BUTTE -- The last time the Montana Tech women's basketball program won a Frontier Conference championship, Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" was No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
Ronald Reagan was president. Phillips and Sony has just developed the first compact disc recordings. IBM was about to release PC DOS version 2.0. And current Orediggers head coach Jeff Graham was 1 year old.
No more.
The 2026 Orediggers erased an early double-digit deficit, storming back to defeat top-seeded Dakota State, 76-72, for the Frontier tournament title inside a raucous Butte Civic Center.
Brooke Badovinac scored a team-high 21 points for Montana Tech (25-4), none bigger than her final five. After the Orediggers trailed for most of the ballgame — including a 19-point deficit in the first quarter — the sophomore from Butte nailed the go-ahead 3-pointer with 33 seconds left. With 3.6 seconds left and Tech ahead by two, Badovinac calmly stepped to the line and knocked down a pair of free throws that iced the win.
Badovinac was 8-for-12 from the floor, made both her 3-point attempts, and added a career-high 10 rebounds for her first collegiate double-double.
Liv Wangerin scored 16 points and grabbed nine rebounds for the Orediggers, and Halle Haber added 15 points and eight boards.
Things did not look good for Montana Tech in the early going.
Dakota State (26-5), the No. 7-ranked team in the NAIA and the Frontier's regular-season champions, came out of the gate on fire. The Trojans made five 3-pointers in the opening quarter, storming out to a 24-5 lead in the game's first 6 minutes.
"They hit some shots. We knew they were going to. They're really good early in the game," Graham said. "We were hoping their 3-point percentage would level out a little bit."
It did. The Trojans went 4-for-26 the rest of the game from beyond the arc, and Montana Tech did the rest.
A Badovinac jumper with 3:27 left in the first kicked off a 7-0 Oredigger run, and Tech headed into the second down 31-17.
Tech kept chipping away in the second. Hadley Humpherys opened the quarter with a layup, and Badovinac's first 3-pointer on the next possession cut the lead to single digits for the first time since the early going. An 11-2 Orediggers run trimmed the deficit to four with 4:09 remaining in the half.
DSU shifted the momentum late in the period, however, and took a 46-39 lead into the half.
Montana Tech surged in the third, using a 14-5 run to take its first lead of the game. Freshman Kylie Konen put the Orediggers ahead, 57-56, with a steal and fast-break layup at the 2:54 mark.
The Trojans took the advantage back on Tabor Teel's bucket two possessions later, and Dakota State took a three-point lead into the fourth quarter.
The teams traded buckets for most of the final period. Tech was able to trim the lead to one on multiple occasions early in the frame but never able to tie the game.
That is, until the final minute.
Trailing by two, Wangerin snagged the rebound off a Trojans miss, and Tech quickly moved the ball up the floor. The Orediggers found Humpherys in the high post, who drew a double-team. She kicked it to Badovinac in front of the Tech bench, and the sophomore nailed the go-ahead 3.
The Orediggers finished the game on an 8-0 run.
It was only Montana Tech's third trip to the Frontier Conference title game. The Orediggers won the first-ever Frontier women's tournament in 1983, blowing out MSU-Northern (then Northern Montana College). In 1989, the Skylights flipped the script.
For Badovinac, a Butte native who is Butte Central Catholic High School's single-season scoring leader and the daughter of two Montana Tech alumni, the moment couldn't have been sweeter.
"I remember being a little kid watching games in the HPER with my family," she said afterward. "It's an unreal feeling to hear those words and to be here right now with my best friends at my side."
Montana Tech had already wrapped up an automatic bid to the NAIA national tournament by way of their regular-season runner-up finish paired with the Orediggers and Dakota State, the regular-season champion, both reaching the tournament final.
The Orediggers, who entered the week ranked 15th in the NAIA coaches' poll, will learn their tournament draw Thursday when the full bracket is announced.
2026 Frontier Conference Women's Basketball All-Tournament Team
Brooke Badovinac, Montana Tech
Becky Melcher, MSU-Northern
Bailee Sayler, Montana Western
Tabor Teel, Dakota State
Liv Wangerin, Montana Tech
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