Griz open weekend with 5-3 win

Friday, February 28

Riverside, Calif.

10 AM (MT)

Montana

7-9

UC Riverside

6-10

Montana

UC Riverside

2/28/2020 3:15:00 PM | Softball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

Things got tense at the end, but the Montana softball team held on and opened play at the Amy S. Harrison Classic in Riverside, Calif., with a 5-3 victory over host UC Riverside on Friday morning.

The Grizzlies (7-9) never trailed and built leads of 3-0 and 5-1 before the Highlanders (6-10) scored twice in the bottom of the seventh and brought the potential winning run to the plate.

Tristin Achenbach got the game's final out, a fly out to right on a 1-0 pitch with two on, to send Montana to its seventh victory of the season.

It was the only game of the day for the Grizzlies, who face Nebraska-Omaha and Michigan State on Saturday, UC Riverside for a second time on Sunday.

Montana opened the scoring in the third when Maygen McGrath hit her Big Sky Conference-leading sixth home run of the season to make it 2-0.

McGrath has already matched her home run production from last season, when she hit six as a freshman. Her 12 career home runs already rank fourth in program history.

Lexi Knauss put the Grizzlies up 3-0 later in the third with an RBI double.

Montana added two more in the top of the sixth. The Grizzlies went up 4-1 on an RBI single by Cami Sellers, 5-1 on a wild pitch.

Michaela Hood got the start and allowed UC Riverside one run and two hits through four innings before being relieved by Achenbach, who gave up one hit through the fifth and sixth innings.

Montana left the bases loaded in both the top of the sixth and top of the seventh, and left a season-high 12 runners stranded for the game, and that almost proved costly in the bottom of the seventh.

The Highlanders made it 5-2 on back-to-back, one-out doubles and pulled within 5-3 on a wild pitch.

After Achenbach got the second out with the bases empty, she hit a batter and gave up a single to put the tying run on base. She got a fly out to end the game.

Hood picked up the win to improve to 3-4 and drop her ERA to 1.65, Achenbach her first save of the season, the second of her career.

Montana's three products of Southern California all had hits in their return home. Sellers (Los Alamitos) and Julie Phelps (Riverside) both went 2 for 4, with Sellers both driving in and scoring a run.

McKenna Tjaden (Murrieta) had a two-out double to center in the fifth.

Kylie Becker and Lexi Knauss also had two-hit games. Knauss has five hits in Montana's last four games, including two multiple-hit games.

Montana will face Nebraska-Omaha at 10 a.m. (MT) and Michigan State at 12:30 p.m. (MT) on Saturday.