Griz heading to St. George for Dixie State Classic

The Montana softball team, which opened its season last weekend at the Grand Canyon Kickoff Classic in Phoenix, will head south again this week for the Dixie State Classic in St. George, Utah.

The Grizzlies (1-4) will get five games over three days against five different opponents.

The tournament, which features seven teams, will be held at the multi-field Canyons Softball Complex. Montana will face every team in the field except No. 2 Washington.

The schedule:

Friday: vs. Utah Valley, 11 a.m.
Friday: vs. BYU, 1:30 p.m.
Saturday: vs. Utah State, 11 a.m.
Saturday: at Dixie State, 1:30 p.m.
Sunday: vs. Nevada, 11 a.m.

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzlies, picked third in the preseason Big Sky Conference poll, opened 1-4 at Grand Canyon last weekend. Montana lost twice in run-rule games to No. 10 Oregon, split with Grand Canyon and lost to Weber State. The Grizzlies gave up 46 runs in the five games. Cami Sellers opened the season batting .600, going 9 for 15 with a pair of home runs.

At a glance (Utah Valley): The Wolverines were scheduled to go to College Station, Texas, last weekend, but the Texas A&M Aggie Classic was canceled due to weather. Friday's game against Montana will be the season opener for Utah Valley, which was off to a 12-7 start last season when it was shut down. Utah Valley was picked third in the WAC preseason poll, behind Seattle and New Mexico State.

At a glance (BYU): The Cougars, the favorites to win the West Coast Conference, opened the season going 1-3 at the Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, Ariz., last weekend. Opening weekend featured a pair of losses to No. 16 Arizona State, a 1-0 loss to Utah and a 4-3 win over Seattle. BYU has made the NCAA tournament every season since 2005, picking up 21 wins, and made a trip to Super Regionals in 2010.

At a glance (Utah State): The Aggies opened 0-4, going winless at the Easton Invitational in Fullerton, Calif., last weekend. Utah State got outscored 21-8 in losses to Oregon State and Cal State Fullerton. The Aggies were off to a 13-11 start last season before it ended. They were picked in a tie for seventh with Nevada in the nine-team Mountain West Conference preseason poll.

At a glance (Dixie State): The Trailblazers, who began their transition to Division I status on July 1, are 1-5, with a win over Southern Utah and a 6-5 loss to No. 2 Washington, a game Dixie State led 5-3 going into the bottom of the seventh. Playing a Division II schedule last spring, the Trailblazers went 19-7. Dixie State was picked sixth in the seven-team WAC preseason poll, one spot behind Grand Canyon.

At a glance (Nevada): The Wolf Pack went 4-1 on the road against Saint Mary's, UC Davis and Sacramento State to open the season. Their only loss was 2-1 against Saint Mary's, a game Nevada led going into the bottom of the seventh. Behind a pair of underclassmen pitchers, the team has a 1.07 ERA. The Wolf Pack were picked seventh in the Mountain West preseason poll, tying with Utah State.

History:

* Montana will be playing BYU and Dixie State for the first time this week.

* The Grizzlies are 6-3 all-time against Utah Valley, but the Wolverines have won the last three meetings, two coming last February at the Marucci Desert Classic in Las Vegas. Utah Valley is scheduled to play a three-game series against Montana in Missoula next month.

* Montana has gone 1-5 against Utah State in its history. The Grizzlies' 5-3 win over the Aggies in 2015 in Boise was the fourth win in program history. Utah State won the last meeting 11-1 in 2019 in Santa Clara, Calif.

* Montana has gone 5-2 against Nevada, with four straight wins. The first of those four wins was a 16-3 victory in St. George in 2018, the second-most runs scored in program history and still the largest margin of victory. The last three came in a home series sweep in 2019, with three one-run victories.

Summary:

Montana opened the season going 1-4 at the Grand Canyon Kickoff Classic in Phoenix last weekend. After picking up a thrilling 9-4 victory over the host Lopes on Friday night, highlighted by Jessica McAlister's pinch-hit grand slam in the fifth, the Grizzlies lost three straight, getting outscored 34-11.

The offense, behind the bats of Sellers and Maygen McGrath, showed some early pop, batting .302. The Grizzlies hit .386 in the three games they were not facing No. 10 Oregon, which had a perfect game against Montana in the opener, 15 up, 15 down, the first thrown against Montana in its history.

But the Grizzlies had a hard time containing the other teams, who batted .415 against Montana and put up 46 runs in 27 innings of at-bats.

"If you look at the overall outcome, it's definitely not what we want," said fourth-year coach Melanie Meuchel. "We saw some good things on the weekend and then we saw some areas of struggle.

"Offensively we had some games when we produced and played really well on that side of the ball. Defensively was a little more of a struggle."

Of course nothing over the previous 11 months has been ideal, from last season getting canceled in March to the loss of any fall exhibition games to winter weather keeping Montana from having access to its field the two weeks before the Kickoff Classic.

"It was the first weekend out in 11 months. It was the first time traveling and figuring out how to do that safely," said Meuchel. "It was a little bit of tip-toeing. Okay, what are things going to be like this year?

"Last weekend gave us a measuring stick of where we are and areas where we really need to continue to work on. We figured out we need to create our destiny and really attack what the year will look like. We need to settle in to the idea of, we get to do this again, this is awesome."

After getting no-hit in its season opener by Oregon and putting up one hit through two innings on Friday evening against Grand Canyon, Montana finally came to life offensively.

That surge was highlighted by Cami Sellers, who had three straight three-hit games against Grand Canyon, Weber State and Grand Canyon again. In all, she was 9 for 11 in those three games.

Even with a 0 for 4 in two games against Oregon, Sellers came out of opening weekend hitting .600.

That's a good sign from a player who, at least in her Griz career, has been a relatively slow starter. She was batting .257 in early March two years ago before going on a back-half tear and finishing at .374. She was batting .297 last year when the season came to a close after 24 games.

"When she settles in, Cami has such a beautiful swing with a lot of power," said Meuchel. "She hit some balls very well on the weekend. It's nice to see her get paid back for the work she puts in.

"(Her hitting) is a spark plug for the team. Seeing her do it gives a lot of confidence to the entire lineup."

McGrath had a nice start as well, going 7 for 14 with two home runs. She led the team with five RBIs and five runs scored. Kendall Curtis and Kylie Becker both had four hits. Two of Becker's came on Sunday against Oregon.

"Cami, Maygen and Kendall really had excellent at-bats on the weekend," said Meuchel, who got 15 players on the field in five games. All played in multiple games on the weekend.

Now Montana heads into Weekend 2. After playing multiple games against Oregon and Grand Canyon last weekend, the Grizzlies will play five games in St. George, each against a different opponent.

"It will be really fun to have five different opponents," said Meuchel. "BYU competes in regionals every year. You're going to get a competitive Nevada team. Dixie State was a top-tier Division II program that has always been competitive and strong.

"For the most part it's going to be gritty teams, tough-nosed gritty teams. It's going to be fun to compete against them."

Montana notes:

* Montana's first hit of 2021 didn't come until its second game and seventh inning of at-bats, when Kendall Curtis singled to right to lead off the bottom of the second on Friday night against Grand Canyon.

* Jessica McAlister's grand slam in the bottom of the fifth of that game, the one that broke a 4-4 tie, was the sixth in program history. It was the first by a pinch hitter and came on a full count.

* Tristin Achenbach picked up the team's lone win of the weekend in that game, shutting down the Lopes in 2 1/3 innings of relief. She struck out four, three of those coming with the bases loaded.

* Montana held leads in both of its losses on Saturday. The Grizzlies led Weber State 5-4 going into the bottom of the fifth before losing 9-5. Montana led Grand Canyon 2-1 after one in the Lopes' 16-5 win.

* The 16 runs scored were the most ever put up against Montana, surpassing the 13 scored by Nebraska in 2015, Northern Illinois in 2016 and Southern Utah in 2016. The margin of defeat was also the largest in program history, surpassing the previous high of 10.

* Tristin Achenbach started two games. Ashley Ward, Allie Brock and Anna Toon all started one. They ended the weekend with a collective ERA of 9.59, with 2.85 walks and hits allowed per inning pitched.

* Brock, in four appearances, threw a team-high 9 2/3 innings. She had a team-high nine strikeouts.

* Freshman Kelly Sweyer scored her first collegiate run on Friday against Grand Canyon. She had the treat of being on third base when McAlister hit her grand slam. "(Coach Sarah O'Brien, who was coaching third base) said, 'Go, it's gone.' She knew it right off the bat."

(Learn more about Sweyer on Thursday in the next of the Origin Stories series.)

* Toon had her first collegiate hit and RBI against Weber State. She led off the top of the third with a single to left-center and drove in Kendall Curtis in the top of the fourth with a sacrifice fly to center.

* Starting all five games in Phoenix: McKenna Tjaden at catcher, Cami Sellers at first, Lexi Knauss at second, Maygen McGrath at shortstop, Jaxie Klucewich in left and Julie Phelps in center.

* Kylie Becker batted leadoff all five games, followed by Sellers, McGrath, Curtis, Tjaden and Knauss.

* Cami Sellers hit home runs in back-to-back at-bats on Saturday against Grand Canyon, separated by three pitches. She also hit a pair of home runs against Portland State in April 2019.

* Maygen McGrath had four of Montana's nine extra-base hits in Phoenix, with two home runs and two doubles.

Upcoming: Montana will be off next weekend. The Grizzlies will travel to El Paso, Texas, the opening weekend of March for the UTEP Orange and Blue Classic for games against the Miners, Arizona State and Incarnate Word.

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Players Mentioned

Tristin Achenbach

Kylie Becker

Allie Brock

Kendall Curtis

Jaxie Klucewich

Lexi Knauss

Jessica McAlister

Maygen McGrath

Julie Phelps

Cami Sellers

Kelly Sweyer

McKenna Tjaden

Anna Toon

Ashley Ward

University of Montana Athletics