Oredigger Women face Western Thursday in Frontier Conference Tournament

The following is a release from the Montana Tech Sports Information Department:

GREAT FALLS, Mont.- The Frontier Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament will take place this Thursday, February 29^th, through Saturday, March 2^nd.The Oredigger women will the tournament as the six seed and will square off against the Bulldogs of Montana Western, the third seed, on Thursday at 7 pm.

This will be the fourth meeting between Montana Tech and Montana Western, with the Bulldogs taking two of the three.

Aubrie Rademacher led the Orediggers in the first two meetings, getting 21 and 22 respectively. In the final battle, Liv Wangerin was on top of the scoring column with 13.

The Bulldogs were led by Jordan Sweeney in all three contests, averaging over 21 points a game.

Western (16-12, 8-7) enters the Tournament as the highest-scoring offense in the Frontier at 70.6 ppg. Sweeney is a big chunk of that at 20.4 points per game. That 20+ points a game is tops in the Frontier Conference. The Bulldogs shoot 44.1% from the floor, and 34.4% from the arc, both of which lead the Frontier Conference.

On the other side of that coin, the Bulldogs do give up the most points per game in the conference at 66.2.  Some other team numbers for the Bulldogs, they enter the tournament as the No. 2 team in the conference for (lack of) turnovers, averaging just over 11 turnovers a game. They are 6^th in rebounding at 31.9 rebounds a game.

Individually, Western has three ladies averaging double figures. They are led by Sweeney at 20.4 ppg, behind her is Shainy Mack at 14.9, and Joelnell Momberg is getting 11.9 points per game.

The Orediggers (12-16, 3-12) wrapped up the regular season averaging 56.4 points per contest. As a team, they shot 34.9% from the floor and 24.6% from the 3-point line. They remain the best rebounding team in the conference at 38.4 boards a game.

Individually, Montana Tech finished the regular season with one player averaging double figures in scoring, that being Aubrie Rademacher. Liv Wangerin is getting 8.9, and Brooklynn Hankwitz checks in at 8.5 points per game.

The other first-round match-up on Thursday has Northern (4 seed) taking on Rocky (5 seed) at 5 pm.

Carroll College, the No. 1 seed, and the University of Providence the No. 2 seed, each received first-round byes. Carroll will play the lowest seed remaining at 5 pm Friday, and Providence will play the highest remaining seed at 7 pm Friday.

The women’s championship will take place at 7:30 Saturday night. The winner of the tournament receives an automatic bid to the NAIA Opening Round.

Tickets for the Frontier Conference Basketball Championships can be purchased at the gate of the Four Seasons Arena. Ticket Prices are $15 per day and are good for all games each day.