Griz return home, host Vikings

The Montana softball team, which had a midweek doubleheader against Carroll rained out, will resume its Big Sky Conference schedule this weekend when it hosts Portland State at Grizzly Softball Field.

The Grizzlies (11-26, 1-5 BSC) and Vikings (13-21, 2-3 BSC) will play a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1 p.m. They'll return to Grizzly Softball Field for a 1 p.m. game on Sunday to wrap up the three-game series.

Montana was scheduled to take a break from league play with a doubleheader against Carroll on Tuesday, but wet conditions caused the games to be postponed.

The Grizzlies and Fighting Saints will now attempt to get in two games on Tuesday, April 16, with first pitch for the opener at 3 p.m.

A dozen things to be aware of:

1. Montana has opened its 18-game Big Sky schedule 1-5, which has the Grizzlies tied for sixth at the one-third mark with 3-24 Southern Utah in the seven-team race to make the six-team postseason.

While Montana still has 12 games remaining to get on the right side of the cut line, getting wins at home will be critical, especially for a team that is just 1-11 in true road games this season.

Montana is 6-3 at Grizzly Softball Field this season, 56-25 since it opened.

2. Portland State will arrive in Missoula on an upward trajectory. The Vikings won their two most recent league games, shutting out Northern Colorado 4-0 and 3-0.

As the league team that was on a bye last weekend, Portland State headed north to Seattle and went 2-1.

The Vikings swept Santa Clara, 14-8 and 14-3, and lost 2-1 to North Dakota State. PSU gave up the game-winning run in the bottom of the sixth that allowed the Bison to extend their winning streak to 18 games.

3. Montana could very well get a double helping of senior pitcher Alyssa Burk this weekend, in the opener on Saturday and again on Sunday, a double she pulled off last spring in Missoula, when she won twice and helped the Vikings take two of three.

It was the start of a trend Montana would like to end as soon as this weekend. The Grizzlies have dropped five straight Big Sky series dating back to last season's against Portland State.

Montana would drop two of three at Northern Colorado and two of three at home to Sacramento State to close out the regular season. The Grizzlies have lost series to Idaho State and the Hornets to open this year's league schedule.

Montana had better luck against Burke when it faced her in the Big Sky tournament last May in Ogden. The Grizzlies got to her for six runs in 4 2/3 innings, tagging her with the loss in a 6-3 Montana victory.

4. Not only did Portland State rough up Santa Clara's pitching twice last weekend, it's been an ongoing surge of the bats for the Vikings. They are batting .329 through five league games.

This weekend they'll face a Montana pitching staff that had its stretches of success last week at Sacramento State but still came away with a three-game ERA of 6.12.

That upped the Grizzlies' season ERA to 4.63, well above the 3.08 they had in 2018 with largely the same personnel.

5. Of equal concern coming out of the series at Sacramento State is that Montana batted just .179 against the Big Sky's top pitching staff. The Grizzlies scored 10 runs in 26.0 innings, with only five extra-base hits.

One player, Cami Sellers, had three of those five extra-base hits.

Montana hit .375 with runners in scoring position against Sacramento State, which was a bright spot, but the Grizzlies only had 16 at-bats across the three games with runners in scoring position.

6. Cami Sellers' bat is red-hot right now. She'll take a 10-game hitting streak into this weekend's series and has hits in 13 of Montana's last 14 games. In half of those 10 games, she's had multiple hits.

She batted .333 against the Hornets -- without her production the Grizzlies would have hit .157 with two extra-base hits. She is at .331 for the season, which ranks ninth in the Big Sky.

Hers is the 10th hitting streak in program history to reach double digits in length. The record is 17, set by Bethany Olea in 2017.

7. Montana is 9-5 against Portland State with a 4-2 record at Grizzly Softball Field. The teams split their four games last season, with the Vikings taking two of three in Missoula and the Grizzlies winning the Big Sky tournament game at Ogden.

8. Montana continues to face early deficits this season. The Grizzlies have been outscored 50-18 in the first inning -- they gave up eight first-inning runs to the Hornets last week in three games -- and 128-49 in the first three innings.

Opponents have scored more than 60 percent of their runs against Montana this season in the first three innings.

9. Montana has just one win in 19 games this season when scoring three or fewer runs. It came in the season opener, 3-0 over Santa Clara at Davis, Calif.

10. Michaela Hood and Tristin Achenbach both took losses last weekend in complete-game outings when they showed stretches of dominance.

Hood allowed four runs in the bottom of the first in Game 2. Over the next eight innings she allowed one run and five hits. The game was suspended due to darkness after nine innings.

When play resumed on Saturday afternoon, she gave up a three-run home run in the bottom of the 10th as the Hornets won 8-5.

In Game 3 later that day, Achenbach gave up four runs in the bottom of the first as well. Over the next eight innings she kept Sacramento State scoreless while limiting the Hornets to four hits.

She, too, took a loss in the bottom of the 10th when she gave up a two-out, two-run home run as the Hornets won 6-4.

11. Coach Melanie Meuchel made some roster changes last week in an effort to get her team untracked.

Kylie Hayton moved from right field to center for the series. That bumped Brooklyn Weisgram to right for Game 1. Katie Pippel, who hadn't started a game since Montana was at Fresno State's tournament, got the start in right the final two games of the series.

Pippel took advantage of the opportunity. She had a two-run single in Game 2, and two-run double in Game 3.

In Games 2 and 3, Jessica McAlister removed her catcher's mask and started at third base, a position where she was a regular last season. McKenna Tjaden replaced McAlister behind the plate.

Reilly Williams has started four of the last five games at designated player, a position that had been held down by Maddy Stenby. In her last three starts Williams has gone 4 for 12.

12. Portland State is 2-3 in league but not far away from being undefeated. All three of the Vikings' losses in league have come by a single run, including a 2-1 walk-off loss at Idaho State and a 7-6 home loss to Northern Colorado when PSU couldn't hold on to a 4-1 lead after four innings.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Weber State extended its winning streak to eight games with last weekend's home sweep of Southern Utah. Within that streak, the Wildcats swept a weather-shortened, two-game series from Sacramento State and defeated Utah 5-1, WSU's second Pac-12 victory of the season (also: Stanford).

* Sacramento State moved into sole possession of second place in the league standings with last weekend's three-game sweep of Montana. The Hornets' current four-game winning streak started with a road win over a ranked Stanford team last week.

* Idaho State, which opened league 4-1, came back to earth last weekend with a winless road trip to Northern Colorado that had the Bengals getting outscored 17-6.

* As for those Bears, who are now 4-4 in league, they are on a four-game winning streak under first-year coach Ben Garcia and have a chance to add to that this weekend on the road at Southern Utah.

* Southern Utah is 3-24 under first-year coach Kortny Hall. The Thunderbirds have a 7-6 win over North Dakota in Las Vegas on Feb. 9, a 4-3 eight-inning victory over Northern Kentucky at Riverside, Calif., on March 16 and a 4-2 win at Sacramento State on March 23 thanks to four unearned runs.

* The top six teams in the final regular-season standings will advance to play in the Big Sky tournament, which will be held May 8-11 at Sacramento State.

Upcoming: Montana will host Carroll for a doubleheader on Tuesday, then head to Ogden, Utah, for a three-game series against league-leading Weber State.

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Players Mentioned

Tristin Achenbach

Kylie Hayton

Michaela Hood

Jessica McAlister

Bethany Olea

Katie Pippel

Cami Sellers

McKenna Tjaden

Brooklyn Weisgram

Reilly Williams

University of Montana Athletics