Former Bulldog helps team to Frontier Conference title

HELENA, Mont. — Former Sandpoint basketball player Ben Mitchell was a key bench player this season for Montana State Northern, which recently beat Carroll College 79-70 to win the Frontier Conference men’s basketball championship.

Mitchell, a 6-foot-4 junior small forward, scored 10 points in the semis, helping the No. 19 ranked Northern Lights advance to the NAIA national championships. The Lights will open against No. 13 Biola on Thursday in Kansas City.

Mitchell scored 144 points on the season, shooting 58 percent from the field and hitting double-digits in scoring four times. Perhaps his most remarkable stat came from beyond the arc, where the sharp-shooter made 9 of 14 attempts for an almost unheard of 64 percent, begging the question of why he hasn’t been launching more 3-pointers.