Countdown to opening day: The outfield

It hardly feels possible, with everything that's happened since then, but it was less than two years ago that the Montana softball team, the home side despite facing New Mexico State on its field in Las Cruces, N.M., trotted onto the diamond to take its defensive positions for the first time.

It was the top of the first inning, Feb. 5, 2015, and eight underclassmen backed the team's lone senior, Kenzie Cole, who was about to throw the first pitch in program history.

Anyone wondering how this new program full of freshmen and hope would fare in its debut didn't have to wait long to get the rude answer: Walk, stolen base, home run, home run, single, hit by pitch, double play, home run.

A half inning complete, New Mexico State 5, Montana 0.

"It was definitely eye-opening and definitely overwhelming," recalls that day's starting center fielder, MaKenna McGill. "We were young and didn't know what to do."

The Grizzlies would go quietly that day, getting shut out 8-0, and open the season 0-7 while getting outscored by 39 runs.

"It was probably the best thing that could have happened. I think it taught us about the game and how we had to work to get to where we wanted to be, and that it wasn't going to be handed to us. You never want to start out on top."

They didn't, but it hasn't taken them long to approach it, at least at the Big Sky Conference level.

Montana was one big hit -- bottom of the fifth, bases loaded, no outs, top of the order due up in a 7-7 game in the regular-season finale early last May when a win would have meant a Big Sky championship -- from earning a title and hosting the league tournament in year No. 2.

With year No. 3 opening on Feb. 10, against Nebraska-Omaha and South Dakota State at Cedar Falls, Iowa, Montana has last year's roster mostly intact and is the Big Sky favorite in at least one preseason ranking.

The only starter lost from last season is catcher Lexie Brenneis, the 2015 Big Sky Freshman of the Year and a unanimous first-team All-Big Sky selection last spring.

"We're no longer a young team or seen as a young team," says McGill, who has started in center field 103 times in 106 games through the program's first two seasons.

"We're not expected to have as many downfalls. We're expected to stay up the whole time, compete and just play."

The outfield should look mostly like it did last spring, with Sydney Stites, last year's Big Sky Freshman of the Year, holding down right, and juniors Alex Wardlow and Mercedes Bourgeau platooning in left.

Stites started the season at first base, filling in for the injured Ashlyn Lyons through 14 games. She spent the rest of the year in right field. But it was at the plate where she made herself known.

Batting in the No. 2 spot for most of the season, behind McGill and ahead of Brenneis, Delene Colburn and Bethany Olea -- the multiple-player heart of the Big Sky's top offense -- Stites hit .383, with 12 home runs, 47 runs batted in and 52 runs scored, the most in the league.

Stites was voted first-team All-Big Sky and named to the Big Sky all-tournament team after Montana picked up a pair of wins last May in the Grizzlies' first postseason appearance.

"I knew Sydney would come in and hit for a decent average and would have some pop, but you can't predict anyone is going to come in and be Freshman of the Year," says Jamie Pinkerton, the 2016 Big Sky Coach of the Year.

"She put up junior- and senior-like numbers. With her work ethic, it didn't surprise me, but she did exceed my expectation."

Juniors McKenzie Phillips and Katie Jo Waletzko, both of whom got a few starts in right and left field last season, were used primarily as pinch runners in 2016. Both played in 31 of the team's 56 games, but they combined for fewer than 20 at-bats between them.

Of the team's four freshmen, two are outfielders. Anne Mari Petrino, who was named a Small Schools All-American last season by Max Preps after batting .727 at Pullman (Wash.) High, should push for a look at the corner outfield spots.

Kylie Hayton, of Bow, Wash., played during the team's fall exhibition season but is still returning to form after missing her entire senior year of high school with an ACL injury.

"I think we'll be stronger this year (in the outfield) and stronger off the bench," says McGill, who was voted second-team All-Big Sky as both a freshman and sophomore. "There isn't anyone I couldn't see starting this season. Everyone has a chance." And that includes center field? "Nope. That's mine."

And for good reason. Defensively, McGill is as good as there is in the Big Sky Conference. She had three errors in the team's first 21 games as a freshman as she adapted to college softball, but she didn't have any in 2016 and enters this season on an 82-game error-less streak.

"I'll match her up with anybody in the conference," says Pinkerton. "I think she is the best center fielder in the conference and could have been a first-teamer last year.

"She has the speed, the arm and the range, and that provides an anchor for the outfield. She covers so much area that it makes your corner outfielders better. They don't have to cover as much ground."

McGill was born and raised in Oklahoma, where visors have never been popular. So to comply with Pinkerton's rule that his outfielders use two of three eye protections -- eye black, sunglasses, visor -- McGill has assumed her distinctive look: eye black that goes under her eyes, then trails off at a sharp 90-degree angle down the sides of her face, topped with sunglasses.

A touch flamboyant, sure, but a totem for her and her teammates on game days: it's on.

Her defensive work and unique look give her away on game days, as do the post-out routines she shares with her infielders. She and Colburn have the bow-and-arrow. With second baseman Gabby Martinez, they bend down, swipe their feet and jump up.

"Just something fun to stay active," she says. "It's something I've always done. I can struggle staying focused, so it helps me keep in the game.

"I always like having one with my pitcher, too. It's like, Hey, I have your back. I'm here. We're all in this together."

McGill has no such feelings of camaraderie for the opposing pitchers Montana goes up against.

Positioned up and down the lineup as a freshman, McGill, a left-handed slapper, batted leadoff in all 56 games last season. She goes to the plate with two objectives: work the count so her teammates can get a better read on the pitcher but, in the end, still get on base.

"It's just trying to find a way on base," she says. "That's my job, then let Sydney, Del and Bethany do the work. I just try to approach it as doing the best for the people behind me."

McGill hit .311 as a freshman. Before her sophomore season, she was challenged by Pinkerton to add a new weapon to her batting arsenal.

"I challenged all our slappers that if they can get one bunt single a weekend, over the course of a season their average will go up 40 or 50 points," he says.

It wasn't just the successful bunts that would add to the average. It's a matter of spacing and geometry. The threat of a dangerous bunter pulls infielders in, which shortens their range on hard-hit balls, essentially making the holes larger.

Last season McGill upped her average even more than Pinkerton predicted, finishing at .374, fourth on the team behind Olea (.408), Brenneis (.397) and Stites (.383). Despite leading the team in plate appearances, McGill struck out a mere 15 times.

"She got 14 bunt singles last year and just made more solid contact," says Pinkerton. "When you do that, you bring the defense in. As a slapper, that opens up the holes in the infield.

"There were a lot of balls that made it through the infield that the previous year, if the infield was playing farther back, probably would have been fielded."

When Montana was tied with Weber State in the bottom of the fifth in the regular-season finale last season, with the bases loaded and nobody out in a 7-7 game, and the Grizzlies primed to bury the Wildcats and finish off a sweep and bring the Big Sky tournament to Missoula, McGill came to the plate.

She grounded one back the pitcher and reached on a fielder's choice, but Tori Lettus was thrown out at home. With one out, Stites popped up to second. With two outs, Brenneis grounded a ball to the third baseman, who stepped on the base for a force out to end the threat.

Weber State scored twice in the top of the sixth and held Montana scoreless in the sixth and seventh to win the outright Big Sky title. Five days later the Big Sky tournament opened in Ogden, where Montana had wins over Southern Utah and Portland State but also lost big to both Weber State and Sac State.

"Last year kind of left a bitter taste," says McGill. "We didn't show up to the tournament and do what we could have done. I don't think we showed what we were capable of doing as a team.

"This year we'll be better prepared for it. We know we can do it. This year we have nothing but confidence."

University of Montana Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Mercedes Bourgeau

Lexie Brenneis

Delene Colburn

Kylie Hayton

Tori Lettus

Ashlyn Lyons

Gabby Martinez

MaKenna McGill

Bethany Olea

Anne Mari Petrino

McKenzie Phillips

Sydney Stites

Katie Jo Waletzko

Alex Wardlow

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