Griz to host final home games of the season

The Montana softball team will play its final home games of the season this week when it hosts Northern Colorado at Grizzly Softball Field.

The teams will play a doubleheader on Friday beginning at 3 p.m. The series will conclude with a single game on Saturday at 1 p.m. Saturday will be Senior Day for Colleen Driscoll and Maddy Stensby.

The Grizzlies will conclude the regular season the following weekend with a three-game series at Southern Utah.

The Big Sky Conference Championship opens at Sacramento State on Wednesday, May 8. The top six teams in the final seven-team league standings will advance to the postseason.

Coverage: Friday's doubleheader can be watched on SWX, Pluto TV or WatchBigSky.com. In addition to coverage on Pluto TV and WatchBigSky.com, Saturday's game will be streamed through the NCAA's softball Facebook page.

What's at stake: Let's get this out of the way. Weber State (12-1 in league) and Sacramento State (8-3) are the league's two best teams and will likely be the tournament's No. 1 and 2 seeds next month at Sac State's Shea Stadium.

The other five teams have all shown themselves to be interchangeable parts. Portland State got swept by Montana, the Vikings swept Southern Utah. Idaho State won its series at Montana, the Bengals got swept at Northern Colorado.

The five teams behind Weber State and Sacramento State go into this weekend separated by just two games in the win column. In a week and a half, the music will stop and one of them will be left without a postseason chair to sit on.

Here is the good and the bad for the five teams fighting for those four coveted spots:

Portland State (16-26, 5-6 BSC)

Good: The Vikings swept Southern Utah last weekend to jump up the league standings and played two competitive games at Oregon on Tuesday night, falling 5-3 and 9-8.

Bad: Portland State ends the season with series against Sacramento State (road) and Weber State (home).

Idaho State (15-25, 5-6 BSC)

Good: The Bengals are coming off their bye weekend and get to re-enter league play with a series at last-place Southern Utah.

Bad: After a hot start, Idaho State has dropped six of its last seven Big Sky games and face Sacramento State on the season's final weekend.

Northern Colorado (11-34, 5-9 BSC)

Good: The Bears were swept at home by Sacramento State last weekend but it was a competitive series. UNC had the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the seventh in Games 1 and 3.

Bad: This week's games are the final ones on the schedule for Northern Colorado, which has a bye next week. After Saturday's game is over, the Bears will be sitting and watching. And hoping they did enough.

Montana (18-29, 4-8 BSC)

Good: The Grizzlies close the season playing the bottom two teams in the Big Sky in overall winning percentage, including this week's series at Grizzly Softball Field, where Montana is 13-3 this spring.

Bad: The Grizzlies are 1-14 in true road games this season and, depending on how this week goes, might be in a position to have to get wins next week at Southern Utah.

Southern Utah (5-28, 3-9 BSC)

Good: The Thunderbirds play their final two Big Sky series at home, with Idaho State visiting Cedar City this week, Montana next week.

Bad: Southern Utah, which has an RPI of 283 out of the NCAA's 297 Division I softball programs, has won only five games all season. Two of those victories required extra innings.

Series notes:

* Montana went 0-6 against Weber State and Sacramento State, with both series coming on the road, but half of those games were decided in extra innings.

* The Grizzlies shook off their three-game sweep at Weber State last week with a doubleheader sweep of Providence on Monday at Grizzly Softball Field, with wins of 12-2 and 10-2.

* Montana batted .412 against the Argos, going down in order in just one inning. That came after hitting .182 in three games at Weber State.

* Northern Colorado lost 11-3 at No. 25 Colorado State on Tuesday and will take a six-game losing streak into this week's series. UNC had losing streaks of 12 and nine games earlier this season.

* The Bears rank last in the Big Sky in team batting (.235) and ahead of only Southern Utah in ERA (5.86).

* Montana leads the Big Sky in doubles (74) and triples (14), and ranks second behind Sacramento State in home runs (21). Those 109 extra-base hits are tied with the Hornets for the league high. The Grizzlies had just 63 extra-base hits all of last season.

* Northern Colorado has struck out more times this season (224) than any other team in the Big Sky. Montana is next on the list at 223.

* On the flip side, the Grizzlies' pitching staff has a league-leading 226 strikeouts, 27 more than another team. The Bears' pitchers have just 121.

* When the teams met last season in Greeley, the Bears won two of three, but the series had a one-run differential. Northern Colorado won 1-0 in eight innings and 8-7 in nine innings. Montana won the finale 3-2.

* Cami Sellers entered Monday's doubleheader against Providence with an 18-game hitting streak, which had broken Bethany Olea's previous record of 17 from 2017. Sellers was kept hitless in Game 1 against the Argos by KJ Schweikert, who dropped to 0-6 this season with the loss.

* Sellers walked in that game and walked three more times in Game 2 to extend her streak of safely reaching base to 20, a total that ranks sixth in program history. The record of 32 was set by Bethany Olea in 2016.

* Michaela Hood got the win in Game 1 against the Argos, just her second of the season. She struck out five, the 29th time in her career she has posted at least five K's in a game, and upped her program-record wins total to 27.

* Colleen Driscoll started and got the win in Game 2 to improve to 8-9 this season. She ranks second in program history in career wins behind Hood with 25.

* Cami Sellers is tied for the Big Sky lead in hits with Sacramento State's Nene Alas (both have 54) and leads the league in doubles with 19. The program record for doubles in a season is Delene Colburn's 21 from Montana's debut season in 2015.

* Kylie Becker batted leadoff in both games against Providence, her first time this season in that position after hitting mostly in the bottom third of the order.

She went 8 for 16 in eight games against Portland State, Carroll and Weber State prior to being moved up and kept it going against the Argos, finishing 4 for 9 in two games, with three RBIs and two runs scored.

* Saturday will be Senior Day for Colleen Driscoll and Maddy Stensby. While last year's seniors were the first four-year players to make it through the program, Driscoll and Stensby are part of their own first. They are the first four-year pitchers to come through the program.

Driscoll has a 25-25 career record and 3.36 ERA, with 11 complete games and four shutouts.

Stensby is 18-29 with a 4.04 ERA, with 13 complete games and two shutouts. Both of her shutouts came in 2016 and were five-inning no-hitters: 8-0 over Portland State and 10-0 over the former Great Falls (now Providence). She has two of Montana's three no-hitters in program history.

* The curse of Senior Day: Montana is 0-4 in its history on Senior Day. The Grizzlies lost 7-6 to Southern Utah in 2015, 9-7 to Weber State in 2016, 5-3 to Idaho State in eight innings in 2017 and 8-0 to Sacramento State last spring.

* The ties that bind, I: Former Northern Colorado coach Shana Easley stepped down in August to accept a volunteer coaching position at Arkansas, where she was four-year starter at catcher. An assistant on the Arkansas staff: Matt Meuchel, the Montana coach's brother.

The Razorbacks are 34-15 this season and ranked No. 18 in this week's USA Today/NFCA coaches' poll.

* The ties that bind, II: Hired in September to replace Easley was Ben Garcia, who went 169-49 in four seasons at Colorado Mesa, a Division II school in Grand Junction. The school was formerly known as Mesa State and is where Montana coach Melanie Meuchel pitched collegiately.

* Montana and Northern Colorado have both had a Big Sky Conference Player of the Week this season.

Montana freshman shortstop Maygen McGrath was honored on Feb. 18 after a big tournament at New Mexico State. Northern Colorado sophomore catcher Emma Brockmann was recognized on April 15 for hitting .600, with seven RBIs and five runs scored, in four games against Metro State and Southern Utah.

Montana senior Colleen Driscoll is the only player from either team to earn Big Sky Pitcher of the Week honors. She was recognized on April 15 after going 2-0 in the Grizzlies' three-game sweep of Portland State.

* During Cami Sellers' 18-game hitting streak, she upped her batting average from .297 to .351. It is now at .346, which ranks seventh in the Big Sky.

* Montana's sweep of Providence on Monday upped its all-time record at Grizzly Softball Field to 63-25.

* Montana is 8-4 all-time against Northern Colorado, 4-2 in Missoula, 4-2 in Greeley.

* After hitting eight home runs in five games against Portland State and Carroll, Montana had just one in five games against Weber State and Providence, Cami Sellers' two-run shot in the Grizzlies' 5-2 loss in Game 2 at Weber State.

* With Sellers' hitting streak now over, the longest active streak belongs to Lexi Knauss at four games.

* Perfect/imperfect: Montana is 0-18 when scoring two or fewer runs, 11-0 when leading after six innings and 0-18 when trailing after six innings.

* Colleen Driscoll struck out a season-high seven batters in her four innings of work on Monday against Providence. It was the most for Driscoll since striking out 10 last season in a home win over Sacramento State.

* Kylie Hayton's three RBIs in Game 2 against Providence on Monday, which came on a bases-loaded triple, were a career high.

* Katie Pippel has started the last 12 games. She has at least one hit in 10 of those games. Her season batting average has gone from .200 to .288 in those dozen games.

* Brooklyn Weisgram had a two-hit game in Game 2 against Providence on Monday. It was her first multiple-hit game since March 17. She also scored a season-high three times in that game.

* Friday in the Big Sky: Northern Colorado at Montana (DH), Idaho State at Southern Utah (DH), Portland State at Sacramento State (DH)

* Saturday in the Big Sky: Northern Colorado at Montana, Idaho State at Southern Utah, Portland State at Sacramento State

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Players Mentioned

Kylie Becker

Delene Colburn

Colleen Driscoll

Kylie Hayton

Michaela Hood

Lexi Knauss

Maygen McGrath

Bethany Olea

Katie Pippel

Cami Sellers

Maddy Stensby

Brooklyn Weisgram

University of Montana Athletics