HAVRE, Mont. - It's becoming an all too familiar scene for the Lewis-Clark State College men's basketball team.
Following the storyline of its past few games and its first meeting with Montana State University-Northern, the Warriors couldn't come up with the key plays down the stretch and fell to the Skylights 68-58 in Frontier Conference play on Friday night.
The loss was the fourth straight for LCSC and dropped the Warriors to 11-11 overall and 2-6 in conference play. In all four losses, LCSC was within striking distance in the final 10 minutes, but just couldn't get over the hump.
To make matters worse on Friday, the contest looked a lot like the first meeting between the two teams when MSU-Northern made 9-of-18 3-point attempts to claim a 68-51 win last month in Lewiston.
On Friday, Northern connected on 9-of-19 3-pointers, including three during the final 10 minutes when the Skylights were able to take the lead for good.
LCSC used a run of seven straight points to tie the contest at 44-44 with a little more than 10 minutes left, but a pair of 3-pointers started an 8-1 run and MSU-Northern eventually went on a 14-3 streak for its largest lead of the night at 58-47.
Still, LCSC rallied and cut the margin to four at 62-58 with less than a minute left when senior guard Daniel Williams converted a conventional three-point play. MSU-Northern, however, went a perfect 6-of-6 at the foul line to close out the game and claim the win to improve to 6-2 in league and 18-6 overall.
"We battled the whole way," LCSC assistant coach Tim Collins said. "The guys really fought hard and two things that show that were the offensive rebounds and getting to the foul line as much as we did."
MSU-Northern shot 12 percent points better from the field than LCSC and made six more 3-pointers, but the Warriors had a 36-25 edge in rebounding, including a 16-6 advantage on the offensive glass. Yet despite that margin, MSU-Northern still had a 15-11 advantage in second-chance points.
LCSC also went to the foul line 23 times, compared to 14 for Northern.
The rebounding and free throws helped LCSC trail only 30-28 at halftime. Northern held a 10-point advantage twice in the first half, bt LCSC was able to go 9-of-12 at the foul line while Northern didn't shoot a free throw in the first half. LCSC also had a 23-12 advantage on the boards.
LCSC tied the contest to start the second half before MSU-Northern went up 42-35. LCSC responded with a 7-0 run to tie the contest, but MSU-Northern's three-headed attack of Justin Dennis, Andrew Sellers, and Devin Jackson proved to be too much as they combined for 45 points and eight 3-pointers.
Dennis finished with 17 points and hit 3-of-6 3-pointers, while Sellers added 15 points and tied for game-high rebounding honors with six. Jackson went 3-of-5 from the 3-point line for 13 points.
For the night, Northern finished 24-of-48 from the field for 50 percent and was 11-of-14 at the foul line, all in the second half. LCSC was 20-of-52 from the field, 38.5 percent, including a 3-of-11 mark from the 3-point line. LCSC also was 15-of-23 at the foul line.
Williams led LCSC with 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting. He also had four rebounds and two assists. Markus Monroe had 11 points, while Alex King finished with nine and a team-best six boards.
The Warriors will try to get a split on the road trip when they tangle with the University of Great Falls on Saturday night at 7.
A boxscore on the game can be found at
