Montana Tech: Back 2 Back Frontier Champions

The Montana Tech Orediggers are your 2022 Frontier Conference Champions!

The regular season champions entered the Frontier Tournament as the #1 seed and survived a brawl with Rocky Mountain College in their first game Monday night, landing them a spot in the championship game for the second straight year.

Providence, the #2 seed coming into the tournament, also had an incredibly tough game in their semi-final tussle with MSU Northern, winning 72-70.

Much like the Rocky game Montana Tech had won all 3 previous meetings between The Diggs and Argos, so trying to hang a fourth W was going to be an uphill climb.

Going back to the Rocky game, the Bears did a great job defensively on the Tech starters, not giving them clean looks at all. That was not the case last night, the Oredigger had 4 starters in double figures after the first 20 minutes of play. Asa Williams 12, Caleb Bellach 11, and Hayden Diekhans and Michael Ure each had 10. The Orediggers shot 63% from the floor in the first half, and 50% from the 3-point line.

Montana Tech led by as much as 17 in the first half, but the Argos were not going away. Sam Vining was their spark in the first half. The Great Falls native was 4 of 6 from downtown and had 12 points after 20 minutes. Also with 12 points was Kenny Curtis, this young man might be the toughest defensive assignment in the conference. Smart, lightning-fast, an incredible shooter, and he can flat finish. Providence shot 47% in the first half, 44% from the arc, on -get this- 11 of 25 shots.. 25 three attempts in the first half alone.

In the second half, the Argos came out on fire, cutting the lead to 2 in just under 3 minutes. From there to the midway point of the half, the lead fluctuated from 2 to 6 points, but Providence was never able to get over the hump and grab a lead of their own. With just under 9 minutes left to play Providence went to the free throw line with a chance to tie the game at 82, hitting 1 of 2 they trailed by one, and that is as close as they would get for the remainder of the game.

The Orediggers get the win 103-95. Montana Tech will host an NAIA National Championship “Pod” next week at the HPER. The pod will consist of 4 teams that will play a pair of semi-final games on Tuesday, the winners will square off on Wednesday, and the lone team remaining will head to Kansas City, Missouri to battle for the National Championship.

Here are the final numbers for both teams: University of Providence first.

Here are the Montana Tech final numbers

You can also view the full numbers HERE.