BUTTE, Mont. – The Montana Tech women's basketball team shot 48.9 percent from the field and 45.5 percent from beyond the arc but it wasn't enough as the Diggers fell to no. 11 Montana State-Northern, 72-62 Saturday night at the HPER.

Both squads came out ready to battle. The Skylights struck first via an A'Jha Edwards layup. Tech responded with a three pointer from Mandy Machinal. MSU-N went on to take an early 11-7 lead but Kayla DeWit came off the bench and scored back-to-back buckets tying up the contest at 11 all. Both teams would exchange baskets midway through the half. The Skylights when on a run late in the half to take and scored the last six points of stanza to take the 12-point advantage heading into the half.

Northern's lead would be as high as 15 (44-29) in the second half. The un-phased Digger offence battled back chipping away at the Skylight lead. Tech cut the lead down to eight at 55-47 with 7:10 remaining off of a DeWit layup with the feed from Kabri Emerson. Both teams would exchange baskets throughout the half as the Skylights held on to the 10-point victory.

DeWit had another stellar night for the Diggers (8-16, 0-9 Frontier) with a team-high 20 points off the bench. Emerson filled up the stat sheet scoring 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting and added a team-high eight rebounds and three assists. Machinal added 11 points and four assists.

Tech is back in action Feb. 14^th when they travel to Lewiston, Idaho to face the Warriors of Lewis-Clark State.