Griz in California for tournament No. 2

The Montana softball team travels to California this week for the three-team, three-day Bronco Classic, hosted by Santa Clara. Joining the Grizzlies and Broncos at the tournament will be the Seattle Redhawks.

Games will be played at the Santa Clara Softball Stadium, which opened last February, and can be tracked via live stats, links to which are available at gogriz.com.

Weather-permitting, Montana will play Seattle at 2:30 p.m. (MT) and Santa Clara at 5 p.m. (MT) on Friday. The Grizzlies will play the Broncos at noon (MT) and the Redhawks at 2:30 p.m. (MT) on Saturday, with a final game against Santa Clara at 11 a.m. (MT) on Sunday.

There is a 100-percent chance of rain on Friday, but the weather is forecasted to improve through the weekend.

"Hopefully the weather will cooperate," said UM coach Jamie Pinkerton. "That's what makes a small tournament better. You don't have to worry about five or six time slots to change.

"We'll be ready to play at 1:30 on Friday, but we're just going to have to be prepared to play when called upon."

All three teams opened their seasons last weekend. Only Montana came away any victories.

The Grizzlies went 2-3 at the Ramada UNI-Dome Classic at Cedar Falls, Iowa, with wins over South Dakota State and Toledo. Montana had three-run leads in two of its losses.

Despite allowing only four runs in two games, Santa Clara (0-2) lost twice at home on Saturday to UC Davis, falling 2-1 and 2-0. The Broncos had just seven hits and batted .146 in the two games against the team picked to finish last in the Big West Conference.

Santa Clara, which is coming off a 10-41 season, was picked sixth out of six teams in the West Coast Conference preseason poll.

Seattle (0-5) opened the season without a win in five games at the Kajikawa Classic at Tempe, Ariz., getting outscored by Indiana, New Mexico, Oregon, Western Michigan and San Diego 33-7. Those teams hit .341 against Seattle's pitching staff.

Seattle's best showing was a 4-2 loss to No. 9 Oregon. After giving up four runs in the bottom of the first inning, SU's pitchers allowed just three hits over the next five innings. Seattle left nine runners on base as it came up short of pulling off the upset.

The Redhawks went 19-33 a year ago, 3-12 in the WAC. Seattle tied for third out of six teams in this year's WAC preseason poll.

Seattle will be a frequent opponent over the next month. In addition to two meeting this weekend, Montana will face the Redhawks three times at the Griz Classic in March in Missoula. Maine will be the third team at that tournament.

Montana defeated Santa Clara 6-5 in eight innings at UC Davis's season-opening tournament last year -- the winning run was scored on an illegal pitch -- in the teams' only other meeting.

The Grizzlies were scheduled to play the Redhawks last March in Seattle, but the game was rained out.

Montana is scheduled to play the same number of games this weekend as it did last weekend in Iowa but against three fewer teams.

"It makes preparation easier with just two scouting reports," said Pinkerton. "And we already know something about Seattle because we researched and scouted them a little bit last year."

"Over the course of the next month, we'll be playing them five times, so we'll be paying close attention to what happens this weekend."

Week 1 takeaways:

* Bethany Olea earned Big Sky Conference co-Player of the Week honors on Wednesday and took the first step last weekend on what should be a special senior season.

She went 10 for 16 at Northern Iowa's tournament, and her .625 batting average is the best in the Big Sky for players who averaged more than two plate appearances per game.

Not that it foretells anything, but Olea batted .408 last season after going 4 for 14 in five games at Montana's season-opening tournament at UC Davis. She is off to a better start this year. Please don't tip off Santa Clara's or Seattle's pitchers.

* Montana scored first in four of its five games last weekend and was tied with Northern Iowa after three innings in the only game it didn't.

The Grizzlies batted .303 at the tournament. Last year Montana hit .281 at UC Davis's tournament to open the season.

"No more than we've been able to hit off live pitching, I thought offensively we did a nice job of putting the ball in play," said Pinkerton. "And we did that against some quality pitching. We saw the No. 1 of almost every team we played. I think we had the respect of the other teams."

* That .303 average was helped by Montana hitting .385 with the bases empty. The Grizzlies batted .234 with runners in scoring position and were just 1 for 8 with the bases loaded. That failure to come through kept Montana from returning home with a 4-1 record instead of 2-3.

"We had opportunities to put games away, and we didn't. Omaha comes to mind. Drake comes to mind. We had the bases loaded in back-to-back innings against Drake and didn't come through. Toledo was the first game we really took advantage of everything," said Pinkerton.

"We've just got to hit better with runners in scoring position, and when we have an opportunity to put a team away, we have to put them away.

"It's extra pressure in those situations, because everyone wants to be the one to deliver the big blow. We put pressure on ourselves, but it should be the other way around. It's the other team that is under pressure."

* Montana had just four errors in five games in Iowa, with one of those being catcher's interference, but that doesn't mean the Grizzlies were already in mid-season form. Far from it.

"Defensively I didn't think we were sharp at all. It doesn't show up in the errors, but there were a lot of times we didn't make the right play," said Pinkerton. "Some of that opened up innings for the other team.

"A lot of that has to do with not being outside yet in an area large enough where we can have a whole infield and outfield together. All that is fixable, but last weekend it reared its ugly head."

* Two of Montana's errors last weekend came against Northern Iowa. They were the reason the team's pitchers gave up 10 runs in a 10-2 loss but were only charged with two earned runs.

In the very first inning, a two-out error by the infield gave the Panthers an extra at-bat. Home run, 2-0.

Leading 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth, Northern Iowa had a runner on second with two outs. Before Montana could get another out, the game was over.

First a walk, then a hit-by-pitch to load the bases. Another error on the infield made all the subsequent runs unearned. Two batters later, a walk-off grand slam.

Montana's pitchers issued 20 walks at the tournament, which was too many, but held the team's five opponents to .254 hitting. Last year for the season teams batted .327 against the Grizzlies.

"From a pitching standpoint, I thought we threw well at times and other times we didn't," said Pinkerton. "We extended too many innings with walks, which puts more pressure on the defense.

"But there were definitely some bright spots on the staff."

* One of them: freshman Michaela Hood in relief. She picked up the save in both wins and finished the weekend with a 3.00 ERA while pitching a team-high 9.1 innings.

Hood pitched 2.1 innings of one-hit relief in Montana's 7-4 loss to Nebraska-Omaha, then showed her stuff one game later.

With Montana leading South Dakota State 6-5, the Jackrabbits had the bases loaded with two outs in the top of the seventh. Enter: Hood in place of Maddy Stensby, who hit back-to-back batters to fill the bases. Hood brought the heat and struck the batter out swinging for a four-pitch save.

With a runner on second in the bottom of the seventh against Toledo and Montana leading 8-6, Hood came in with one out in place of Colleen Driscoll, who was running out of gas after pitching against Northern Iowa the afternoon before.

With the tying run at the plate, Hood went strikeout, strikeout to end the threat and give the Grizzlies their second win of the season.

* Stensby picked up the win against South Dakota State. She was the pitcher of record when Delene Colburn's three-run home run in the bottom of the sixth put Montana up 6-5.

Driscoll got the win against Toledo. She replaced starter Sara Stephenson with one out in the bottom of the fourth in a 6-4 game and allowed four hits over three innings of work. Driscoll did not pick up her first win last season until April 16.

* Upon further review, MaKenna McGill is hitting .563, not .625. A hit for McGill last weekend was corrected to what it should have been, a fielder's choice. That still left her 9 for 16, with a team-high six runs scored.

Montana's leadoff hitter got on base 15 times in five games, which sets the table for the bats that follow.

Notes worth mentioning:

* Delene Colburn had two of Montana's four home runs at the tournament. She had the big three-run homer against South Dakota State, then had a solo shot in the top of the first against Toledo.

* Anne Mari Petrino, starting in right field against Toledo, had her first collegiate hit, a single to left field in the top of the fourth. Later in the inning she stole home for her first stolen base. Just for good measure she singled again in the sixth.

* All 20 players on Montana's roster played last weekend. Gabby Martinez, at second, Bethany Olea, at third, and MaKenna McGill, in center, started all five games.

* In an odd happenstance, Sara Stephenson went 0-1 at the tournament, but Montana was 2-0 in the games that she started. She wasn't the pitcher of record in wins over South Dakota State and Toledo, and she picked up the loss in relief against Drake.

* Olea and McGill both start the season with five-game hitting streaks. And you can make it seven for Olea, who had hits in the final two games last season.

* Sydney Stites had hits in Montana's final 13 games last season. She had another in this year's opener against Nebraska-Omaha to match Ashlyn Lyons' program record of 14. Stites went 0 for 2 against South Dakota State to end the streak.

* Olea and Colburn didn't strike out in 34 combined at-bats last weekend.

Upcoming: Montana will travel next week to Hawaii for the Bank of Hawaii Invitational. The Grizzlies will open with back-to-back games against No. 9 Oregon, then play two against UNLV before finishing with one against the host Rainbow Wahine.

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Players Mentioned

Delene Colburn

Colleen Driscoll

Michaela Hood

Ashlyn Lyons

Gabby Martinez

MaKenna McGill

Bethany Olea

Anne Mari Petrino

Maddy Stensby

Sara Stephenson

Sydney Stites

University of Montana Athletics