Montana
Frontier Conference notebook: Rocky Mountain College, Montana Tech, Carroll College athletes shine
MISSOULA — It was a big week for Montana Frontier Conference athletic teams. Rocky Mountain College did well in volleyball and golf; Montana Tech got strong performances in football and cross country; and Carroll College continued its hot start in women’s soccer.
Those headlines and more highlight the Frontier Conference notebook for Sept. 25.
Volleyball
Rocky Mountain College had a perfect week on the volleyball court, sweeping past crosstown rival MSU Billings in an exhibition match and Carroll College in its Frontier Conference opener last week.
Makenna Bushman and Blythe Sealey were named the conference’s attacker and setter of the week, respectively, for the Battlin’ Bears on Monday. Bushman, a junior outside hitter from Joliet, had a double-double of 13 kills and 12 digs in Rocky’s win over Carroll. She added a service ace and three blocks. Sealey, a senior setter from Roundup, tallied 35 assists, nine digs and one kill in the match.
KayLee Kopp of Montana Western was named the defensive player of the week. Kopp, from Fort Collins, Colo., had 17 digs, two blocks and seven kills in the Bulldogs’ sweep of Montana State-Northern.
Last week:
Rocky def. MSU Billings 3-0 (exhibition)
Montana Tech def. Providence 3-1
Rocky def. Carroll 3-0
Western def. Northern 3-0
Up next:
MSU Billings at Rocky, 7 p.m. Monday
Carroll at Western, 7 p.m. Wednesday
Providence at MSU-Northern, 7 p.m. Wednesday
MSU-Northern at Montana Tech, 7 p.m. Friday
Providence at Carroll, 7 p.m. Friday
Western at Rocky, 7 p.m. Friday
Rocky at Tech, 2 p.m. Saturday
Cross country
The Carroll College men’s and women’s cross country teams are both ranked in the latest NAIA Cross Country Coaches’ Top 25 Ratings, which were released on Sept. 21.
Carroll is ranked 17th in the women’s rankings and 19th in the men’s. The Rocky Mountain College women are 21st, and the Montana Tech men are 25th.
The Orediggers were the only Frontier Conference harriers to compete last week, running at The Master’s Cross Country Invitational in Santa Cruz, Calif. Tech’s men finished in sixth place and the women took seventh at the event that featured teams from both the NAIA and NCAA.
Edwin Kipainoi finished sixth overall with a time of 24 minutes, 24.2 seconds. Justin Morgan was also in the top 20 in the field of 236 runners. Morgan took 12th place with a time of 24:34.3. Kipainoi was fifth among the NAIA competitors, and Morgan was seventh. Carlin Manning took 12th overall and third among NAIA schools in the women’s race with a time of 21:36.0.
Up next:
Montana’s Frontier cross country teams are off until the Yellowjackets/Battlin’ Bears Open in Billings on Oct. 6.
Golf
Rocky Mountain College swept the team and individual titles at the Argo Invitational at the Meadowlark Country Club in Great Falls last week.
Daniel Sigurjonsson led the way for the Battlin’ Bear men, carding a three-round 6-under-par 210, including a sizzling 67 in the final round. Rocky’s Jared Smith (213 strokes) and Leon Doedtmann (215) placed second and third overall, as the Bears finished with 852 total strokes to finish 55 shots ahead of second-place Montana Tech.
Rocky’s Valentina Zuleta captured another individual win on the women’s side, finishing her two rounds with a 1-under-par 143 (73, 70). Kadence Fischer (153 strokes) and Tyla Potgieter (157) added second- and third-place finishes for Rocky, which totaled 612 shots to finish 28 strokes ahead of second-place Tech.
“Both teams played really great this week,” Rocky coach Nathan Bailey said. “I was really proud of how well we played Monday with the tough, windy conditions. Our play on Monday really separated us from the field. (Tuesday) we had some great weather and we took advantage of that. We really showed off how deep our teams are this season, especially on the men’s side. I believe this week will give us a lot of confidence going forward into the fall season.”
Up next:
The Frontier Conference golf teams will take the course at Laurel Country Club for the Beartooth Invitational on Oct. 2-3.
Football
Montana Tech defeated then-No. 7 College of Idaho last week, and the Orediggers were rewarded for their performance on Monday. Tech jumped to No. 11 in the NAIA Football Coaches’ Top 25 Rating, and had two players earn Frontier Conference player of the week honors.
The Diggers were previously ranked 15th but are now one spot ahead of College of Idaho, which slipped to 12th after the loss. Carroll College is the highest-ranked Frontier team in the poll at No. 9. It’s the Fighting Saints’ highest ranking since they were No. 9 in 2013. Montana Western and Rocky Mountain College both received votes but finished outside the top 25. The top six spots went unchanged from last week: Northwestern (Iowa), Grand View (Iowa), Morningside (Iowa), Indiana Wesleyan, Marian (Ind.) and Bethel (Tenn.). View the complete poll.
Quarterback Blake Thelen and kicker Ryan Lowry were recognized for their individual efforts in Tech’s win over C of I. Thelen, a redshirt junior from Great Falls High, was named the conference’s offensive player of the week after passing for a career-high 366 yards and two touchdowns on 18-of-28 passing. Lowry, from Pasco, Wash., was named the special teams player of the week after kicking field goals from 23, 28 and 36 yards and converting all five of his point-after tries.
Eastern Oregon’s Jason Grant was named the defensive player of the week after totaling 15 tackles and an interception against Rocky.
Last week:
Carroll 35, Arizona Christian 20
Rocky 13, Eastern Oregon 7
Tech 44, College of Idaho 35
Western 24, Southern Oregon 23
Up next:
Carroll at MSU-Northern, 1 p.m. Saturday
Rocky at College of Idaho, 1 p.m. Saturday
Tech at Southern Oregon, 2 p.m. Saturday
Arizona Christian at Southern Oregon, 2 p.m. Saturday
Soccer (Cascade Collegiate Conference)
Carroll College senior Emily Funseth continued her great start to the Cascade Collegiate Conference women’s soccer season, helping the Fighting Saints to wins over Multnomah (1-0 on Thursday) and Warner Pacific (2-0 on Friday) last week. Funseth, a forward from Great Falls CMR, was named the league’s offensive player of the week on Monday for the second consecutive week. The CCC also named the Carroll women the league’s team of the week.
Funseth found the back of the net on a penalty shot in the 69th minute in Carroll’s win over Warner Pacific. Molly Molvig gave the Saints an insurance score 20 minutes later, as Carroll improved to 6-0-1 overall and 3-0 in league play.
Providence’s Jose Vasquez, meanwhile, was named the CCC’s men’s offensive player of the week. Vasquez, a freshman forward from Acarigua, Venezuela, scored all four Providence goals in the Argos’ 4-1 victory over Multnomah on Friday.
Last week:
Men
Carroll 2, Multnomah 0
Eastern Oregon 4, Rocky 1
Providence 4, Multnomah 1
Warner Pacific 4, Carroll 1
Warner Pacific 6, Providence 0
College of Idaho 2, Rocky 0
Women
Carroll 1, Multnomah 0
Eastern Oregon 2, Rocky 0
Providence 1, Multnomah 1
Carroll 2, Warner Pacific 0
College of Idaho 3, Rocky 0
Providence 1, Warner Pacific 0
Up next:
Men
Carroll at Bushnell, 1:30 p.m. Friday
Providence at Corban, 1:30 p.m. Friday
Carroll at Corban, 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Providence at Bushnell, 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Walla Walla at Rocky, 8:30 p.m. Saturday
Women
Carroll at Bushnell, 4 p.m. Friday
Providence at Corban, 4 p.m. Friday
Carroll at Corban, 4 p.m. Saturday
Providence at Bushnell, 4 p.m. Saturday
Montana
An influx of outsiders and money turns Montana Republican, culminating in a Senate triumph
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Democrats’ crushing loss in Montana’s nationally important U.S. Senate race settled a fierce political debate over whether a surge of newcomers in the past decade favored Republicans — and if one of the new arrivals could even take high office.
Voters answered both questions with an emphatic “yes” with Tim Sheehy’s defeat of three-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, helping deliver a GOP Senate majority and laying bare a drastic cultural shift in a state that long prided itself on electing home-grown candidates based on personal qualifications, not party affiliation.
It’s the first time in almost a century that one party totally dominates in Montana. Corporations and mining barons known as the Copper Kings once had a corrupt chokehold on the state’s politics, and an aversion to outsiders that arose from those times has faded, replaced by a partisan fervor that Republicans capitalized on during the election.
Tester, a moderate lawmaker and third-generation grain farmer from humble Big Sandy, Montana, lost to wealthy aerospace entrepreneur Sheehy, a staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump who arrived in Montana 10 years ago and bought a house in the ritzy resort community of Big Sky.
“The political culture in Montana has changed fundamentally over the past 10 to 15 years,” said University of Montana history professor Jeff Wiltse. “The us vs. them, Montanans vs. outsiders mentality that has a long history in Montana has significantly weakened.”
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The state’s old instinct for choosing its own, regardless of party, gave way to larger trends that began more than a decade ago and accelerated during the pandemic.
Job opportunities in mining, logging and railroad work — once core Democratic constituencies — dried up. Newcomers, many drawn by the state’s natural social distancing, came in droves — with almost 52,000 new arrivals since 2020. That’s almost as many as the entire prior decade, according to U.S. Census data. As the population changed, national issues such as immigration and gender identity came to dominate political attention, distracting from local issues.
The 2024 Senate race brought a record-setting flood of outside money on both sides — more than $315 million, much of it from shadowy groups with wealthy donors. That effectively erased Montana’s efforts over more than a century to limit corporate cash in politics.
Sheehy’s win came after the party ran the table in recent Montana elections where voters installed other wealthy Republicans including Gov. Greg Gianforte, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and U.S. Rep.-elect Troy Downing.
Daines is the only one of the group originally from Montana — once a virtual requirement for gaining high office in the state.
Apple-flavored whiskey and Champagne
The contrast between Montana’s old and new politics was on vivid display on election night. Tester’s party was a sedate event at the Best Western Inn in Great Falls — rooms for $142 a night — where the lawmaker mingled with a few dozen supporters and sipped on apple-flavored whiskey in a plastic cup.
Sheehy’s more boisterous affair was in Bozeman — the epicenter of Montana’s new wealth — at an upscale hotel where a standard room costs $395. Long before his victory was announced, carts bearing Champagne were rolled in as the candidate remained sequestered in a secure balcony area most of the night with select supporters.
Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy SEAL from Minnesota, moved to Montana after leaving the military and, along with his brother, founded Bridger Aerospace, an aerial firefighting company that depends on government contracts. Sheehy also bought a ranch in the Little Belt Mountains, and during the campaign cast himself as the modern equivalent of an early western settler seeking opportunity.
Tester received 22,000 more votes on Nov. 5 than in his last election — a gain that exceeded his margin of victory in previous wins. Yet for every additional Tester voter, Sheehy gained several more. The result was a resounding eight-point win for the Republican, removing Democrats from the last statewide office they still held in Montana.
For Republicans, it completed their domination of states stretching from the Northern Plains to the Rocky Mountains.
“We have North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah — we’re all kind of red now,” said Montana Republican Party Chairman Don Kaltschmidt.
Democrats as recently as 2007 held a majority of Senate seats in the Northern Plains and almost every statewide office in Montana.
Daines — who led GOP efforts to retake the Senate as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — pointed out during Sheehy’s election party that Republicans would control both Montana Senate seats for the first time in more than a century.
‘Conservative refugees’
Tester and other Democrats bemoan the wealth that’s transformed the state. It’s most conspicuous in areas like Big Sky and Kalispell, where multimillion-dollar homes occupy the surrounding mountainsides while throngs of service workers struggle to find housing.
It’s not quite the same as the Copper Kings — who at their peak controlled elected officials from both major parties — but Democrats see parallels.
“What do they say — history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes,” said Monica Tranel, the defeated Democratic candidate in a western Montana House district. “It is very evocative of what happened in the early 1900s. It’s very much a time of change and turmoil and who has a voice.”
Montana in 2022 gained a second House seat due to population growth over the prior decade, giving Democrats a chance to regain clout. After a narrow loss that year to former Trump Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke, Tranel ran again this year and lost.
Even as she turned to history to explain Montana’s contemporary political dynamic, Tranel considered the future. She acknowledged that Democrats have fallen out of step with a conservative electorate more attuned to party labels.
“The label itself is what they are reacting to,” she said. “Do we need a different party at this point?”
Republican officials embraced wealthy newcomers.
Steve Kelly, 66, who calls himself a “conservative refugee,” moved to northwestern Montana from Nevada at the height of the pandemic. He spent most of his 30-year career in law enforcement in Reno, but said he tired of the city as it grew and became more liberal — “San Francisco East,” he called it.
In 2020, Kelly and his wife bought a house outside Kalispell on a few acres so they could have horses. He got involved with the local Republican party and this fall won a seat in the state Legislature on an anti-illegal immigration platform.
“It seems to be different here. Most of the people we have met have also been conservative refugees, getting away from other cities,” he said.
Driving the growth are transplants from western states dominated by Democrats, especially California, where more than 85,000 Montana residents originated, or about 7.5% of the population, Census data shows. Almost half of Montana residents were born out of state.
Worker wages in Montana have been stagnant for decades, said Megan Lawson with the independent research group Headwaters Economics in Bozeman. Income from stocks, real estate and other investments has risen sharply, reflecting the changing — and wealthier — demographic.
“Certainly a large share of it is coming from folks who are moving into this state,” Lawson said. “When you put all this together it helps to explain the story of the political shift.”
___
Associated Press reporter Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.
Montana
Montana transgender lawmaker on Capitol Hill's bathroom ban: 'Do not cede ground'
The question of who uses which bathroom on Capitol Hill has become a heated topic ahead of the 119th U.S. Congress convening next year.
This debate was sparked by the historic election of Sarah McBride, a transgender woman, to represent Delaware in Congress. In response, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) introduced a resolution aiming to require transgender individuals to use bathrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth.
Democratic state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the first transgender woman in Montana’s state legislature, understands what it feels like to be singled out.
She joined Scripps News on Friday to weigh in on the controversy unfolding in D.C.
“It’s important to acknowledge that while these attacks on transgender people are always brought one bill at a time, they do not focus on specific issues,” Zephyr said. “The hate of trans people is boundless. We saw that when Nancy Mace went on far-right media earlier this week and claimed that it was ‘offensive’ that Congresswoman McBride views herself as an equal to Nancy Mace.”
“When we see policies targeting trans women just trying to live their lives in the restroom, trying to play sports with their friends — that is not where the hate stops from the right,” Zephyr said. “That hate is on display at every moment, which is why it’s important for us to resist these efforts to target our community.”
In 2023, Republican lawmakers in Montana voted to ban Zephyr from the House floor and from participating in debates after she spoke out against a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. The incident led to legal challenges over Zephyr’s censure and to political activism from supporters of transgender rights.
“The attacks we see on trans people will escalate. This will not be the last attack on Congresswoman McBride,” Zephyr said. “In my perspective, it is important that we make sure as trans people in this country that we do not cede ground to someone who wants to erase us — regardless of whether they want to erase us in the Capitol, or if they want to erase us as we go through our daily lives in public. We have to stand strong.”
Rep. Nancy Mace to introduce bill on restroom use tied to sex at birth
In an interview with Scripps News this week, Mace said her resolution was specifically targeted at Rep.-elect McBride, who stated she will “follow the rules as outlined” even if she disagrees with them.
“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” McBride said. “I’m here to fight for Delawareans to bring down the costs facing families.”
Despite McBride’s statement, Mace said her effort to ban transgender individuals from certain bathrooms extends beyond Washington. She is advocating for legislation requiring transgender people to use restrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth on any property receiving public funds.
“I have PTSD from the sexual abuse I have suffered at the hands of a man. We have to as women draw a line in the sand, a big fat red line, about our rights,” Mace said. “And the basic question today is, do women have rights or do we not? And I will tell you just the idea of a man in a locker room watching me change clothes after a workout is a huge trigger and it’s not OK to make and force women to be vulnerable in private spaces.”
RELATED STORY | As House GOP targets McBride, she says ‘I’m not here to fight about bathrooms’
Montana
Powerhouse Football Team Drops Incredible Hype Video For Legendary Rivalry Game
Montana State brought its fastball for the team’s Brawl of the Wild hype video.
The Bobcats will take the field Saturday against the Montana Grizzlies in the latest installment of one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports.
Fans of the Bobcats and Grizzlies hate each other. They’re the only two major schools in the state, and both are FCS powerhouses.
The bitterness runs deep between the fans, and once a year, they come together on the gridiron to earn bragging rights for a year.
Montana State drops epic hype video for Brawl of the Wild against Montana.
If you’re going to play in a monster college football game, then you need a great hype video to get the fans juiced up.
Well, the Bobcats brought their A-game with a hype video featuring Journey’s classic hit song “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).”
Smash the play button below, and then hit me with your reactions at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.
That video goes insanely hard. That’s one of the best hype videos I’ve seen all season long, and I’m not at all surprised that it’s for the Brawl of the Wild.
The 11-0 Bobcats battling it out with the 8-3 Grizzlies is exactly what fans want to see in the final game of the regular season, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
MSU is looking to go undefeated. Montana is looking to play spoiler and improve their position for the FCS playoffs.
This is what it’s all about, and do not sleep on the Brawl of the Wild simply because it’s FCS action. As someone who used to live in Bozeman, I can tell you that the environment will be nuts Saturday and the city and Bobcat Stadium will be rocking.
You can catch the game at 2:00 EST on ESPN+. It should be one of the best of the weekend. Let me know your thoughts on the Brawl of the Wild at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.
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