Lights set to host Minot State, Valley City State
George Ferguson
Havre Daily News Sports Editor
gferguson@havredailynews.com
The Montana State University-Northern Lights basketball team has played a very
competitive schedule so far this season. And to the Lights' credit, they are
still perfect on the year.
Tonight, however, the Lights' (5-0) unbeaten record will be severely tested
when the Minot State Beavers come calling at the MSU-Northern Fieldhouse at 7
p.m.
Northern will host Valley City State, also of the Dak-10 Conference, on
Saturday at 3 p.m.
“This is a very challenging weekend for us,”
MSU-N head coach Shawn Huse said. “We have two very good Dak-10 schools coming
in here, and Minot is the defending Dak-10 champion. So this weekend will be a
very good measuring stick for where our team is and how far we have to go.”
The Beavers (0-1) come to Havre having played just one game thus far. That was
a five-point loss at the hands of the University of Regina, a team Northern
handled fairly easily two weeks ago. Still, Minot has downed the Lights twice
in the last two seasons, and Huse knows that the Beavers bring a very good team
into tonight's contest.
“Minot has a lot of quality players back from last year's team,” Huse said.
“They also had a very good year recruiting. So we know they will be a very big
challenge for us.
“The good thing about playing a team like them is that they are a lot like some
of the top teams in the Frontier Conference. So this will be a very good
barometer for us as a team,” he said.
Minot State returns four of its top five scorers from the team that downed the
Lights in Havre last year, including leading scorer Courtney Haley. Drew
Hyjulien, Jeremy Feller, Milan Cvetnovic and Josh Chambers all played well
against the Lights last season.
“Minot is a team that will certainly challenge us defensively,” Huse said.
“They have great size, they are very athletic and they have a lot of players
who can score the basketball.
“We have been playing very good team defense this year,” he added. “But we are
going to have to even be better than we have been if we are going to slow Minot
State down.”
One difference between tonight's game between Minot State and MSU-Northern and
those of years past is that Northern seems to have the scoring and depth to
hang with the usually potent Beaver offense. Northern is getting solid scoring
from senior Jordan Mathews as expected, but sophomore Cory Brothers has emerged
as another threat to score 20-plus points on any given night. Junior college
transfers Ronnie Simpson and Yanif Ducreay have also given the Lights some
added scoring punch.
“I think one thing we have found out early this season is that our depth and
our ability to look to more guys for scoring has made it so teams can't really
key on one or two of our guys,” Huse said. “Our depth has certainly made us a
more versatile team, and I think we are a lot harder to defend than we were
last year.
“We'll need that depth a lot as the season goes along, and we'll certainly need
help from all of our guys against Minot this weekend,” he added.
Depth will certainly play a roll in Northern's success this weekend when it has
to turn around and play the Valley City State Vikings on Saturday afternoon,
just 15 hours after the game with Minot wraps up.
The Vikings are off to a 1-0 start this season, defeating Trinity Bible College
on Sunday night. Even though they are not expected to contend in the Dak-10
Conference this season, Huse said they are a team that can't be overlooked.
“We know they beat Trinity Bible College fairly easily,” Huse said. “And we
know they have some very good athletes that can do some good things on the
floor. So I expect them to come in here and give us a good test on Saturday.”
The Vikings won't present a size issue for the Lights but they are very
athletic, with several key players between 6-2 and 6-4. The Vikings' tallest
player is 6-7 Jonathen Lindah. Their leading scorer is guard Jackson Sussex.
“We'll find out a lot about our team after these two games,” Huse said. “Both
opponents are going to present different challenges, and they should be very
competitive games.
“Hopefully we can come out and play good defense like we have been and continue
to improve in our offensive execution. Those are things that will make us
successful this weekend,” he said.