Opponents up the ante this week

The Montana softball team will make the third of its four trips to California for early-season tournaments later this week when the Grizzlies travel to Palo Alto for the Stanford Invitational.

Montana opened the season at the NorCal Kickoff and last weekend played in the Silicon Valley Classic. Next week the Grizzlies will travel to Fresno for the Bulldog Classic.

After that fifth of five tournaments to start the season, Montana will return to Missoula for a nine-game home stand, hosting Utah Valley, Nevada and Idaho State, each in a three-game series.

The Grizzlies (3-12) will play games this weekend against North Dakota State (7-6), Stanford (11-2), Cal Poly (3-10) and Northwestern (11-3).

Northwestern will enter the tournament tied at No. 23 in this week's ESPN.com/USA Softball top 25 poll. The Wildcats and Stanford are both receiving votes in the USA Today/NFCA poll.

The schedule:

Friday, 3:30 p.m. (MT) -- vs. North Dakota State
Friday, 9 p.m. (MT) -- at Stanford
Saturday, 1:15 p.m. (MT) -- vs. Cal Poly
Saturday, 5:45 p.m. (MT) -- at Stanford
Sunday, 10 a.m. (MT) -- vs. Northwestern

All games will be played at Stanford's Boyd and Jill Smith Family Stadium, and all will have one-camera video coverage as well as live stats.

The state of Montana:

It's a winter wonderland in Missoula, which may be picturesque but it's not the best of conditions for late February, when a softball team just wants to get out on its home field for some game-like practices.

"It hasn't been the ideal winter for us," said coach Melanie Meuchel. "We're getting good practices with what we have available. Our facility is great, but it's not ideal for an outdoor sport."

It's why the Grizzlies should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their record of 3-12.

Imagine the Montana football team having access to a plot of grass a third the size of a full-sized field, then going out and trying to perform on game day. Or a basketball team.

Viewed through that lens, Montana's level of performance has actually been quite good. Six of the Grizzlies' 12 losses have been by two runs or fewer. Another came in extra innings.

"The only time we're getting on a field is game time, so I think they've shown a lot of fight and a lot of grind. I'm happy with our mindset and where we are right now," said Meuchel.

"Yes, you can look at the wins and losses, and we aren't content with that, but we're looking at the process and the areas in which we're growing. We have talent, heart, competitiveness, grit, so we're going to put it all together."

After dropping its opener last weekend at the Silicon Valley Classic to Utah State, Montana bounced back with consecutive victories over Santa Clara and CSU Bakersfield.

The latter was a 7-3 victory and the most runs the Grizzlies, who still have not been shut out through 15 games, a program best, have scored this season.

Montana led now 9-5 San Jose State 2-0 going into the bottom of the sixth, as the Grizzlies looked to make it three straight, but the Spartans scored four with two outs to win 4-2.

Montana was out-hit by only one in five games at Santa Clara and San Jose, 38-37, but got outscored 28-16 as those opponents had four more extra-base hits and had better averages with runners on base and in scoring position.

Defensively, the Grizzlies had just four errors in five games, with their third error-free game of the season their 7-3 victory over CSU Bakersfield. Montana had 11 errors in five games at New Mexico State's tournament the weekend before.

"I thought we had our best weekend overall," said Meuchel. "I felt like we showed a little bit more of what we showed in the fall, with consistency on both sides of the ball, offense and defense. This is a very tough-nosed group."

Freshman Brooklyn Weisgram (.455), sophomore Jessica McAlister (.429) and freshman Maygen McGrath (.412) all hit better than .400 last weekend.

McGrath had home runs against Santa Clara and Ball State to up her season total to three, one off the Big Sky Conference lead. She leads the league in total bases and ranks second with 20 hits.

Freshman Katie Pippel had the first home run of her career, against Santa Clara in her second collegiate at-bat.

Pippel started the final four games at the Silicon Valley Classic in right field, with Weisgram moving over to center, which was a new defensive alignment.

Weisgram had a pair of assists from center, throwing out a runner at the plate against Santa Clara and starting an 8-2-4 putout that struck down a Ball State runner at second who was trying to advance on a single.

"I felt like we needed a little bit of a shakeup in a couple of areas," said Meuchel. "I felt like Katie has progressed over the last couple of weeks and has been putting solid bat to ball. I thought giving her an opportunity was what we needed to do."

Now arrives the best field of the four Montana has faced this season, starting off with North Dakota State, the really good program that might surprise you is really good.

This spring is the 10-year anniversary of the Bison winning the Norman Region and advancing to Super Regionals against Arizona State. They've won the Summit League tournament nine of the past 10 seasons.

Stanford, long a middling program amidst its national-championship peers at The Farm, is starting its likely rise to prominence under second-year coach Jessica Allister, who turned Minnesota into a top-ranked program.

Northwestern sits behind only Indiana and Wisconsin (combined record: 26-1) in the Big Ten standings. Cal Poly is 3-10 but owns a 7-3 win over Portland State, a team picked ahead of the Grizzlies in the Big Sky preseason poll.

"We knew when we scheduled this tournament we were getting Stanford. It just happened that a number of high-quality team will be there," said Meuchel.

"Overall it's our most challenging field. I think our players are excited to take the field together against very good teams and compete hard. If we put everything together, it will be fun to see the mark we can make. It's a great opportunity for us."

Montana notes:

* The Grizzlies will be playing a tournament at Stanford for the first time.

* Montana is 0-2 against North Dakota State. The Grizzlies faced the Bison twice in their debut season in 2015 at Pacific's tournament in Stockton, Calif. ... Montana is 0-1 against Cal Poly. The Grizzlies played the Mustangs also in 2015, losing at Fresno State's tournament.

* Montana will face Stanford and Northwestern for the first time this weekend.

* The domino effect: Stanford head coach Rachel Hanson stepped down in July 2017. Seven days later, Jessica Allister, a former assistant for the Cardinal, was hired away from Minnesota. Six days after that, the Gophers brought in Jamie Trachsel, who had been at Iowa State. Ten days after that, the Cyclones hired Montana coach Jamie Pinkerton, who had previously been as assistant at Iowa State.

* Montana ranks right in the middle -- fourth out of seven teams -- in the Big Sky in both batting (.272) and pitching (5.11 ERA). The Grizzlies rank fifth in fielding (.948), a category they led the league in both 2017 and '18.

* Sacramento State, at 6-6, is the only Big Sky team at .500 or above three weeks into the season. ... Weber State leads the Big Sky in hitting (.300) but ranks last in ERA (9.04).

* Maygen McGrath ranks third in the Big Sky in hitting (.426), Lexi Knauss ranks third in hits (18) and is tied for second in doubles (5), Cami Sellers ranks first in doubles (6).

* McGrath has four multiple-hit games in Montana's last seven. She leads the team with six.

* Jessica McAlister takes a team-leading six-game hitting streak into the Stanford Invitational. Brooklyn Weisgram is on a five-game hitting streak after collecting a hit in each game of the Silicon Valley Classic last weekend.

* McAlister has reached base in all 14 games she's played this season. In the three games she hasn't collected a hit, she got on base by being hit by a pitch.

Upcoming: Montana will face UC Santa Barbara, Fresno State, Cal Baptist and North Dakota at FSU's Bulldog Classic March 8-10.

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Players Mentioned

Lexi Knauss

Jessica McAlister

Maygen McGrath

Katie Pippel

Cami Sellers

Brooklyn Weisgram

University of Montana Athletics