Dillon, Mont.-  Playing on the road in Frontier Conference women's basketball is a grind. It can also be a dogfight every single night.

And, following a loss to Rocky Mountain College Thursday night, the No. 11 Montana State University-Northern Skylights knew they'd be in for a dogfight, literally, in their next game. But, needing a win over No. 22 UM-Western, it turns out, the Skylights were up to the challenge as they overcame a late deficit to beat the Bulldogs 57-51.

"I'm so proud of our kids," Northern head coach Chris Mouat said. "We have some kids who are pretty sick. And then, we're coming off a game where we did not play well at all (Rocky). So to come here and find a way to win, against a Western team playing as good as anybody right now, I'm just extremely proud of this team."

The win was crucial for the Skylights, not only because they showed resilience by shrugging off the loss to RMC, but also because they came to Dillon tied with Western for second place in the Frontier standings. Now, however, Northern leaves Western with a hard-fought road split, and an 8-4 league record.

"It was big," Mouat said of Saturday night's win. "This was a very hard-earned road split. And we've got four more on the road ahead of us. So we'll take this one and move forward."

The Skylights will take it. They trailed Western by four points with four minutes left in the game, but 3-pointers by Molly Kreycik and Cydney Auzenne lifted the Skylights into the lead, and Northern's trademark defense was strong in the waning minutes, as MSU-N beat the bulldogs for the second time in four weeks.

"I thought we hit some big three's," Mouat said. "But most importantly, we got some key stops and we rebounded really well down the stretch. Aniese Palmore was pretty much unstoppable tonight. She played an incredible game. But I thought we did a good job defensively holding everybody else in check, and we were really good defensively down the stretch. It was a great effort by our kids."

The Skylights did overcome an incredible effort by Palmore, who poured in 29 points, grabbed seven rebounds and made four triples. They also overcame Western's strong fourth-quarter push. Northern led 26-23 at intermission, but found itself down four with the game on the line. Kreycik would lead a balanced scoring effort with 14 points, while Natalee Faupel and Sierra Richards each scored 12 and Auzenne added 10.

"I was really proud of Katie Fertterer tonight," Mouat said. "She stepped into a starting spot and we didn't miss a beat. But overall, it was a really great team effort by our kids. We had a lot of different players make big plays for us in key situations. It was just another game where our kids found a way and I'm proud of them."

The Skylights will look to build Saturday night's win over the Bulldogs, but they'll continue to have to do it on the road. Northern heads to first-place Lewis-Clark State Thursday night, then visits surging Montana Tech Saturday night. The Skylights have lost twice to the Warriors this season, but are 2-0 against Tech. Northern also still has a rematch left with Western too, which will come Feb. 24 in the Armory Gymnasium.

STORY BY GEORGE FERGUSON, Havre Daily News

PHOTO BY WALLY FELDT