Valley products lead Western hoops

Kalispell's Kellen Ori and Becky O'Neil, along with Whitefish's Laura Shea, are ready to help lead the University of Montana-Western basketball teams again this season.

The NAIA Frontier Conference basketball programs tipped their seasons off on Thursday in Dillon against the University of Lethbridge.

The men won 92-90 in overtime with Ori scoring 11 points. O'Neil had 18 points and nine rebounds, and Shea had six points and nine rebounds, in the women's 86-56 victory over the Pronghorns.

UM-Western will play a plethora of non-conference games leading up to the Frontier Conference season after the new year. Their next games are on Friday.

O'Neil, a 6-foot senior, led the Bulldogs in scoring and rebounding last season as the team won both the regular season and conference tournament before advancing to the Sweet 16 of the National Tournament. She averaged 16 points per game and 8.1 rebounds.

Led by two-time national coach of the year Kevin Engellant, the Bulldogs finished the season with a 29-6 record. Shea is a 5-9 forward on the team, which also includes Kalispell's Amanda Lidstrom, a 5-9 sophomore forward.

"Our seniors are providing great leadership and our new players are picking things up very quickly," Engellant said. "This team should be really fun to watch. With (Katherine) Sunwall and O'Neil, we obviously have a very strong post game. But we also have the perimeter shooting to help open up the post area."

The Western women are preseason favorites to win the conference.

Ori is a 6-8 senior post on a men's squad that returns four seniors from last year's 13-18 team. He averaged 6.5 points and 4.4 rebounds per game in his first season at UM-Western after transferring from Montana Tech.

Ori and O'Neil were recipients of the Frontier Conference Newcomer of the Year Award. O'Neil won it last year after transferring from Weber State. Ori won it as a freshman.

The Western men are picked to finish third-from-last in the nine-team Frontier Conference.