Frontier: Busy Thursday includes wild Tech-Western tilt

BUTTE — Levi Torgerson returned a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns and threw a scoring pass as Montana Tech scored a wild 38-27 win over Montana Western in Frontier Conference football on Thursday.

On a busy opening day for the far-flung Frontier, Torgerson started things off by taking the opening kickoff 100 yards. After teammate Wykece Johnston tore off a 74-yard scoring run at 6:35 of the first quarter, the Orediggers’ defense forced a punt — and Torgerson took that 91 yards to the paint at Alumni Coliseum. 

That was part of a 31-point first quarter for Tech; Casey Kautzman hit a field goal and Torgerson hit Parker Johnston with a 13-yard option pass, sandwiched around a Michael Palandri TD pass for the Bulldogs. 

Western, which saw Palandri throw for 285 yards and three touchdowns, clawed back into the game. The QB, who also ran for a TD, hit Landon Charlton with a 20-yard scoring pass to cut the gap to 31-21 midway through the third quarter. 

Tech found some breathing room when Polson’s Jarrett Wilson, who split the quarterback snaps with Jake Casagranda, found Nick Michelotti with a 5-yard scoring pass at 14:54 of the fourth quarter. 

That made it 38-21; after Seth Shook hauled in a 27-yard scoring pass for Western with 3:40 left, the Bulldogs tried an onside kick that Tech recovered. 

Wilson, a sophomore, was 7 of 9 passing for 77 yards and ran eight times for 32 yards for the Orediggers. Casagranda was 5 of 8 passing for 83 yards. Johnson rushed for 167 yards on 24 carries. 

Eli Nourse, son of Western coach Ryan Nourse, had 11 catches for 113 yards. 

Dickinson St. 30, Valley City St. 15 

DICKINSON, N.D. — Dickinson State used two third-quarter touchdown passes from Marcus Sanders to pull away from a 17-15 lead and defeat fellow league newcomer Valley City (N.D.) State. 

The first pass, covering 24 yards to Semaj Clark, covered 24 yards at 6:45 of the third. Less than 3 minutes later, Sanders hit Chase Crockett for 7 yards and the score. 

Sanders was 14 of 24 passing for 215 yards. VCS quarterback Joey Cave was 19 of 32 for 228 yards. He had one TD pass and was picked off twice; he also ran 15 times for 59 yards. 

Clark had seven catches for 116 yards. 

Southern Oregon 59, Simpson 0 

ASHLAND, Ore. — Quarterback Dom Montiel was 21 of 28 passing for 346 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Raiders over Simpson (Calif.). 

Brandon Barthel had seven catches for 182 yards, including scoring receptions covering 60, 53 and 14 yards. 

John Romero was 1 of 8 passing for Simpson for 46 yards, with two interceptions. Southern Oregon outgained the Red Hawks 558-218. 

The Red Hawks’ Caleb Utter, a sophomore safety out of Eureka — his dad Trevor is on the coaching staff — made eight tackles. 

Mayville St. 49, Judson 20 

MAYVILLE, N.D. — The host Comets completed just one pass for 26 yards but piled up 492 rushing yards in the win over Judson (Ill.). 

Payton McGregor carried five times for 152 yards, including a 73-yard touchdown run. Twelve different Comets had rushing attempts; seven of them scored one TD each. 

Marcus Freeman threw for 193 yards and a scoring the Judson Eagles. 

Judson was the only non-Frontier Conference team involved in Thursday’s action; nonetheless none of the games counted as conference play.