BUTTE -- Asher Williams scored 21 points, Hayden Diekhans added 17, but the Montana Tech men's basketball team's mission for a fifth-straight Frontier Conference tournament title was stopped in its tracks Sunday night in the semifinals with a heartbreaking 76-75 loss to Rocky Mountain inside the Butte Civic Center. 

Leading by two after a pair of Diekhans free throws with 1.9 seconds remaining, the Battlin' Bears Omari Nesbit threw up a 65-foot prayer that banked off the backboard and in, pushing Rocky Mountain into a championship matchup with MSU-Northern Monday. 

The game was a slugfest. Neither team led by more than two possessions. 

Top-seeded RMC (27-3) got out to a 6-2 lead, but the Orediggers quickly tied the game with four straight points. The first half featured seven ties and seven lead changes, and Tech (22-8) took a 35-33 lead into the locker room after Diekhans sank a pair of free throws with 19 seconds left in the first. 

In the second, the teams continued to trade blows. Williams' 3-pointer with 7:20 remaining gave the fifth-seeded Orediggers their largest lead of the game, an advantage Tech held until the 3:06 mark, when Rocky tied the game at 67 after a pair of Carter McCoy free throws. 

With the game tied at 69, Camdyn LaRance drew a foul for the Orediggers, and a technical foul was called on the Rocky Mountain bench. Williams made one of two free throws on the technical, and LaRance sank both of his to put the Orediggers back up by three. 

Rocky again made up the deficit, tying the game on Nesbit's lay-in with 5 seconds to play. Diekhans then streaked down the court and drew contact to earn his way to the line, setting up the final sequence. 

Nesbit's heave gave him 26 on the night to lead all scorers. 

Montana Tech will now await the announcement of the NAIA's national tournament field, which will be announced Thursday at 5 p.m. on NAIA.org. The Orediggers were ranked No. 8 in the most recent West Region Area Ratings Committee rankings and 35th in the national Ratings Percentage Index. 

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