Griz take 3-2 start to Texas

The Montana softball team, which opened the season with three wins in five games at the Nor Cal Kickoff, will play five games this weekend at the Tracy Beard College Classic.

The five-team tournament will take place Friday through Sunday at the Melissa Sports Complex in Melissa, Texas.

The tournament is being hosted by North Texas and also features Nevada, Colorado State and Abilene Christian.

With Montana playing Abilene Christian at least once at the Hawaii Invitational the following week, the Grizzlies will play North Texas, then get two games against both Nevada and Colorado State.

Schedule:

Friday, 2:30 p.m. (MT) – at North Texas
Friday, 5 p.m. (MT) – vs. Nevada
Saturday, 11 a.m. (MT) – vs. Colorado State
Saturday, 4 p.m. (MT) – vs. Nevada
Sunday, 9 a.m. (MT) – vs. Colorado State

Coverage: All the games at the tournament will be streamed on FloSoftball.

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzlies went 3-2 at the Nor Cal Kickoff to come out of opening weekend above .500 for just the third time in program history. Montana picked up wins over San Jose State, Saint Mary's and Santa Clara, and lost to Saint Mary's and UC Davis.

In Friday's 2-1, eight-inning loss to Saint Mary's, the game was scoreless after seven innings. In Saturday's 4-1 loss at UC Davis, the game was tied going into the fifth.

Allie Brock was the pitcher of record in all three wins. She finished the weekend 3-0 with a 0.82 ERA and started her week earning her first career Big Sky Conference Pitcher of the Week honor.

Montana batted just .222 through its first five games but used a 1.60 team ERA to come away with three wins and two competitive losses.

At a glance (North Texas): The Mean Green opened the season going 3-2 at McNeese State's tournament in Lake Charles, La. They outscored their opponents 24-3 in their three wins, got outscored 6-0 in their two losses, one of which was a 5-0 defeat at the hands of No. 19 Louisiana Lafayette.

North Texas is coming off a 38-12 season that saw it go 18-2 in Conference USA to win the league's West Division. The Mean Green were picked second in this year's 12-team preseason poll behind Charlotte.

Pitcher Janie Worthington and infielder Tayla Evans were voted to the preseason all-conference team. Worthington went 10-1 last season with a 1.99 ERA. Evans batted .289 with 22 of her 39 hits going for extra bases.

At a glance (Nevada): The Wolf Pack is under first-year coach Linda Garza, who Nevada gladly hired after she went 161-82 at Fresno State over five seasons. She took over for Josh Taylor, who turned his success in Reno into the head job at Louisiana Tech.

Nevada went 24-16 last season and finished third in the Mountain West with a 16-8 league record. The Wolf Pack was picked fifth out of nine teams in this year's preseason coaches' poll.

Nevada opened the season going 0-5 last weekend in Southern California, with losses to UC San Diego, No. 3 UCLA, Loyola Marymount and Cal State Northridge. The Wolf Pack got outscored 37-7 and came out of the weekend with a team ERA of 7.34.

At a glance (Colorado State): Also opening their season in Southern California, the Rams went 1-4, their lone win a 12-0 decision over Dixie State. Three of CSU's losses came by one run, the other by a 4-2 score.

Colorado State went 16-20 last season and finished fifth in the Mountain West with a 10-11 league record. The Rams won the Mountain West with an 18-6 record in 2019 and advanced to their first NCAA tournament since 2003.

Colorado State was picked sixth out of nine teams in the Mountain West preseason poll.

Series histories:

* Montana will be playing North Texas for the first time when the teams meet on Friday.

* Montana is 5-3 against Nevada, the program where Montana coach Melanie Meuchel worked as an assistant from 2006-12. Six of the teams' matchups have come in Missoula. The Grizzlies and Wolf Pack have split their two neutral-site games.

Nevada defeated Montana 6-5 in eight innings last spring in St. George, Utah. The Grizzlies scored four runs in the bottom of the first to take a 4-0 lead but the Wolf Pack would come back to send the game to extra innings. The game ended with Montana having the potential winning run on base.

* Montana is 0-2 against Colorado State. The Rams won 5-4 in 2015 in Las Cruces, N.M., in the fifth game in the Grizzlies' history. CSU won 3-1 in Tucson, Ariz., in 2018.

Montana notes:

* The Grizzlies' 3-2 start to the season is their third time coming out of opening weekend above .500. The 2016 team started 3-2 at Davis, Calif. The 2020 team started 4-1 at Metairie, La.

* Allie Brock was named Big Sky Pitcher of the Week on Tuesday for the first time. She is the sixth player in program history to earn the honor, joining Kenzie Cole, Sara Stephenson, Michaela Hood, Colleen Driscoll and Tristin Achenbach.

* Brock won opening weekend games one and three as a starter, game five in relief. She allowed four hits in 7.0 innings in Montana's 3-0 win over San Jose State and five hits in 6.0 innings in its 11-2 win over Saint Mary's.

* In the team's 2-1 win over Santa Clara on Sunday, Brock entered the game in the bottom of the fourth with the bases loaded and nobody out and Montana holding a 2-0 lead. She got out of the inning with only a sacrifice fly allowed. She didn't allow a hit in 4.0 innings of relief work.

* She joins Haley Young, in 2016, and Tristin Achenbach, in 2020, as the only Montana pitchers to win their first three decisions to start the season.

* Freshman Dana Butterfield started games two and four. She took the loss in both but came out of the weekend with a 2.50 ERA. She lost 2-1 to Saint Mary's in her collegiate debut and was in a 1-1 game at UC Davis in the fifth inning before allowing an RBI single in the fifth and a two-run home run in the sixth.

* Montana's pitchers allowed just four extra-base hits at the Nor Cal Kickoff, one double, two triples and one home run.

* Maggie Joseph, who joined Montana as a transfer from Cal, made her debut with one inning of hitless relief in the Grizzlies' 11-2 win over Saint Mary's. She started on Sunday against Santa Clara and allowed one earned run and four hits in 3.0 innings.

* Jaxie Klucewich (.462), Cami Sellers (.368) and Julie Phelps (.333) all hit better than .300 to open the season. Four of Sellers' seven hits were doubles, two of Phelps' five hits were doubles. They combined for six of Montana's eight extra-base hits on opening weekend, all of which were doubles.

* Montana went without a home run on opening weekend. It's the third time that's happened in program history, with the 2018 and '19 teams also going without.

* Cami Sellers led Montana with five RBIs, Curtis had four, with three of them coming in Montana's 11-2 win over Saint Mary's in a game that took 10 minutes shy of three hours to play.

* Leadoff hitter Kylie Becker scored a team-high four runs as Montana outscored its opponents 18-9 on opening weekend.

* Freshman Presley Jantzi had her first collegiate hit and RBI with a pinch-hit single through the left side in the sixth inning in Montana's 11-2 win over Saint Mary's.

* Maygen McGrath, third-team all-region last season, had a quiet start to the season, going 1 for 16 with three strikeouts. She batted .410 last season with just 10 strikeouts in 161 at-bats and ended the season on a 19-game hitting streak.

* Montana's infield defense was the same all five games on opening weekend: Cami Sellers at first, Kendall Curtis at second, Kylie Becker at third and Maygen McGrath at short. Julie Phelps also started all five games in center.

Upcoming: Montana will play five games next week at the Hawaii Invitational in Honolulu. The Grizzlies will get games against Hawaii, Abilene Christian and former Big Sky member North Dakota, then face two of those teams again on the final day in bracket play.

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Players Mentioned

Tristin Achenbach

Kylie Becker

Allie Brock

Dana Butterfield

Kendall Curtis

Colleen Driscoll

Michaela Hood

Presley Jantzi

Maggie Joseph

Jaxie Klucewich

Maygen McGrath

Julie Phelps

Cami Sellers

University of Montana Athletics