Griz wrap up regular season with home series

The Montana softball team will conclude its regular-season schedule this week when it hosts Northern Colorado in a three-game series at Grizzly Softball Field in Missoula.

The Grizzlies (18-23, 5-9 BSC) and Bears (18-26, 6-6 BSC) will play a doubleheader on Friday starting at 2 p.m., a single game on Saturday at 1 p.m.

Saturday will double as Senior Day for Kylie Becker, Maygen McGrath, Cami Sellers, McKenna Tjaden and Brooklyn Weisgram.

Montana will be off next weekend while the other six Big Sky Conference teams play their final series.

The six-team Big Sky tournament will be held in Ogden, Utah, from May 11-14.

The six-team field has already been filled by Weber State, Sacramento State, Portland State, Idaho State, Northern Colorado and Montana. Southern Utah has already been eliminated.

Coverage: This week's games can be seen on ESPN+, with Paul Yarbrough calling Friday's doubleheader, Jackson Wagner Saturday's game.

What's at stake (Montana): With only three Big Sky games remaining, the Grizzlies, no matter this week's results, are locked into one of the Big Sky tournament's opening-round games featuring seeds 3-6.

What's at stake (Northern Colorado): The Bears have six games remaining against the two teams closest to them in the standings, Montana and Idaho State. While it's unlikely, UNC could play itself into a top-two seed and a bye at the tournament.

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzles were sitting 4-2 in league after sweeping their series at Southern Utah in early April but have gone just 1-7 in Big Sky games since, with a 1-2 home record against Idaho State and 0-2 and 0-3 road trips to Weber State and Sacramento State, respectively.

Montana is sitting in sixth place out of seven teams in the Big Sky, with the five teams in front of it still having six games left to play.

The Grizzlies are coming off a series at Sacramento State when it lost by scores of 9-1, 2-1 and 1-0. Montana batted .181 in the three games and went just 3 for 42 (.071) in Games 1 and 3 against Hornet ace Marissa Bertuccio.

The Grizzlies' season batting average dropped to .288, which still ranks third in the Big Sky. Montana's pitching staff, which held the Hornets to three runs and eight hits over the final two games of the series, has an ERA of 4.55.

Montana has played error-free softball in six of its last seven games to improve its season fielding percentage to .972, which ranks second in the Big Sky, 33rd nationally.

At a glance (Northern Colorado): The Bears, picked sixth in the Big Sky preseason coaches' poll, were sitting 9-18 a little more than a month ago but have doubled their wins since, with six of those coming in Big Sky play.

UNC reached its 6-6 league record by opening with a three-game sweep of Southern Utah, then going 1-2 at Portland State and 1-2 at home against both Sacramento State and Weber State.

Northern Colorado's 7-4 win over Weber State on Friday was the Big Sky-leading Wildcats' first league loss. Weber State answered by outscoring the Bears 28-6 over the series' final two games.

Northern Colorado's averages are similar to Montana's. The Bears are batting .286 and have an ERA of 4.98. UNC, with 64, has more than twice as many errors as the Grizzlies, who have 32.

Freshman pitcher Meghan Golden ranks fifth in the Big Sky in innings pitched (132.0), fourth in strikeouts (132).

Series history:

* Montana leads the series with Northern Colorado 12-8 and has gone 7-2 against the Bears in Missoula with seven straight wins. Montana hasn't lost to Northern Colorado in Missoula since 2015.

* The Grizzlies defeated the Bears 7-6 in their most recent matchup, at last spring's Big Sky tournament in Ogden in an elimination game.

* In the teams' series last spring in Greeley, Northern Colorado put up 25 runs over three games and swept Montana.

Summary:

The Montana softball program is now in its eighth season. That history can be divided into two four-year terms, from 2015-18 and from 2019 to the present.

Because the Grizzlies went freshman-heavy when starting the program in 2015, that meant a major personnel turnover between the 2018 and '19 seasons, when that initial group graduated out.

This year's senior class was the replacements in 2019 as freshmen or, in the case of Cami Sellers, a sophomore in her first year as a Grizzly after transferring from Boston College.

When the 2019 team took the field for the first time in early February against Santa Clara in Davis, Calif., Sellers started at first base, Maygen McGrath at shortstop, Brooklyn Weisgram in right and Kylie Becker at third.

They've been doing their thing ever since, pandemic-shortened season included.

"This group came in and had such large roles from Day 1," said coach Melanie Meuchel. "They came in excited and determined, and were willing to rise to the challenges from Year 1.

"They have really made names for themselves in our program and in the Big Sky Conference. They truly have the heart of a Griz. They are passionate about being able to play."

If one thing connects the two eras, it's shortstops Delene Colburn and Maygen McGrath, who have started 386 of the program's 390 games played in its history at the position.

Colburn, in 2017, became the program's first all-region selection. McGrath gave the Grizzlies their second all-region player last season.

For all the career hitting records Colburn owns, it's McGrath who's putting a serious chase into many of them.

Colburn hit .371 for her career. McGrath is at .362, an average going up by the game given her Big Sky-leading .395 average this season.

In other categories, where it's an amassing of numbers, McGrath will come up short, the cost of losing more than half of her sophomore season to COVID shutdowns.

Expand the discussion to the greatest hitters of the last eight years and Sellers would be included. She and McGrath are separated by three career hits, two career RBIs.

Becker now ranks in the top 10 in program history in hits, runs and RBIs, and leads in times getting hit by a pitch, at 24, because hers has always been a physical brand of softball, a fearlessness of the ball, whether at third and defending or hitting at the plate.

Because not everything peaks in storybook fashion, McKenna Tjaden enjoyed her most productive season offensively as a junior in 2021, when she batted .268 and knocked out four of her seven career home runs.

Weisgram, injured for a chunk of the 2021 season, has earned her reward in 2022. She is batting .270 with five home runs, two of them grand slams, and a career-high 21 RBIs.

Her 11 career home runs rank sixth in program history, her 59 runs scored are tied for ninth, her 16 doubles are tied for 10th.

If the first four-year era of players have one major bragging right, it's the Big Sky title they won in 2017. The second era's rebuttal? We're not done quite yet.

"Not only do I think they did a great job in their time here, they still have time in front of them," said Meuchel.

That she's talking about a sixth-place team with a 5-9 league record chasing a title in two weeks in Ogden might seem like a bit of a stretch, but the numbers reveal something different.

Of the Grizzlies' nine Big Sky losses, six have come in one-run games. In going 1-7 against the league's top three teams, Montana dropped two one-run games to Portland State, one to Weber State, two to Sacramento State.

That's not to say Montana should be 11-3 in league. It's to say the Grizzlies will go to Ogden knowing they can compete with any of the other five teams there.

"There are some frustrations that come with (one-run losses) but there are also some very promising and hopeful parts to it," said Meuchel.

"Knowing how often we were a swing away, a pitch away, a defensive ball away from being in a lot of games gives us a lot of excitement for the coming weeks sitting in front of us.

"I don't feel like the story is completely written at this point. I feel we're still in the process of writing it."

With seven Big Sky teams, six have matched up every weekend of the league schedule, leaving one team off. Some have found nonconference opponents to fill the opening. Others, like Montana, did not.

After playing Northern Colorado on Saturday, Montana won't play again until Wednesday, May 11, in a first-round game of the Big Sky tournament. It will be the team's longest break between games this season.

The break from games comes in the weekend leading up to finals week at Montana, which coincides with the week of the Big Sky tournament in Ogden, so there are some positives.

"The off week could be great for us, a chance for some rest and recovery and some time for academics as we roll into finals while also staying sharp in who we are," said Meuchel.

But first, the Bears, who have defeated at least once every Big Sky opponent they've faced this season.

"Our focus will be on playing competitive Griz softball and being present for what we have sitting in front of us," said Meuchel. "And that's Game 1 against Northern Colorado, a team that's been very competitive against a lot of Big Sky opponents.

"We'll put our best game forward at 2 o'clock on Friday and push for who we want to be and control who we are and what we want to bring."

Montana notes:

* Maygen McGrath now leads the Big Sky in batting average at .395. From March 6 to this week, she has upped her average from .258 to .395, going 35 for 67 (.522) over 21 games with 10 multiple-hit games.

* McGrath leads the league in slugging percentage (.760) and on-base percentage (.470). She ranks second in hits (51) and home runs (14), and sixth in runs batted in (31).

* When McGrath hit a solo home run in the top of the first against Sacramento State in Game 1 on Friday, it was season home run No. 14, which tied Delene Colburn's program record from 2017.

* Colburn had 45 career home runs. McGrath is closing in at 39, a gap that can largely be attributed to McGrath's limited at-bats in 2020 because of COVID disruptions.

* Montana's next win will be No. 100 for fifth-year coach Melanie Meuchel. She'll become just the fourth coach in Big Sky softball history to reach 100 career wins.

* McGrath takes a seven-game hitting streak into this week's series. She is the only player on the team with an active hitting streak of even one game after Bertuccio threw a one-hitter in Game 3 on Saturday.

* Kendall Curtis made a plate appearance in Game 2 on Friday, her first since March 5.

* Allie Brock (9-12) and Dana Butterfield (9-11) both are sitting on nine wins. The first one to 10 will become just the fifth pitcher in program history to get to 10 wins in a season.

* Since moving into a starting role on March 11, Elise Ontiveros, in addition to making NCAA Plays of the Week in left field, has hit safely in 13 of 20 games while going 19 for 53 (.358).

* Presley Jantzi went 0 for 7 at Sacramento State, only the second time this season the freshman has gone three consecutive games without a hit, highlighting her consistency.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Weber State, at 10-1, stands alone atop the league standings. Sacramento State trails at 9-3. The teams play a monster series in Ogden this weekend.

* Portland State is in third place at 8-4. After playing what should be an interesting series at Idaho State this week, the Vikings host Weber State for three games next week.

* Idaho State and Northern Colorado are tied for fourth at 6-6, Montana comes in at 5-9 and in sixth place.

* Southern Utah, at 3-35 overall, 0-15 in league, is out of the postseason discussion. The Thunderbirds are off from league games this week, then close at Sacramento State.

* No team in Big Sky history, which dates back to 2013 for softball, has gone winless in league. The closest was North Dakota, which went 1-20 in 2015.

Upcoming: The six-team Big Sky tournament in Ogden, with seeding to be determined over the coming two weekends.

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Players Mentioned

Kylie Becker

Allie Brock

Dana Butterfield

Kendall Curtis

Presley Jantzi

Maygen McGrath

Elise Ontiveros

Cami Sellers

McKenna Tjaden

Brooklyn Weisgram

University of Montana Athletics