BUTTE, Mont. -- Landers Smith and Ethan Renner combined for 267 rushing yards and five touchdowns as the No. 10-ranked Montana Tech football team celebrated Senior Day with a 54-14 win over Montana State University-Northern Saturday afternoon on Bob Green Field.

Orediggers quarterback Blake Thelen was efficient as ever, completing 17 of his 19 passes for 200 yards and a pair of scores. Smith led the Montana Tech ground attack with 140 yards and three TDs, while Renner rushed five times for 127 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Dylan Root converted a pair of 34-yard field goals to add to the tally.

Cole Wyant led the defensive effort for Montana Tech (8-2, 5-2 Frontier Conference) with nine tackles. DJ Brown and Matt Whitcomb made eight and seven stops, respectively, and Payton Gonser intercepted a Lights pass to stop a drive in the red zone.

Montana Tech started with great field position after Levi Torgerson took the opening kickoff to the Diggers' 45-yard line, and the Oredigger offense took just five plays to find pay dirt. Smith capped the drive with an 11-yard touchdown run.

MSU-Northern (0-9, 0-7) responded with a drive of its own, but Gonser intercepted a pass at the Montana Tech 2 to keep the Lights off the board. The shutout bid didn't last long, however. Tech lost a fumble on the next play, and the Lights punched the ball across the goal line to tie the score at 7-7 early on.

The Orediggers responded splendidly. Thelen engineered another drive with the help of good field position, and Smith scored his second TD of the afternoon, this one from five yards out, to put Tech ahead for good at the 14:08 mark in the second.

The Diggers made the lead comfortable before halftime, making use of a Renner 54-yard touchdown run, a Thelen to Caden Zalewski connection from six yards out, and Root's first field goal of the day to make it a 30-7 lead at the break.

Northern cut into the lead on its first drive of the third quarter, scoring on a 40-yard pass, before the Orediggers got back to work. Second-half touchdowns from Derek Pearse, Smith, and Renner and another Root field goal put the contest out of reach.

Tech's offense was lethal all afternoon. The Digger rushing attack averaged 10 yards per carry in addition to the five trips to the end zone, and the receiving corps netted 10.1 yards per catch en route to 512 yards of total offense. The Diggers were 5-for-7 on third down and were not forced to punt in the game.

The win marked Tech's 10th-straight victory over MSUN. The last five of those have come by four or more touchdowns.

Montana Tech will close out the regular season at home next Saturday against archrival Carroll College. A win over the Saints paired with an Eastern Oregon win over Montana Western would grant the Orediggers a share of the Frontier Conference title.

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