Griz to open with Vikings at Big Sky tournament

The Montana softball team, the No. 6 seed, will face No. 3 Portland State on Wednesday on the opening day of the double-elimination Big Sky Conference Championship at Wildcat Softball Field in Ogden, Utah.

The Grizzlies (19-25) and Vikings (26-16) will play at noon, following the game between No. 4 Northern Colorado and No. 5 Idaho State, which kicks off the four-day tournament at 9:30 a.m.

The winner of the UNC-ISU game will advance to face No. 1 seed Weber State at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the Montana-Portland State winner will play No. 2 Sacramento State at 5 p.m.

There will be three games on Thursday, two of which are elimination games, two on Friday, with the championship contest scheduled for noon on Saturday with a follow-up game at 2:30 if necessary.

Coverage: Every game of the Big Sky Conference Championship will be shown on ESPN+.

How they got here:

No. 1 Weber State – The Wildcats are 35-10 overall and won the regular-season title, going 13-1 in league, their only loss a 7-4 setback in Game 1 in a series at Northern Colorado. Weber State lost one game against Montana because of weather and the entirety of last weekend's series at Portland State.

No. 2 Sacramento State – The Hornets swept Southern Utah at home over the weekend to finish 12-6 in league and jump over Portland State and into the No. 2 seed. Sacramento State and Portland State had the same winning percentage, but the Hornets won the teams' regular-season series for the tiebreaker.

No. 3 Portland State – The Vikings, the defending tournament champions, went 10-5 in league and saw their shot at No. 1 Weber State completely rained out over the weekend. Portland State won four of its five series and went 1-2 in its other, at Sacramento State.

No. 4 Northern Colorado – Picked sixth in the preseason poll, the Bears went 10-8 in league and defeated every Big Sky opponent at least once, the only league team that can make that claim. UNC has won four of its last six games going into the tournament.

No. 5 Idaho State – Picked seventh out of seven teams in the preseason poll, the Bengals, who went 8-10 in league, advanced to the postseason in Year 1 under coach Andrew Rich. ISU won at least one game in five of its six Big Sky series, getting swept only by Weber State.

No. 6 Montana – The Grizzlies went 6-11 in league and won just one of six series, sweeping Southern Utah. Sitting 4-2 through two series, Montana closed 2-9 against Big Sky opponents. The Grizzlies went 3-11 during the regular season against the five other teams in the field, with six one-run losses.

Most recently (Montana): The Grizzlies last played on April 29-30, when they dropped two of three games to Northern Colorado in Missoula. This will be the first time Montana has gone into the postseason following an off weekend.

Most recently (Portland State): The Vikings also have not played since April 29-30, when they won two of three at Idaho State while putting up 35 runs. PSU's home series against Weber State, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, was rained out.

Montana-Portland State rewind:

* The teams played a tight series in Missoula to open league, with all three games being decided by one run.

* The Vikings swept the opening doubleheader on March 26, winning 3-2 in nine innings and 4-3. The Grizzlies bounced back in the finale the next day, winning 5-4.

* Montana lost to Olivia Grey, Wednesday's likely starter, in the opener but defeated her in Game 3 despite collecting just three hits.

* Brooklyn Weisgram hit a grand slam in the second to put the Grizzlies up 4-1. After the Vikings tied it in the top of the fifth, Cami Sellers won it in the bottom of the fifth with a solo home run to left-center.

Series history:

* Montana leads the all-time series with Portland State 17-7 and has won nine of the teams' last 11 matchups.

* Wednesday will be the fourth time the Grizzlies and Vikings have met in the Big Sky tournament. Montana won the previous three meetings, in 2016 and '18 in Ogden and 2019 in Sacramento.

Tournament bona fides:

* Montana is playing in its sixth consecutive Big Sky tournament. The Grizzlies have not missed the postseason since their debut season of 2015.

* Montana, which won the tournament in 2017 as the No. 2 seed, owns a 10-8 all-time tournament record.

* The Grizzlies will be playing as the No. 6 seed for the second consecutive season. Montana holds a 3-2 record when playing as the No. 6 seed.

* Montana went 3-2 at last year's tournament at Ogden, winning the 6-3 game over Sacramento State by a score of 6-3.

* The Grizzlies lost to No. 2 Southern Utah 3-1 later in the day, then bounced back to win two games the next day, over Northern Colorado and Sacramento State.

* Montana's run came to an end with a 7-6 loss to Southern Utah in the play-in game to face Portland State for the championship.

* Tristin Achenbach threw every pitch, 586 in total, in all five games.

Montana notes:

* Maygen McGrath ranks second in the Big Sky in batting average (.386). Montana has four times had a hitter bat .400 or better for a season, including McGrath at .410 last season.

* McGrath hit her 15th home run of the season against Northern Colorado, breaking Delene Colburn's program record of 14 from 2017. It was McGrath's eighth home run in the month of April.

* McGrath has 40 career home runs, five shy of Colburn's record of 45. McGrath missed the back half of the 2020 season that was canceled due to COVID.

* McGrath ranks second in the Big Sky in home runs behind Sacramento State's Lexie Webb, who has 16.

* Montana's 40 home runs this season are a program record, surpassing the 37 hit by last year's team.

* McGrath has the same number of home runs (34) since the start of her sophomore season as she does strikeouts (34).

* Elise Ontiveros ranks fourth in the Big Sky in batting average (.366). She is hitting .419 since becoming the starter in left field on March 11.

* Montana is batting .291 this season, which ranks second in the Big Sky behind Weber State (.306). The Grizzlies (.972) also rank second behind the Wildcats (.973) in fielding percentage.

* Montana ranks fifth in the Big Sky in ERA at 4.66. Weber State (2.93) is sub-3.0, Sacramento State (3.37) and Portland State (3.72) are sub-4.0.

* Dana Butterfield picked up win No. 10 of the season against Northern Colorado. It's just the fifth time in program history a pitcher has won 10 games. Three of those five seasons have been by freshmen.

* Butterfield's complete game against Northern Colorado gave her 11 for the season, the fourth-highest total in program history. The record is the 20 thrown by Tristin Achenbach last season.

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Players Mentioned

Tristin Achenbach

Dana Butterfield

Maygen McGrath

Elise Ontiveros

Cami Sellers

Brooklyn Weisgram

University of Montana Athletics