Pitching rules as Montana opens Bulldog Classic

Friday, March 8

Fresno, Calif.

3:00 PM (MT)

Montana

5-16

UC Santa Barbara

5-13

Montana

UC Santa Barbara

3/8/2019 11:33:00 PM | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana softball team opened the Bulldog Classic at Fresno, Calif., with a shutout on Friday afternoon and ended the day in one as well.

The Grizzlies (5-17) rode the right arm of Colleen Driscoll to a 5-0 blanking of UC Santa Barbara in their opener. In its final game of the day, Montana lost 8-0 to host Fresno State in six innings.

Danielle Lung struck out 13 Grizzlies over six innings, the second-most strikeouts ever recorded by an opposing pitcher against Montana in its short history.

North Dakota State's Krista Menke struck out 16 back in 2015.

The Bulldogs won their fifth consecutive game and improved to 11-6 overall, 11-3 against unranked opponents.

Driscoll and Lung were equally effective on Friday. While Lung was overpowering, Driscoll was her usual self, putting the ball in play and letting the defense behind her do its job.

She allowed four hits and struck out just one while getting 16 ground outs and four fly outs. She needed just 74 pitches to throw her fourth career shutout.

The Grizzlies got all the runs they would need in the second, when they scored four times on five hits. They added their fifth run in the sixth, when Lexi Knauss tripled home Kylie Becker.

It was one of three hits in the game for Knauss, all of them going for extra bases. She led off the game with a double and had an RBI double in the second.

Jessica McAlister and Maddy Stensby also had multiple-hit games, both going 2 for 4.

Montana could only get to Lung for two hits in the Grizzlies' game against Fresno State. Stensby doubled to left-center in the second, Brooklyn Weisgram doubled down the right-field line in the fourth.

A pair of walks in the fifth were Montana's only other base runners against Lung, who struck out three in the first and fourth innings and had at least one strikeout in all six innings.

Fresno State loaded the bases in both the first and second innings against Griz starter Michaela Hood, but the Bulldogs only had one run to show for it, a solo home run in the second.

They scored one in the third off Hood, one in the fifth off Stensby before ending it early with five runs in the bottom of the sixth, all scoring before an out had been recorded.

Montana will play Cal Baptist at 3 p.m. (MT) on Saturday, then face the Bulldogs again at 6 p.m. (MT).