The postseason is here

It's that time of year again, when a team can string some wins together and realize its dream of advancing to the NCAA tournament, or a couple of losses can summarily squash those hopes, putting them on hold until next season.

The Montana softball team will face those binary outcomes this week when the Grizzlies play for the third consecutive year in the Big Sky Conference Championship.

Montana, the tournament's No. 5 seed, will open play at the double-elimination event with an opening-round game against No. 4 Portland State at 9:30 a.m. at Weber State's Wildcat Softball Field in Ogden, Utah.

This is the third consecutive year Weber State has hosted the tournament. The Wildcats, the No. 2 seed, earned the right to host based on last year's regular-season championship. Likewise, Sacramento State, this year's No. 1 seed, has already locked up hosting rights for next year.

Coverage: The tournament games on Thursday and Friday will be available at WatchBigSky.com and Pluto TV. Saturday's games will air on Eleven Sports and Pluto TV. Should there be a game on Sunday, it will be available at WatchBigSky.com and Pluto TV.

10 Championship Week storylines

1. Montana is making its third consecutive appearance at the Big Sky tournament in its four-year history. The previous two were also held at Weber State.

The Grizzlies are 5-2 in tournament games, going 2-2 in 2016 as the No. 4 seed, 3-0 last year as the No. 2 seed on their way to the title while outscoring their opponents 19-6.

2. Montana will have the most experienced team in the field. The Grizzlies have a roster made up of 11 seniors, 10 of whom have been with the program since it debuted in 2015.

Seniors MaKenna McGill (180), Gabby Martinez (207), Delene Colburn (217) and Ashlyn Lyons (184) have all been starters since they were freshmen and have started 788 games between them.

Colburn has started all 217 games in Montana's history.

3. This week will be a return to the scene of Montana's top moment in its short history. Behind tournament MVP Michaela Hood, the Grizzlies won three games on Weber State's field last May, two over the Wildcats, to win the title and advance to the program's first NCAA tournament.

Hood pitched Montana to an 8-0 victory over Idaho State, threw 177 pitches as the Grizzlies outlasted Weber State 2-1 in 10 innings in the all-important winners' bracket final and pitched until she ran out of gas in Montana's 9-5 win over the Wildcats that ended the tournament in the Grizzlies' favor.

Delene Colburn was voted all-tournament in both 2016 and '17. Alex Wardlow, all-tournament in 2016, is the only other player on this year's team who has been voted to the team.

4. First-year Montana coach Melanie Meuchel is no stranger to the pressures of May, but it will be her first time facing it as a head coach.

She has been working at the Division I level since 2003 and has been on the coaching staff of five teams that have advanced to the NCAA tournament, so she knows what it takes to get it done.

5. Good news for Montana: Michaela Hood may make a return to the field this week. A first-team All-Big Sky selection last season, Hood hasn't pitched since April 13 and hasn't won a game since April 7.

Hood went 18-7 last year, finishing the season with 178 strikeouts and an ERA of 2.31. She is 7-8 this year, with 82 strikeouts and an ERA of 2.78, which is still good enough to rank fifth in the Big Sky.

6. History indicates Montana will have a hard time winning the championship. No team lower than the No. 3 seed has won the title since the first Big Sky tournament in 2013.

But there is good reason to want to be playing the tournament on someone else's home field. Only once, Weber State in 2016, has the host school won the championship.

7. And there is this: the field is as balanced as it's been since the tournament expanded to six teams in 2016. Not only was the top overall seed not determined until the final day of the season, the six teams in the field didn't become clear until the final weekend.

Of those that included all three games, there were just seven series sweeps this spring (three of which involved Montana, two for the good, one for the bad).

In series that did not include the two non-qualifiers, Idaho State and Southern Utah, there were just three sweeps. North Dakota went 3-0 against Montana, Weber State went 3-0 against North Dakota, Sacramento State went 3-0 against Portland State.

All three sweeps took place on the winner's home field.

8. Montana faced Portland State in Missoula last month in the teams' regular-season series.

The Grizzlies lost 6-3, won 3-2 in eight innings on Kylie Hayton's walk-off single and lost 3-2 in the finale when Madison Saacke's deep fly ball with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the seventh was caught on the warning track.

Montana leads the series with Portland State 7-6 and defeated the Vikings 14-8 when the teams met in the 2016 tournament in Ogden.

9. The winner of Thursday morning's game will face No. 1 Sacramento State at 2:30 p.m. The loser will drop down into the bottom bracket, where teams are one loss away from heading home. That team will play at noon on Friday.

In Thursday's other opening-round game, No. 3 North Dakota will play No. 6 Northern Colorado at noon (and for the first time this season. The teams' series in Grand Forks was cancelled because it was scheduled for Grand Forks in the spring.) The winner plays No. 2 Weber State at 5 p.m.

10. Neither Montana nor Portland State is red-hot, but the Vikings have the edge on the trending spectrum.

Montana went 10-11 in league, but six of those wins came against the two non-qualifiers. The Grizzlies went just 4-11 against the teams in this week's tournament field and ended the regular season dropping consecutive series to Portland State, Northern Colorado and Sacramento State to fall out of the race.

Portland State won seven of its final 11 games against Big Sky opponents to end the regular season.

If the teams' most recent games are any indication, Montana lost 8-0 at home to Sacramento State on Saturday, generating just two hits off Big Sky Pitcher of the Year Celina Matthias. The Vikings had 13 hits in their 17-7 win on Sunday at Southern Utah.

The week in review:

G1: Montana 5, Sacramento State 0 -- Colleen Driscoll threw a 90-pitch, four-hit shutout, striking out 10 to defeat Celina Matthias. The Grizzlies finally got to the Hornets' starter with two runs in the fifth, three more in the sixth.

G2: Sacramento State 6, Montana 2 -- Five of the Hornets' 10 hits went for extra bases, including two triples and two home runs, as the Hornets came back from a 2-0 deficit after the first inning. The Grizzlies had just three hits over the final five innings.

G3: Sacramento State 8, Montana 0 -- The Hornets got a three-run home run from Mo Spieth in the first and never looked back, handing the Grizzlies a Senior Day loss and their worst home shutout loss in the history of Grizzly Softball Field.

Montana notes:

* The Grizzlies had six players who were recognized by the Big Sky on Tuesday. Delene Colburn, second team the last two years, was voted first-team All-Big Sky at shortstop. Ashlyn Lyons was voted second team at first base, MaKenna McGill at outfield.

Catcher Madison Saacke, second baseman Gabby Martinez and pitcher Colleen Driscoll were honorable mention. It was the third time making honorable mention for Saacke, the second for Martinez.

* Montana lost all three of its Big Sky home series this season, going 1-2 against Weber State, Portland State and Sacramento State.

* In league games, Gabby Martinez had Montana's top batting average of .327. Ashly Lyons hit .304, Delene Colburn .299.

* The Grizzlies had just four home runs in 21 league games and 24 extra-base hits, the lowest total in the Big Sky. Northern Colorado had the most, with 62 in just 17 games.

* In Montana's 5-0 victory over Sacramento State on Friday, Gabby Martinez opened the scoring with a two-run single in the bottom of the fifth. It was the sixth multiple-RBI game of her career.

* Ashlyn Lyons leads Montana with 19 multiple-hit games. Nine of those have come in the Grizzlies' last 16 games.

* Jessica McAlister will take a five-game hitting streak into the tournament. She and Gabby Martinez were the only two players to pick up hits on Saturday against Sacramento State's Celina Matthias.

The state of Montana:

The Grizzlies may be the No. 5 seed at this week's tournament, but one thing they have going for them is some Ogden mojo.

Montana won two of three against Weber State to end the regular season last year, then went 3-0 on the field one week later to win the tournament title, the program's first.

"Coming off our successes there last year, I think we have a great feel for the field and the facility and the environment we're going to get," said Montana coach Melanie Meuchel.

"We have a core group back that experienced that and will step onto the field with a lot of familiarity. It should give a level of confidence for the entire group."

Also putting a hop in Montana's step is the possible return to the circle of Michaela Hood, who was dominant in Ogden last season, going 4-1 in her five starts. Two came against Weber State to end the regular season, three came in the tournament.

Hood is 7-8 this season with a 2.78 ERA. She hasn't pitched since April 13.

"I believe she'll get some innings, and that will add to the depth of our pitching staff," said Meuchel. "She has proven to be a great pitcher in this conference. We've had a lot of people who have stepped up in her absence. Adding her will only make us stronger."

Montana went 1-2 against Portland State in their series at Missoula last month. It was one of inches.

The Vikings used up an entire weekend of seeing-eye hits in their series-opening 6-3 win. They could have swept later that day but a possible game-winning home run in the seventh was kept in the park by a link of chain. Kylie Hayton won it in the eighth with a dribbler between the pitcher and third.

In the series finale, a 3-2 PSU win, Madison Saacke's bid to win the game with a walk-off grand slam came up a few feet short.

"We just have to be the aggressor and continue to attack and strike the ball like we did when they were here in Missoula," said Meuchel. "They are a pretty potent offense, so we have to be able to pitch and defend against that.

"It's championship play now, so we know it's going to be a grind. You have to show up and put it all together, and that's really what championship play comes down to. We just have to play loose and trust what we have."

It will either be the end of the road for Montana's 11 seniors or an extended celebration, one they all got to enjoy last year at this time on the same field.

"We just have to relax and play and enjoy that we get this opportunity to be in championship play. The focus needs to be on the opportunity we have to win a championship, not Is this my last game? Just relaxing and playing will be our biggest thing," said Meuchel.

"But this is a group of competitors. They rise to the challenges that are given to them. It's in their personality. I'm excited to see the possibilities of what we can rise to."

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Delene Colburn

Colleen Driscoll

Kylie Hayton

Michaela Hood

Ashlyn Lyons

Gabby Martinez

Jessica McAlister

MaKenna McGill

Madison Saacke

Alex Wardlow

University of Montana Athletics