Orediggers sweep Dickinson State at upgraded Valley Bank Arena

After three consecutive weekends on the road, the Montana Tech Orediggers men's and women's basketball teams returned to a nicely-upgraded Valley Bank Arena in a big way, sweeping the Dickenson State Bluehawks Friday evening in Frontier Conference basketball.  Friday night the Orediggers and Valley Bank unveiled some sharp new signage and a new scoreboard and interactive scorers table as well.

WOMEN - TECH 79, DICKENSON STATE 50

The Orediggers used a 25-10 second quarter run to open the floodgates, blasting Dickenson State 79-50.  Hometown Hero Brooke Badovinac led all scorers and was joined in double figures by Kylie Konen and Halle Haber who both tallied a dozen and Liv Wangerin who scored 10.  The Orediggers dominated in the paint outscoring the Bluehawks 48 to 14 and had a 43-29 advantage on the glass.  With the win the Orediggers improve to 16-4 overall, 13-4 in the Frontier Conference.

MEN - TECH 67, DICKENSON STATE 48

What was a one-point halftime lead for Montana Tech turned into another blowout behind the stellar play of reigning league MVP Hayden Diekhans who had a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds.  "Birdie" also added 2 steals and 2 assists, one of which was a beautiful alley-oop to Ethan Venema whose thunderous slam dunk put the exclamation point on the win and brought down the house.  Diekhans was joined in double digits by Karson Peffer who also had a dozen, Rhett Reynolds who added 11 and Camden LaRance who had 10.  The Diggs are now 17-6 overall with an 11-6 mark in conference play.

The Orediggers will be at home again on Saturday as they host the Bismarck State Mystics.  The women play at 5pm and the men at 7pm.