Lights can't quite catch Bulldogs on senior day

On an emotional senior day, the Montana State University-Northern Lights needed a win over the Montana Western Bulldogs in order to keep their position in the Frontier Conference standings.

The Bulldogs, however, had other ideas.

Saturday afternoon to the Armory Gymnasium, the Lights played from behind all day in a 77-72 loss to the Dawgs. The game was Northern's home finale, as the Lights dropped to 5-8 in the league.

"Tough night. I feel horrible for our seniors," MSU-N head coach Shawn Huse said. "They have maintained and built upon a wonderful culture for our program. I can not say enough good things about them and our team. I would still take this group over any of our opponents, any day of the week."

Montana Western took the lead early in the first half. The Lights were down by nine early on, but pulled closer as they trailed by just four, 35-31 at intermission. The second half was even closer, with Northern going on an 8-0 run to close the gap with under two minutes to play. However, Western hit a couple of key shots down the stretch to seal its second straight win over Northern.

"We had a fantastic crowd, made a valiant comeback effort, but unfortunately could not put the ball in the hole enough," Huse said. "They got to the foul line 24 times and we could only manage to get there only eight. It's tough to win when that's the case. We got 20 more field goal attempts but just could not get enough to fall and could not get to that darn line. What'll ya do. All you can say is credit Western for finding a way to do both. They played a good ball game."

The Lights were led by Mascio McCadney, who had 17 points and six assists. David Harris added a good game with 13 points going 6-12 from the field. Immanuel Anderson added 11 points and five rebounds. Jesse Keltner scored 10 points and led the team in rebounds with seven."

The Lights (17-11) will now finish the regular season with a road game at Montana Tech Thursday night in Butte.

"We just have to dig deep and move on now as there is still more basketball left. I still don't feel like our story is over. We have way too much character for it to go the way tonight's game did," Huse said.

Western 77, Lights 72

MW - Jamal Stephenson 10-14 5-5 29, Jalen Hodges 5-10 5-6 15, Max Clark 5-9 2-4 12, Tanner Haverfield 1-3 2-3 5, Michawl Haverfield 0-1 3-4 3, Jok Jopk 3-3 0-0 8, Ky Kouba 2-3 0-0 5. Totals: 26-43 19-24.

MSU-N - Mascio McCadney 5-17 5-5 17, David Harris 6-12 0-0 13, Immanuel Anderson 4-9 1-1 11, CJ Nelson 2-3 0-0 5, TJ Reynolds 0-0 0-0 0, Jesse Keltner 4-5 2-2 10, Zyare Ruffin 3-4 0-0 8, Tanner McCliment-Call 3-10 0-0 6, Terry Holmes Jr., 1-1 0-0 2. Totals: 28-63 8-8.

Halftime: Western 35-31. 3-pointers: MW 6-15 (Stephenson 4, Kouba 1, Haverfield 1), MSU-N 8-25 (McCadney 2, Harris 1, Anderson 2, Nelson 1, Ruffin 2). Rebounds: MW 21 (Clark 6), MSU-N 28 (Keltner 7). Fouls: MW 14, MSU-N 15. Fouled out: None.