Big Sky play continues at Northern Colorado

Friday, April 9

Greeley, Colo.

1 PM

Montana

Northern Colorado

4/8/2021 12:08:00 PM | Softball

PDF Game Notes

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana softball team will play Big Sky Conference series No. 3 of 6 this week when the Grizzlies travel to Greeley to face Northern Colorado.

The teams will play a doubleheader on Friday starting at 1 p.m., a single game on Saturday at noon. The games will be played at UNC's Gloria Rodriguez Field.

Montana (9-21, 3-3 BSC) opened league with a three-game road sweep of Portland State, then returned home and dropped three games last weekend to Big Sky leader Sacramento State at Grizzly Softball Field.

After this week's series is complete, Montana will close the regular season playing eight of its final 11 games at home, with Big Sky series against Southern Utah and Weber State and a doubleheader against Carroll next Wednesday.

Montana also will play a road series at Idaho State.

At a glance (Montana): After opening league 3-0 with three wins at Portland State, Montana returned home last week and lost three times to Sacramento State, which is atop the Big Sky standings at 6-0.

The Grizzlies lost a pair of one-run games on Friday, 2-1 in eight innings and 5-4, then lost 9-4 on Saturday after allowing six home runs to the Hornets.

Montana sits in fourth place in the Big Sky standings, behind three teams that are unbeaten: Sacramento State (6-0), Weber State (3-0) and Southern Utah (3-0).

The Grizzlies rank fifth out of seven teams in the Big Sky in team batting average (.285), fourth in ERA (6.61).

Maygen McGrath ranks in the top five in the Big Sky in batting average (.358), hits (34), runs scored (23), RBIs (27) and home runs (8).

Tristin Achenbach leads Montana in wins (six) and ERA (4.38) and has 108 strikeouts, a total that not only leads the league, it's more than twice as many as any other Big Sky pitcher.

At a glance (Northern Colorado): The Bears are 6-19 overall, 2-4 in league, one game behind fourth-place Montana in a season when the top four teams will advance to the Big Sky tournament.

UNC had non-league wins over UTEP and Nebraska-Omaha, then opened Big Sky play with a competitive 0-3 series at Sacramento State, with the Bears holding a lead in all three games. Two were one-run decisions, similar to Montana's series against the Hornets.

Last week Northern Colorado took two of three at home against Portland State. The Bears had 6-3 and 10-7 wins on Friday and lost 9-6 in eight innings on Saturday.

Northern Colorado is batting .253 on the season and has a 6.51 ERA with the Big Sky's second-best fielding percentage (.965).

Junior Dani Young was named the Big Sky Player of the Week on Wednesday after batting .800 in the Bears' series against the Vikings. She went 8 for 10 with five extra-base hits, six runs scored and five RBIs.

She is batting .429 on the season, which would lead the Big Sky if she had enough at-bats to qualify.

Series notes:

* Montana is 11-5 against Northern Colorado and has gone 4-2 against the Bears in Greeley.

* The Grizzlies swept the Bears in Missoula in April 2019 in the last series the two teams played, winning by scores of 6-4, 4-2 and 4-2.

* The teams' most recent game came at the 2019 Big Sky tournament in Sacramento. The Bears scored a run in the top of the first and it held up in a 1-0 win as Valerie Vidal threw a complete-game four-hitter.

* The teams have not played a game in Greeley since April 2018.

* Montana coach Melanie Meuchel is 4-3 against Northern Colorado, 3-1 against UNC coach Ben Garcia.

Summary:

Though Montana went 3-0 to sweep its Big Sky-opening series at Portland State and then followed that up with a winless home stand against Sacramento State, that doesn't mean the Grizzlies took a step backwards last weekend.

Montana dropped two one-run games on Friday and was in a one-run game going into the sixth inning on Saturday. Each game was one big play from going the other way.

Montana had 24 hits in the series, just two fewer than Sacramento State. The Grizzlies struck out just five times in three games, 11 fewer than the Hornets, and Montana committed just one error, on a stolen-base attempt.

The Grizzlies played good, solid softball, even if the results didn't come.

"Between Weekend 1 and Weekend 2 and even this past week of practice, we are continuing to see growth in some execution plays that we are a hair away from putting away," said coach Melanie Meuchel.

"We're giving ourselves opportunities. We're giving ourselves chances. Now it's about being put in those situations and punching through and executing with that timely hit, that timely pitch or that defensive play."

Montana had a 4.77 ERA on the weekend, still higher than Meuchel would prefer, but it brought the team's season ERA down from 6.84 at the start of the series to 6.61, so it's trending in the right direction.

The Grizzlies hit .273 against the Hornets, below their season average, but also didn't hurt themselves with strikeouts. They put the ball in play against a good defensive team that didn't commit an error the entire series.

And when it was over, Montana sits in the top four in the standings with a bulk of its league games still to come.

"I'm really proud of the players and the work they continue to put forward, because they know that there is still a good chunk of our conference season left," said Meuchel.

"I think we can feel the direction we're going in and the strides we're taking forward as a collective unit. We're really excited to get to Greeley and compete this weekend together."

Montana will face a team that has gone 4-4 in its last eight games after opening the season 2-15. Two of those wins came last weekend against Portland State on UNC's home field.

The Bears feature a lineup that has six players batting .283 or better.

Erin Caviness has been the pitcher of record in 13 of 25 games this season and has an ERA of 4.91. As a staff, the Bears have given up 94 extra-base hits, 56 doubles, nine triples and 29 home runs.

Opponents are batting .372 but the Bears have allowed five or fewer runs in five of their last eight games.

"This is a team that will compete and compete for a long time," said Meuchel. "They'll bring a little bit of everything. They have kids who can drive the ball and a few kids who will try to beat something out in the infield.

"If we can continue to control what we're trying to do and what our game plan is offensively, I think we'll have opportunities to put up some runs."

Montana notes:

* Tristin Achenbach got the start in Games 1 and 3 against Sacramento State and had competitive head-to-head matchups against Marissa Bertuccio, who threw complete games and picked up the win in both.

* Achenbach went 0-2 despite finishing with an ERA of 3.09. She struck out 11 in her Game 1 start, her fourth game this season with 10 or more.

* Allie Brock got the start in Game 2. Ashley Ward threw the final three innings of that game and allowed three hits and no runs in an effective relief outing.

* Jaxie Klucewich had the team's best batting average on the weekend of .429, going 3 for 7. That upped her season average to .339. Klucewich is 7 for 13 the last five games.

* Kendall Curtis had a team-high four hits, McKenna Tjaden and Maygen McGrath both drove in two runs.

* Brooklyn Weisgram had a home run in the opener, her first since Feb. 9, 2020, against Texas Tech.

* The six home runs allowed in Saturday's loss matched the program record, set earlier this season against Utah State. ... Montana did not draw a walk in three games against Sacramento State.

* Cami Sellers had two doubles in the series. Her nine doubles on the season are tied for the Big Sky lead.

* McKenna Tjaden will take an eight-game hitting streak into this week's series at Northern Colorado. It's the longest streak by a Grizzly this season and the longest since Cami Sellers went for 18 back in 2019. ... Kylie Becker is on a six-game hitting streak.

* Tjaden has three of her five career home runs this season, five of her nine career multi-hit games and four of her seven career multi-RBI games.

* Anna Toon had a pinch-hit RBI double on Saturday. She is now batting .364 on the season, the best average on the team.

* Four of Montana's first six Big Sky games have been decided by one run.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Sacramento State improved to 6-0 in league with a sweep of Montana last weekend in Missoula.

* Weber State, off from league last weekend, is 3-0, as is Southern Utah, which roughed up Idaho State in Pocatello, outscoring the Bengals 23-4, with two run-rule games.

* Montana, at 3-3, is followed in the standings by Northern Colorado (2-4), Portland State (1-5) and Idaho State (0-6).

* The top four teams will make the Big Sky tournament in May in Ogden, Utah.

* This week's series: UM at UNC, PSU at SUU, WSU at SAC

* Southern Utah, featuring the Big Sky's most explosive offense, will host Portland State, a team with the Big Sky's best batting average (.296) but fewest extra-base hits (35).

* The high-profile series will be Weber State playing at Sacramento State, the teams picked first and second in the preseason poll and owning a 9-0 league record between them.

Upcoming: Montana will host Carroll on Wednesday in a doubleheader that starts at 1 p.m., then host Southern Utah for a three-game series on Saturday and Sunday, April 17 and 18.