Lights stunned by Tech's hail mary

Saturday night was supposed to be a perfect ending to an amazing football doubleheader at Blue Pony Stadium. And it was...but for the visiting Montana Tech Orediggers, and not so much for the Montana State University-Northern Lights, as the Orediggers beat MSU-N 32-31, scoring on the final play of the game.

With one second left on the clock, Tech's Herman Tapley took a shot gun snap and lofted the ball towards the MSU-N endzone. Waiting there was Tech's Zack Kinney, who out-jumped the Northern defense, giving Tech an improbable come-from-behind win. The hail mary score capped off a 22-point rally by the Diggers, who improved to 3-5 on the season, while Northern lost its fourth straight game and slumped to 4-5 in the Frontier Conference.

MSU-N jumped to a 28-10 lead but Tech answered with two Matt Berg field goals and two Tapley TD passes in the final two minutes. The Lights opened the game with a Zach McKinley touchdown run. McKinley scored again in the second quarter and Jake Messerly hauled in a 30-yard TD pass from Travis Dean to give Northern a 21-10 halftime lead. The Lights then marched down the field to start the third quarter, scoring on an Orin Johnson 13 yard run. Tech cut the lead to 28-20 early in the fourth, but a Jordan Ruescchoff FG with 4:47 left gave MSU-N an 11-point advantage.

MSU-N has a bye this week before finishing the season with a home game against Rocky Mountain College Nov. 16.