Upsets highlight first weekend of Frontier action
George Ferguson
Havre Daily News sports editor
gferguson@havredailynews.com
The Frontier Conference men's and women's basketball season is still in its
infancy. However, if the opening weekend of play was an indication of what the
next two months hold, fans better buckle up for a wild ride.
On the men's side of things, there were few surprises during the opening
weekend of play, but many close games. An obvious amount of parity was evident
in the conference.
The Carroll College Fighting Saints, who were unanimously picked to win the
league this season, came into the opening weekend of play as the No. 2-ranked
team in NAIA basketball, and that is the way they came out. The Saints picked
up two victories on the weekend.
The surprise of the weekend may have come from
the Montana State University-Northern Lights, who went on the road with a
roster sprinkled with key players who had yet to see a Frontier Conference
game. The Lights posted wins at UM-Western and Montana Tech, firmly
establishing themselves as an instant contender for a conference championship
in 2006.
Aside from Carroll and Northern, the weekend was loaded with splits. No. 19
Westminster College dropped what was only its fourth game of the entire season,
leaving the Griffins in a logjam at 1-1 in conference play, along with
Something will have to give on Saturday night as the Lights host Carroll.
However, Northern will have a tougher time getting to Saturday night's game
undefeated. The Lights first have to contend with a tough RMC team on Friday
night in Havre, while the Saints are at struggling UGF.
In other games to watch this weekend Tech (1-1, 9-7) is at Western (1-1, 7-11)
on Friday night and LC State (0-2, 12-4) is at
As the season heats up, so too is Western swingman Ty Palmer.
The junior is leading the league in scoring at 19.1 points per game. Palmer is
also tops in the league in free-throw percentage and second in 3-pointers made.
As wild a start as the men's season got off to, things got even more
complicated last weekend on the women's side of things.
UM-Western (2-0, 15-2) and LC State (2-0, 14-2) were the only two left
undefeated after dust settled on the first weekend of play. Western's wins over
MSU-Northern and the
Carroll dropped to No. 15 this week, while Northern, which rebounded from its
first loss in more than a month by defeating Montana Tech on Saturday night,
fell one spot in the poll, to No. 24.
Despite all of the upsets, it is clear that the Frontier Conference may be one
of the strongest leagues in all of NAIA basketball this season. The reason for
that may be the dramatic improvement of
The main reason the Griffins are so improved is the play of Shalee
Fackrell, who is leading the conference in scoring
with an astounding 26 points per game. The Griffins will be looking to post
another upset on Saturday night when they host LC State in
Northern will also have a pair of very interesting games this weekend, as does
Carroll. The Skylights will welcome
Meanwhile, Carroll will try to avoid a disastrous start to its conference
season when it visits a UGF team that only has five wins this year, but carries
plenty of firepower to give the Saints a difficult game in
On Saturday night, the Skylights and Saints will hook up in Havre with plenty
of lasting conference implications on the line. Another former HHS standout
will also be on the floor during that game when the Saints' Jolene Fuzesy comes to town. Fuzesy is
leading the conference in 3-point shooting this season.