Lights clip Blue Hawks’ wings in Dickinson

George Ferguson

Havre Daily News Sports Editor

Winning on the road in college football is never easy. But for the Montana State University-Northern Lights, it has been a rare occurrence.

After Saturday in Dickinson, N.D. however, the Lights now have a road winning streak under head coach Mark Samson.

The Lights backed up their road win in Billings last November with a season-opening 22-14 victory over the No. 6 Dickinson State Blue Hawks Saturday at Whitney Stadium in Dickinson.

While Samson is elated that his team was able to get off to a 1-0 start heading into Frontier Conference play, he was even more pleased with how his team handled the difficult trip to North Dakota.

“Anytime you win on the road it is huge,” Samson said. “But I just think that Dickinson is a really tough place to play, and a very difficult place to get a win.

“But our guys handled the entire trip well and that shows the maturity of this team,” he added. “We went down there very focused and the guys really took the entire trip very seriously.”

The Lights also took Saturday’s game with the Blue Hawks seriously, and although it

wasn’t a perfect performance, Samson said that his team was in control from start to finish.

“After we got up on them early, I don’t think there was a moment where we felt like we weren’t in control of the game,”

Samson said. “The guys played very hard and for the most part, we played a pretty darn good football game, especially for the first game of the season against a ranked opponent.

“There were some things we could have done better,” he added. “We made some mistakes here and there, and we didn’t execute on offense as well as I would of liked. But we are happy to get out of there with a good win, and we’ll improve in the areas we need to.”

Northern seized control of the game early when freshman kicker Luke McKinley put a 27-yard field goal attempt through the uprights to give the Lights a 3-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. The kick was the first of McKinley’s career at MSU-N, and he added two more on the day, including another 27-yarder in the fourth quarter when the Blue Hawks had trimmed the Lights’ lead to 19-12.

“Luke made a couple of big kicks for us and we needed that last one to put the game away,” Samson said. “He was solid all day and he came up pretty big for us at the end of the game.”

The fact that McKinley booted three field goals was good and bad to Samson. On those three possessions, the Lights were inside the DSU 10-yard line, and failed to reach the end zone on all three occasions.

“That was one of the areas I felt like we just didn’t execute well,” Samson said. “Against a good team like Dickinson on the road, you want to take advantage of scoring opportunities like that and we didn’t get touchdowns on any of those trips in there. But we still got some points on the board, and we’ll improve, and hopefully we’ll start turning those field goals into touchdowns.”

DSU’s usually stingy defense didn’t keep the Lights

out of the end zone entirely. Northern scored on a 1-yard TD run by junior Don Saisbury in the second quarter. The Lights also got a fourth-quarter TD from Justin Moe from three yards out. Both scores were set up by big plays, one coming by

way of a Khalin Anderson interception return, and the other coming on a long pass play from MSU-N quarterback Kyle Samson to freshman wide receiver Coda Tchida.

On the day the, Lights’ offense accounted for 308 total yards, including 63 from Saisbury, 58 from Moe, and 35 from Zach Wermers on the ground. While Samson was held in check by the DSU defense rushing the ball, he had an efficient day through the air. The senior quarterback was 14-of-19 passing for 137 yards. Tchida paced the receivers in his MSU-N debut, catching four balls for 54 yards.

“Offensively, the game wasn’t pretty at times,” Mark Samson said. “But I thought we controlled the game well and we rushed the football pretty good. They (DSU) still have a pretty good defense, so I was pleased with how we played offensively for the most part.”

While Northern’s offense had its moments on opening day, the MSU-N defense proved to be too much for a young DSU offense that normally controls the game on the ground. Dickinson did manage to answer the Lights’ second-quarter touchdown with a 23-yard pass play from starting quarterback Brandon Bishop-Parise to Zach Hepperle, which cut the Lights lead to 9-7 at halftime.

And the Blue Hawks struck again in the fourth when backup quarterback Matt Gittings found Tyler Greff for a score from four yards out to make it 19-12.

But in all, the veteran Lights’ defense never wavered, holding DSU to an unusually low 80 rushing yards on 34 attempts. The Lights also held the Blue Hawks scoreless in the first and third quarters.

“I was really pleased with our defense,” Samson said. “They really controlled the game well, and Dickinson was never really able to run on us like they wanted to. Our defense just showed up and played really darn good football.”

With their one nonconference road game out of the way, and a big season-opening test behind them, the Lights will turn their attention to the Frontier season, which gets under way this weekend.

“Overall I am more than pleased with how we played on Saturday,” Samson said. “Again, Dickinson is a tough place to get a win and we are coming out of that road trip 1-0. So the guys feel really good about that. But at the same time, I like the fact that they know we can play better. They weren’t satisfied with how we played and that is a sign of a mature football team.”

The Lights will open up conference play Saturday in Dillon when they take on the UM-Western Bulldogs at 1 p.m.

Lights 22, Blue Hawks 14

MSU-N 3 6 3 10 — 22

DSU 0 7 0 7 — 14

MSU-N — FG Luke McKinley 27

MSU-N — Don Saisbury 1 run (Kick failed)

DSU — Zach Hepperle 23 pass from Brandon Bishop-Parise (Shawn O’Brien kick)

MSU-N — FG Luke McKinley 20

MSU-N — Justin Moe 3 run (McKinley kick)

DSU — Tyler Greff 4 pass from Matt Gittings (o’Brien kick)

MSU-N — FG Luke McKinley 27

MSU-N DSU

First downs 14 15

Rushes-yards 43-171 34-80

Passing yards 137 160

Total net yards 308 240

Return yards 0 11

Punts-ave 2-45 3-43

Fum-lost 0-0 1-0

Pen-yards 4-25 3-18

Individual Statistics

Rushing — MSU-N. Don Saisbury 13-63, Justin Moe 8-58, Zach Wermers 10-35, Kyle Samson 12-15. DSU. Damen Woosley 14-36, Zach Hepperle 3-13, Matt Gittings 4-12.

Passing — MSU-N, Kyle Samson 14-19-1—137. DSU, Brandon Bishop-Parise 8-17-1—119, Matt Gittings 4-9-1—41.

Receiving — MSU-N, Coda Tchida 4-54, Don Saisbury 3-35, Zach wermers 2-9, Saxton Shearer 2-5. DSU, Tyler Greff 8-11-, Zach hepperle 2-27, Jake Schmitz 1-18, Damen Woolsey 1-5.