Montana Tech Orediggers

The Montana Tech Orediggers have been reaching heights not seen before in practically every aspect of their athletic programs. From basketball, football and volleyball to their recently added track and field and cross country programs, the Orediggers continue to win as individual teams and to collectively grow as a program well. These types of achievements are not done without solid leadership at the very top and again this year, Montana Tech's Matt Stepan has been named the Frontier Conference Athletic Director of the Year.

Montana Tech's intercollegiate athletics programs captured the Frontier Conference's George Bandy Memorial Conference All-Sports Award for the third-consecutive academic year, the league office announced Tuesday.

Monday night, the University of Houston Cougars, under the tutelage of Coach Kelvin Sampson, will meet the University of Florida Gators for the NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship. As you have probably heard several times by now, Coach Sampson is also the former head coach of the Montana Tech Orediggers, a school he led to then-unseen success and a school where he left a lasting legacy. Coach Kelvin is a member of the Digger Athletics Hall of Fame. Sampson is a mentor to current Oredigger Head Coach Adam Hiatt. Hiatt's present-day Orediggers proudly play on Kelvin Sampson Court. But even as Sampson has moved on, you can tell there is a lot of Butte left in him.

The 2024-25 season was a coming-of-age season for Hayden Diekhans of the Montana Tech Orediggers. Diekhans, by the start of last season, had gained a reputation as a relentless defender with a nice jump shot and unusual speed, but still more or less a role player for the then 3-time defending Frontier Conference regular season and tournament champions. By the end of the season, the Orediggers were the 4-time defending Frontier Conference regular season and tournament champions, a first for any team in Frontier history, and Diekhans had emerged as a superstar, although one with a very blue-collar manner of business and was named the Frontier Conference Defensive Player of the Year as well as the league's Player of the Year awards. On Monday, he was named to the NAIA's All America Second Team.

A quartet of Montana Tech women's basketball players laid claim to Academic All-District honors from College Sports Communicators, the organization announced Tuesday morning.

It has truly been a historic season for Montana Tech Basketball. On the men's side of things, the Diggers are Frontier Conference regular season and tournament champions for the fourth year in a row and the women have been chosen as an at-large selection for the NAIA National Tournament which begins Thursday. Both teams will be headed to 4-team pods, the men to Santa Clarita, California where they will face first-round opponent Southern Oregon University, and the women to Madison, South Dakota where they will meet Dakota State. The winners of the pods will advance to the tournament's final site which is Kansas City, Missouri for the men and Sioux City, Iowa for the women.

Montana Tech junior forward Hayden Diekhans was awarded both the Frontier Conference Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards and head coach Adam Hiatt took home the Frontier Conference Coach of the Year award it was announced Wednesday afternoon.

Hayden Diekhans had 23 points and 11 rebounds, and the top-seeded Montana Tech Mens Basketball Team turned a 4-point halftime lead into a 19-point blowout of the second-seeded University of Providence Argos in the championship game of the 2025 Frontier Conference Basketball Tournament which wrapped up at the Pacific Steel and Recycling Four Seasons Arena on Tuesday evening.

Montana Tech's football program and head coach Kyle Samson are excited to announce that 40 soon-to-be high school graduates will be joining the Oredigger program this coming fall.

For the third time this season, Montana Tech's Hayden Diekhans is a Frontier Conference men's basketball player of the week. The junior from Geraldine landed the league's defensive player of the week honor, the Frontier office announced Monday afternoon.