Montana

Lady Griz drop heartbreaker at Dahlberg – University of Montana Athletics

Published

3 months ago

November 24, 2025

Lady Griz drop heartbreaker at Dahlberg – University of Montana Athletics

Wednesday’s loss, a 70-69 defeat at the hands of now 5-0 BYU, will keep first-year Lady Griz coach Nate Harris up into the wee hours, but when he wakes up on Thursday morning, he’ll likely do so with a noticeable hop in his step.

Showing a heightened tenacity on the defensive end and a depth of 3-point shooting that will create problems for every opponent Montana faces this season, Harris’s Lady Griz had the Cougars right where they wanted them in the closing minutes at Dahlberg Arena.

Montana led 69-64 with just over three minutes remaining but BYU made the winning plays down the stretch, a pull-up jumper in the lane, a 3-pointer with 2:03 that tied it and a game-winning free throw with 1:13 left that proved to be the final point of the game.

After the teams traded possessions in the final minute, Montana had the ball, down one, the shot clock turned off and shooters that had made 14 3-pointers on the night spaced around the arc.

But potential 3-pointer No. 15 was off the mark and the buzzer sounded before anyone could do anything with the rebound. It was a hard-to-take result on a night that left fans looking at the months ahead and thinking, okay, this team could be really good.

“A step in the right direction,” said an understandably disappointed Harris after the game. “I told the team, the easy thing to do is to focus on the result, which I’ll try my hardest not to do as well.

“We had a Big 12 team on the ropes and had some great looks down the stretch. Did enough defensively. Really disappointed for our kids. I felt like this could have been a great opportunity to taste victory.”

It was a match-up that was hard to make heads or tails of before tip, BYU racing out to a 4-0 start to the season, all the wins coming at home against a lineup of mid- to low-packers, Montana opening 1-3 but facing a brutal stretch of games against Oregon, Washington and South Dakota State.

BYU’s largest lead on Wednesday was seven, in the opening period. Montana’s was five, in the final period. In between was Montana’s 3-point shooting going back and forth with BYU’s stronger inside presence in a game full of drama and emotion. November basketball at its best.

Playing without last season’s Big 12 Freshman of the Year and this year’s leading scorer, Delaney Gibb, BYU still looked like it might run away with the game in the first quarter, getting out to leads of 16-9 and 18-11.

That’s when Montana seemed to draw a line in the sand, its on-ball defense, in particular, going from being there to straight-up disruptive.

The Lady Griz scored 10 points over the final 2:40 of the first quarter, highlighted by back-to-back 3-pointers from freshman Rae Ehrman, and ended the period down just one, 20-19.

BYU would not shoot as well in any of the final three periods as the Cougars did in the first.

“We need to focus on the growth and what we got out of today, which was learning that when you guard, good things happen,” said Harris.

“I thought we guarded with a lot more intensity than we’ve shown all year. Were there mistakes? Sure, but I thought the effort and the intensity were there in a big way.”

The Cougars led 38-34 at the half, 55-54 after three quarters, setting up the dramatic final period.

Had Montana won, the hero would have been Mack Konig, who was special even without the W. She scored 19 points and added four assists, scoring six in the fourth quarter on strong drives through the gaping holes in the Cougar defense, Harris’s game plan for his program coming to life in real time.

A Macy Donarski 3-pointer gave Montana a 62-59 lead and an advantage it would hold for more than five minutes, a Konig finish at the basket making it 64-61, an Ehrman three making it 67-62, another Konig left-handed finish at the rim making it 69-64.

There were only three-some minutes to go and BYU had no answer for Montana’s spread offense. But Konig’s basket at 3:37 would be the final points of the game for the Lady Griz.

Marya Hudgins, who scored a game-high 23 points, breathed life into the Cougars when her pull-up made it a three-point game, 69-66.

The game flipped in a span of nine seconds, a Montana three from the corner missing with 2:12 to go and BYU hitting its own corner three with 2:03 left that tied it. What could have been a six-point lead was now a game deadlocked.

Neither team would score a basket the rest of the way, a free throw by Hudgins with 73 seconds left the final point.

After taking possession with 20 seconds left, Konig played the clock down to 10 seconds before initiating what Montana hoped was the game-winning sequence.

She drove, kicked it to Donarski, who drove and passed back to Konig, who got the ball of Jocelyn Land just to the side of the top of the key, the player who made eight threes on Saturday against South Dakota State.

It was an open but contested look, Hudgins doing her best to disrupt Land’s focus with a no-foul fly-by. The stroke was pure, the shot a bit to the right. Ball game. Heartbreak.

“We were right there with a fantastic look that I’d take 10 times out of 10 to win the game,” said Harris. “We have to keep plugging. We cannot let the results slow down or stunt the growth that we made tonight.”

Montana had its best offensive balance of the season, with Konig finishing with 19, her fifth time this season with 11 or more points, Ehrman adding 12 off the bench on four 3-pointers, and Waddington scoring 10 points, matching a career high with 13 rebounds and blocking a career-high four shots.

Donarski scored eight, Kennedy Gillette eight off the bench, Land six.

Montana has now made 13, 16 and 14 3-pointers the last three games on better-than-solid 36.4 percent shooting from the arc. The Lady Griz entered the night one of 15 teams in the nation averaging 10 or more threes made, a number that will only tick up after Wednesday.

Montana will go Big Ten to Big Ten to the nation’s top-ranked mid-major team to Big 12 to Big 12 when the Lady Griz host Utah (3-1) on Saturday, Nov. 29.

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Montana

At Largest ICE Detention Camp, Staff Bet on Detainee Suicides, AP Reports

Published

8 hours ago

March 7, 2026

Press Room

At Largest ICE Detention Camp, Staff Bet on Detainee Suicides, AP Reports

A sign marks the entrance to a series of hardened tents at the Camp East Montana immigrant detention center in the desert at a U.S. Army base on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. Morgan Lee/AP

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This story contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you care about may be at risk of suicide, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or go to 988lifeline.org.

Staff at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility have placed bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide, according to new reporting from the Associated Press based on 911 calls and detainee accounts.

Owen Ramsingh, a legal permanent resident who spent several weeks at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas, told AP that he overheard a security guard talking about a betting pool for which detainee would next die by suicide. The guard said he had paid $500 into the pot, which would all go to the winner with the most accurate predictions on detainees harming themselves.

Without providing details, the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told AP that Ramsingh, who was brought to the US at age 5 from the Netherlands, was lying about the suicide bets.

In January, staff at Camp East Montana called 911 to request emergency help for Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old from Cuba. DHS described his death as an attempted suicide. A medical examiner later ruled it a homicide. That same month, staff at the detention facility called 911 to report that a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man died by suicide. The AP reports that “detainees attempted to harm themselves while expressing suicidal ideations on at least six other occasions that resulted in 911 calls.”

Once the site of an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, Camp East Montana is made up of six long tents at the Fort Bliss Army base outside of El Paso. On an average day, the facility holds around 3,000 detainees who are living in harsh conditions: They lack sufficient food and often go without proper medical care, according to AP’s review of 130 calls made to 911. Those calls took place in just about five months—from when the tents were quickly constructed in mid-August to January 20.

“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,”Ramsingh said. He lived in Columbia, Missouri before being stopped at the airport by DHS and sent to Camp East Montana last year. Despite holding a green card and being married to a US citizen, he was deported to the Netherlands in February over a drug conviction from when he was a teenager (which he served prison time for). “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison,” Ramsingh added.

Ramsingh said that the alledged bets on who would die by suicide were especially difficult because he had contemplated suicide himself.

While ICE data shows that the average stay at the tents is around nine days, detainees can be stuck at the camp for months as the courts struggle to accommodate President Donald Trump’s mass detainment and deportation campaign.

US House Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents part of El Paso and has toured Camp East Montana, told AP that the facility “should not be operational.”

“It feels like this contractor is reinventing the wheel,” she said, “ and people are losing their lives in their experiment.”

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Montana

Encore of the Heart: Montana Performer Makes Comeback After Heart Attack | AHA

Published

20 hours ago

March 7, 2026

Press Room

Encore of the Heart: Montana Performer Makes Comeback After Heart Attack | AHA

Frankee Angel, a lifelong performer, found her world upended when she suffered a sudden medical emergency just before playing piano at St. Patrick’s Church. Unaware that she had already survived one heart attack, she was shocked to learn she was in the midst of a second. The damage was severe—her heart’s ejection fraction had fallen to 15%, indicating advanced heart failure.

Under the care of the cardiology team at Intermountain Health St. James Hospital, Angel began a long journey toward stabilizing and strengthening her heart. Providers monitored her closely, adjusting medications and helping her manage complications like fluid buildup. Their goal was to prepare her for an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD), a device that could protect her from dangerous heart rhythms. In July 2025, once her body was ready, the device was successfully implanted.

Angel immediately felt renewed energy and affectionately named the ICD “Minerva,” after her old stage persona. “It’s a miracle! I’m able to live like the person I am meant to be,” she said.

With the support of cardiac rehabilitation and her dedicated care team, Angel gradually reclaimed her identity as a performer. She returned to playing piano during mass and is now preparing for a role in Macbeth. Her story highlights the broader impact of St. James Hospital’s “Hearts in the Mountains” initiative, launched in 2022 to expand heart-failure care in rural Montana—a program that has helped reduce cardiology readmission rates from 30% to 11.4%.

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Montana

Montana State announces spring football schedule; Nolan Askelson joins coaching staff

Published

1 day ago

March 6, 2026

Press Room

Montana State announces spring football schedule; Nolan Askelson joins coaching staff

BOZEMAN — Montana State will begin spring football practices March 24.

The reigning national champion Bobcats will hold 12 practices, two scrimmages and the Sonny Holland Spring Classic over the course of five weeks. The Sonny Holland Spring Classic is scheduled for Saturday, April 25.

Also on the schedule is the MSU Pro Day, which will be held April 2.

In addition to releasing the spring practice schedule, Montana State confirmed the addition of Nolan Askelson to the coaching staff. Askelson, a Billings Senior High School alum, will be an assistant defensive line coach for Bobby Daly, who is returning as Montana State’s defensive coordinator after spending last season at UTEP.

Askelson was a standout linebacker for the Bobcats, capping his MSU career with first-team All-Big Sky Conference honors in 2023. He played in four games as a true freshman in 2018 before becoming a regular rotation player in 2019. An injury shortened his 2021 season, but he played 11 games in 2022 and finished with 64 tackles.

As a senior in 2023, Askelson wore Montana State’s legacy No. 41 jersey and led the team with 84 tackles, eight tackles-for-loss and two sacks.

In high school, he was a two-time all-state selection for Senior and helped the Broncs win Class AA state championships in 2016 and 2017.

Montana State spring football schedule

Tuesday, March 24 — Practice, 7:05 a.m.

Thursday, March 26 — Practice, 7:05 a.m.

Friday, March 27 — Practice, 7:05 a.m.

Monday, March 30 — Practice, 7:05 a.m.

Wednesday, April 1 — Practice, 7:05 a.m.

Thursday, April 2 — Pro Day (no practice)

Friday, April 3 — Practice, 7:05 a.m.

Saturday, April 4 — Practice, 10:05 a.m.

Tuesday, April 7 — Practice, 7:05 a.m.