Griz fall in final game at St. George

Sunday, March 5

St. George, Utah

10:00 AM

Montana

7-12

Utah State

12-4

Utah State

Montana

3/5/2017 1:58:00 PM | Softball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana softball team gave up two runs in the top of the first and never led as the Grizzlies lost 8-2 to Utah State on Sunday morning on the final day of the Red Desert Classic at St. George, Utah.

The Grizzlies went 2-3 at the tournament and are 7-12 on the season.

The first two batters of the game for Utah State (12-4) had infield singles off Montana starter Maddy Stensby. The sophomore got the next two batters out but Sarina Jaramillo came through with a two-out single to drive in two.

"They got a couple of base hits right off the bat that might have gone 15 feet between the two of them," said coach Jamie Pinkerton.

"Stensby did a good job of coming back to get two outs, then left a pitch up and gave up a single and two runs. That kind of set the tone against a good ball club that's probably one of the top teams in the Mountain West this year."

Utah State would pound out 13 hits while facing four Montana pitchers, the second-highest total allowed this season by the Grizzlies' pitching staff. "We weren't particularly sharp on the mound today," said Pinkerton.

Freshman Kellie White went the distance for Utah State to improve to 6-1. She only struck out two but also only gave up just five hits and kept Montana off the board until the bottom of the sixth.

"She hit her spots and pitched to her defense," said Pinkerton. "She isn't overpowering, but there is a reason she is 6-1. We made contact, but we didn't hit her hard."

Montana had just three singles through the first five innings, all in separate innings. By that point it was 7-0, with four runs scored on Stensby, two off Colleen Driscoll and one on Haley Young.

"Offensively we couldn't get untracked," said Pinkerton. "We had some base runners, but we couldn't get the big hit.

"They threatened to run-rule us, but we were able to string some stuff together in the sixth and get some runs across."

Trailing 8-0, Bethany Olea led off the bottom of the sixth by reaching base on an error. Delene Colburn drove her in with a double.

After Morgan Johnson moved Colburn to third with her first collegiate hit, a single up the middle, Ashlyn Lyons had an RBI groundout for the game's final run.

Montana will play Texas Tech, California, Wichita State, Tulsa and Texas Tech a second time next weekend at the Golden Hurricane Classic at Tulsa, Okla.