Skylights set to face top Frontier Conference teams this weekend

The Montana State University-Northern women's basketball team has yet to pick up a conference win this season and the sledding does not get much easier. This weekend, the Skylights will host University of Providence and Rocky Mountain College at Armory Gymnasium. The Argos and Bears are the top two teams in the Frontier Conference, so the Skylights will need to play better offense than they have recently.

"We want to focus on taking better care of the basketball. That's hurt us over the course of the season. We can't have turnovers for points against either of these teams because they're both incredibly fast and they transition to offense very well," MSU-N head coach Chris Mouat said. "Shooting is going to be a focus. We've shot in the 20-percent range way too many games and that just leads to low scoring outputs and puts more pressure on our defense."

The Skylights will play Providence tonight to start the weekend. The Argos come into the game with an 18-3 record and are 5-1 in conference play. They have been playing especially well as of late as they have won nine games in a row. The Skylights already faced the Argos this season in Great Falls where the Argos won 74-48.

Many players are having strong seasons to lead the Argos to success. Emilee Maldonado leads the team scoring 16.5 points a game as she shoots 41.8 percent from the field and 40 percent from the 3-point line. She also gets her teammates involved on offense with her 98 total assists this year. Parker Esary has also played well averaging 14.8 points and 6.8 rebounds a game this season.

"They're very talented and they play fast to get up and down the floor," Mouat said. "They have kids that can really hurt you. They're playing at an extremely high level right now so they're a handful on offense. Defensively, they're one of the better teams Providence has had in a long time so they're just playing real well."

The Skylights will then host Rocky Mountain Saturday afternoon. The Bears are tied atop the conference standings with a 5-1 record and they have an overall 16-2 record this season. On Jan. 6, the Skylights lost, 76-63, on the road in Billings to the Bears.

N'Dea Flye is having a great season for the Bears with 20.2 points a game on 44.7 percent shooting from the field. She also dominates the glass averaging 10.1 rebounds a game. Shauna Bribiescas and Kloie Thatcher are also playing well on offense as they both average 13.3 points a game. Mouat believes the Skylights will also need to watch out for the Bears' defense.

"I think for them, defensive pressure is a huge key. They really pressure the basketball," Mouat said. "Their full court pressure bothered us last game so we've been working really hard to try to eliminate turnovers in the full court and give ourselves a better chance on offense."

The Skylights are 0-6 to start conference competition and have a 7-13 overall record. The Skylights are riding a four-game losing streak. If they want to compete with the top teams in the conference, the Skylights will need their best players to excel. Peyton Kehr averages 14.9 points a game this season as she shoots 42.7 percent. L'Tia Lawrence is also having a strong season averaging 11 points and 3.9 assists a game. Sydney Hovde is playing well down low averaging 9.8 rebounds a game.

The Skylights do have some positives heading into the weekend as they are starting to get healthier. But if they are going to compete against the best of the best, they will need to clean up the boards to control possession.

"You're going to have to win the boards every night. We've done that some nights and some nights we haven't and that's got to become a more consistent thing for us," Mouat said. "We're starting to get healthier and we're starting to get a few kids back so we've got a few more options I would say than we've had and that should help us."

The Skylights will play the Argos tonight at 5 p.m. at Armory Gymnasium. The Skylights will then play the Bears at Armory Gymnasium Saturday at 2 p.m.