the Orediggers on the glass, and eventually, the shots would fall, too. But Northern wouldn't take the lead until a 3-pointer from Caulin Bakalarski and a reverse layup by McCadney put the Lights ahead 56-52 with six minutes to go. Tech would quickly regain the lead, though, but Northern would have all the answers down the stretch.

Cedric Crutchfield scored on a putback, and Devin Bray knocked in a bomb with four minutes left to put the Lights ahead 61-59. Of course the Orediggers didn't go away, though, and they were still right there, trailing just 64-63 when senior Justin Dunsmore canned the biggest shot of the game, a triple with :22 left that gave the Lights the cushion they needed to hang on for the win.

"I thought Cedric's play was big tonight, he really gave us a boost," Huse said. "And again, I thought our guys were really locked in on defense. The offense wasn't always pretty, but we had a bunch of guys step up and make big shots when we needed them the most."

For certain, Northern did get multiple contributions. Dunsmore finished with 15 points and seven rebounds, while Bray and Adam Huse each scored 11, McCadney added 10, Crutchfield finished with nine points and eight boards and Kavon Bey grabbed 11 rebounds of his own.

The win pushed Northern to 8-6 in Frontier Conference play, and keeps the Lights in the top half of the league standings with two weeks left in the regular season.

"This is a game we wanted," Huse said. "You want to win them all, of course, but we wanted to make sure we finished this stretch of home games off the right away. So credit to our guys for gutting this one out, for fighting back and digging themselves out of that hole. Tonight was one of those true test-of-character games and our guys passed with flying colors."

Northern (16-10) returns to the road to face Carroll College Thursday night and Rocky Mountain College Saturday.

Lights are 8-6 in Frontier, 16-10 overall; Next Up: At Carroll Thursday

Lights 69, Montana Tech 65

MT - Dylan Pannabacker 2-5 0-0 4, Taylor England 5-7 5-8 15, Derrius Collins 6-11 2-3 17, Nate Ward 4-10 1-2 10, Troy Owens Jr. 5-16 0-0 10, Christian Jones 1-1 0-0 2, Nick Fitts 1-7 0-0 2, Blake Dittman 1-3 0-0 2, Carson Dummer 1-2 1-2 3. Totals: 26-62 9-15.

MSU-N - Justin Dunsmore 5-13 3-4 15, Cedric Crutchfield 4-6 1-1 9, Mascio McCadney 3-14 3-3 10, Adam Huse 3-8 4-4 11, Devin Bray 2-3 5-5 11, Caulin Bakalarski 1-5 4-4 7, Kavon Bey 3-9 0-0 6, Joe Fons 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 21-59 20-21.

Halftime: Tech 36-29. 3-pointers: MT 4-16 (Collins 3, Ward 1), MSU-N 7-22 (Dunsmore 2, McCadney 1, Huse 1, Bray 2, Bakalarski 1). Rebounds: MT 31 (England 11), MSU-N 44 (Bey 11). Fouls: MT 17, MSU-N 13. Fouled out: None.