Spring softball schedule finalized

The Montana softball team's 2023 schedule was finalized recently. It includes five early-season tournaments, five Big Sky Conference series and a highlight game at Oregon.

The Grizzlies will hit the road early and often, as will always be the case, playing five-game tournaments at Riverside, Calif.; Las Vegas; Phoenix; San Diego and Seattle.

"As you're making your schedule, it's about trying to find quality opponents, trying to find places where travel can, to an extent, be easy and affordable while also giving our players the ability to compete against good teams," said sixth-year head coach Melanie Meuchel.

Senior center fielder Julie Phelps is from Riverside, freshmen Breiana Bonkavich and Makena Strong are the latest Grizzlies from Las Vegas, and Montana has five players from western Washington.

"We also try to get in some of our players' backyards and get to the areas where we recruit," said Meuchel.

The season-opening Lynn Russell Miller Classic at Riverside will feature UC Riverside, Fresno State and Middle Tennessee, a program Montana has never faced.

At the next weekend's UNLV Desert Classic, Montana will get a pair of games against Hawaii and the first of three against the host Rebels, who went 43-15 last year and won four games at the National Invitational Softball Championship.

Montana also will face UNLV twice in Seattle three weeks later.

Grand Canyon's Purple Classic, the team's third of five tournaments, will be the fourth consecutive season Montana has played in Phoenix.

It will be a stacked field of opponents. South Dakota and Utah State both won 28 games last season. The host Lopes, who played 37 home games last season, went 39-16 in 2022. They won the WAC and advanced to their first NCAA tournament.

"Grand Canyon has always been a player favorite but also a fan favorite," said Meuchel. "We get quite a few fans. Sometimes you wonder who the home team is.

"There are a lot of snowbirds, a lot of Griz alum. It's awesome when they come to our games and stay afterwards and introduce themselves. It's a cool environment, so it's a tournament we enjoy going to."

The first weekend of March, Montana will head to San Diego for the first time since the program's first season in 2015. The Grizzlies will get games against Boston University, San Diego, Long Beach State and host San Diego State.

Boston University won 40 games last season and claimed the Patriot League regular-season championship. Long Beach won 29 games and finished second in the Big West.

San Diego State went 39-16, won the Mountain West at 20-4 and won two games at the Tempe Regional in the NCAA tournament.

The tournament schedule will conclude with a trip to Seattle, where Montana will twice face UNLV and three times play the host Redhawks, who won 32 games last season and finished second in the WAC behind Grand Canyon.

Montana will have the next two weekends off but will get weekday doubleheaders against Carroll, on Monday, March 20, and Providence, on Tuesday, March 28, to keep sharp prior to the start of league.

The two games against the Saints will be Montana's home openers.

The Grizzlies have typically taken a weekend off in March after five straight weeks of travel. This season's second open weekend is the result of Southern Utah departing the Big Sky, leaving the league at six teams, and a lack of available nonconference opponents at that point of the season.

"Unfortunately, we lost a team out of the conference, so it makes our conference schedule a little lighter in the amount of games we play," said Meuchel. "We'll get our games against Carroll and Providence and take advantage of playing at Grizzly Softball Field in front of our amazing fans.

"We're on the road for five weeks, so it will be kind of a midseason break. It's a grind on our student-athletes. It will allow us to get our feet back underneath us, then really finish out strong hitting the Big Sky Conference."

With only five Big Sky opponents, Montana is on the short end of the schedule this season, playing three series on the road and only two at home.

The Grizzlies will get Sacramento State in Missoula on April 7-8 and league heavyweight Weber State on the final weekend of the regular season, April 28-29.

The team will play three-game series at Portland State (April 1-2), Northern Colorado (April 14-15) and Idaho State (April 21-22).

The league-opening series at Portland State will be followed with a single game at Oregon on Monday, April 3. The Ducks advanced to the NCAA tournament last season and had a pair of postseason wins at the Fayetteville Regional. They play their home games at seven-year-old Jane Sanders Stadium.

Southern Utah finished last in the Big Sky last season, meaning the six teams that qualified for the conference tournament are the six teams that remain in 2023.

"It's going to be a dogfight. The growth over the last five years in our conference has been fun to watch," said Meuchel.

"You're going to have to be present, you're going to have to be ready. You're not going to be able to take a game, an inning, for granted. It will take a lot of focus, a lot of drive, a lot of grit."

The four-day Big Sky tournament will open on Wednesday, May 10, in Ogden, Utah.

University of Montana Athletics

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Breiana Bonkavich

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