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HELENA, Mont. -- With one weekend left in the Frontier Conference regular season, the No. 8 Carroll College Fighting Saints are within striking distance of a league crown.
The Saints sit at No. 2 with a 12-4 record in the Frontier, behind Montana Western's 13-3 mark. Carroll travels to last-place Montana Tech on Thursday before finishing the season at home on Senior Night against No. 24 Rocky Mountain College.
A pair of wins coupled with No. 4 Western dropping one of its last two games would give the Saints a split of the Frontier Conference regular-season title, though the tiebreaker would favor the Bulldogs after they claimed a 2-1 series win, giving them the No. 1 seed in the postseason.
If the Bulldogs fell twice and the Saints won out, Carroll would become the outright regular-season champion.
First the Saints have to travel into Butte to take on the Orediggers. Carroll holds a 2-0 edge over Tech so far this season, winning by an average margin of 10.5 points. However, this could be an improved Orediggers team.
MTT recently broke a six-game losing skid with a home victory over No. 17 Lewis-Clark State College last week. It was a game where Orediggers leading scorer Mesa Williams (13.4 ppg) poured in 20 points.
The Saints have bottled up Williams before. Carroll held Williams to 16 points total in two games this season.
CC owns the best winning streak in the Frontier. Carroll has piled up five consecutive wins, the latter two victories gave senior
Hannah Dean her third Frontier Conference Player of the Week award this season.
Dean is leading the Saints in points (14.8), rebounds (7.3), assists (3), steals (2), and blocks (1) per game.
The Saints will return to the PE Center on Saturday night for Senior Night, honoring Dean,
Brittney Johnson,
Mikaela Olson and
Cassidy (Hashley) Kosena.
Their opposition will be the Battlin' Bears in a rubber match. Each team has won on its home court.
Rocky, like Tech, may be playing its best ball of the season. The Battlin' Bears posted a pair of convincing home wins last week, defeating No. 23 Providence 77-51 and Montana State-Northern 51-36.
Both games are scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday and Saturday, respectively.
