By Bruce Sayler
The idea of holding the Frontier Conference college basketball tournament in the Butte Civic Center?
Stroke.
Of.
Genius.
The Montana Tech women and the Rocky Mountain men emerged as champions Monday from the title tilts that capped the four-day tournament in which little breathing room was spaced between teams in almost every game.
The Montana Tech women defeated regular-season champion Dakota State 76-72 after trailing by 19 points twice, and Rocky Mountain survived challenges by upset-minded Montana State-Northern in 79-77 men’s final that was decided in overtime.
“We talked about short memories (in overcoming deficits) and we tried different combinations (while running groups of substitutions in out of the lineup all game long),” Jeff Graham said after leading the Orediggers to first Frontier Conference women’s basketball championship since 1983 and doing it in his fourth year at the helm. “We didn’t like the four-guard alignment, but the high-low worked.”
The tactic involved running the offense through the high post with passes to the cutters going to the basket or kickouts to deep shooters stationed on the perimeter.
The win offered some salve for Montana Tech after the men’s team fell 76-75 in Sunday’s semifinals to eventual champion Rocky Mountain on an ouch sweet Jesus 3-pointer at the final buzzer by Omari Nesbit from the Dollar Tree parking lot.
Monday, the Oredigger women led for only a minute – total – the entire game after digging themselves out of the first-half hole. Success was guaranteed when Brooke Badovinac’s two free throws with 4 seconds on the clock sealed the 76-72 final score.
Dakota State’s last lead was 69-68 with 4:25 left. Cierra Watkins, on her way to 30 points, had scored three in a row to stretch what had been a two-point Trojans lead. Liz Wangerin halted the steak with a jumper from just inside the 3-ball arc for the Orediggers and then she sank two foul shots to narrow the difference to a point.
Dakota State went out ahead again as Watkins netted a pair of charity tosses and Frontier Conference Player of the Year Tabor Teel caged one of two freebies. Montana Tech post star Hadley Humphreys was fouled on the other end and made both foul shots, cutting the gap to 72-70 with 2:43 to go.
With only 21 seconds on the clock, Badovinac ignored a defender flying past her face and stoically drilled a 3-pointer from the right elbow for the first Oredigger lead since the third quarter.
Ella Carstensen was short with a Trojan shot on the other end and Badovinac, a recent Butte Central star, grabbed the rebound. The ball got to Humphreys in the post again and Dakota State’s Caitlin Dyer fouled out hacking her. Humphreys made the second of two foul shots and it was 74-72 for Montana Tech. Dakota State frittered away its last chance when it lost the ball out of bounds under its own basket. Amy Carlson in bounded for the Orediggers and Badovinac was fouled by Mackenzi Simmons. Both of Badovinac’s freebies sifted through the net.
“I remember being a little girl and watching games in here and at Tech with my family,” Badovinac said. “A stayed home for a reason. I love this community and bought into coach Graham with the team.”
Her father, Brett, is a many-time state handball champion, her mom, Amanda, is a former
Butte High athlete who won a state Class AA championship playing first base on the 1995 Bulldog softball team, who directs public relations for Montana Tech, and Brooke’s grandfather, John Badovinac, was a longtime employee of the college before retirement.
“It was awesome,” Dakota State head coach David Moe said about the exciting women’s championship game, even though his team lost. “That’s college basketball. It was a really fun game.
“Jeff is an amazing coach with some great seniors. This is a tough environment to play in when you’re on the road. We got a big lead, but Tech kept chipping away.”
Both teams will be in the NAIA tournament with their regular-season and tournament conference championships. Moe said the Trojans are disappointed in not being able to win both titles in their first year as members of the Frontier Conference, but glad to still be playing.
“As long as we can learn from this game, it’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “We missed too many free throws and they made one more shot than we did. This has been a really, really fun season and I’m proud of the way our team played this season.”
Graham would’ve liked to have seen Dakota State miss a few more 3-pointers, too. The Trojans were 9-for-38 from threesville and used the treys to stack leads of 24-5 and 27-8 in the first quarter before the Orediggers began patiently gnawing away at the margin.
Montana Tech senior All-Conference standout Liz Wangerin has seen the Graham program grow from humble beginnings to Frontier Conference championship.
“We got players that bought in with coach Graham and we got girls who won’t give up,” she said. “They show a lot of grit. We have unselfish people. Nobody cares how many points they score or how many minutes they play.”
She said that there may have been a little consternation about falling so far behind early to NAIA’s seventh-ranked team in the first half. However, the No. 15-ranked Orediggers realized they were still in the thick of it at intermission, when the score was 46-39 in Dakota State’s favor.
“We knew we were down by 19, but we kept fighting,” she said. “This team has done that this year. We had three games like that all year. The Frontier is a tough conference.
“But, we were all down at halftime (Monday), then we looked at the score and we down by only seven.”
The team is built to weather the storm.
“When I got here, we talked about the kids we wanted to bring in,” Graham said. “One was the best shooter (Badovinac) in Butte. Everybody on the team is over a 3.0 GPA. It’s about building a great culture, bringing in great kids.”
Badovinac finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds, Wangerin had 16 points and nine rebounds, Hallie Haber scored 15 points and Humphryes had nine to lead the Orediggers. Montana Tech has a 25-4 record and the team’s first league women’s hoops crown since defeating Northern Montana (now MSU-Northern) 91-70 in the 1983 championship game.
Dakota State, 26-5, was led by Watkins with 22 points and 14 rebounds, Bria Wasmund with 15 points and Teel with 11. The Oredigger defense bothered Teel into 3-for-13 shooting from the field, including an 0-for-4 performance from 3-point range.
Montana Tech athletes led the cheering for the Oredigger women in the Civic Center and the new champs were grateful for the large, boisterous turnout.
“It means a lot when the crowd energy is up,” Badovinac said.
“This is a great place to coach,” Graham said about the college and the community.
More promising team-building is under construction in Dillon and a determined Montana Western squad showed Sunday in trying to upset Montana Tech before being eliminated from the tourney in a 78-74 loss.
“We wanted to show up and play better basketball,” Montana Western first-year head coach Ryan Sullivan said in the Sunday post-game press conference. “Our goal was to get their lead down to four points, then seven and we wound up losing that game. We had our chances.
“We had signees from three different coaches on our team, which makes for interesting dynamics. Then we got Bailee (Sayler) signed and she was tremendous. Now, the locker room is where wanted it to be and we’ve been able to have some success blending players from three different coaches. We were just one game away from playing for the championship.”
