Griz drop two games at Troy Cox Classic

Saturday, February 17

Las Cruces, N.M.

9:30 AM

Montana

3-5

Nebraska

4-3

Nebraska

Montana

Photo: UTEP Athletics

2/17/2024 7:57:00 PM | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana softball team dropped two games at the Troy Cox Classic in Las Cruces, N.M., on Saturday, falling to Nebraska and to host New Mexico State.

The Grizzlies (3-6) got out to a 4-1 lead on the Cornhuskers in the first inning and held that advantage until the fourth, when Nebraska put up 13 runs on its way to a 15-4 victory.

Montana fell behind the host Aggies 7-0 after two innings and fought back to tie the game at 7-7, scoring one run in the third, one in the fourth and five in the sixth.

With a runner placed on second base to begin the eighth inning, Montana came up empty. New Mexico State won it 8-7 on a lead-off single up the middle in the bottom half of the inning.

Montana will play Purdue-Fort Wayne, a team the Grizzlies defeated 5-1 on Friday, at 9 a.m. on Sunday, back at the UTEP Invitational in El Paso, Texas.

Facing the Huskers for the second time in program history, Montana jumped on a pair of Nebraska errors to lead off the bottom of the first.

Riley Stockton followed with a two-run single, and Jessica Stanfield and Grace Hardy had RBI singles to make it 4-1 as Montana set itself up to record its fourth Power 5 win in program history.

The Cornhuskers put the game out of reach in the top of the fourth, scoring 13 runs on 10 hits, three walks and one Montana error. It was the highest-scoring inning for an opponent in program history.

Seven of Nebraska's 13 runs were unearned after an error early in the inning.

Grace Haegele got the start, with Haegele, Emmalyn Brinka and Rylee Rehbein all pitching in the 13-run fourth inning.

It was Montana's first run-rule loss of the season, ending after five innings.

Jocelyn Eisen had two hits for the Grizzlies.

New Mexico State jumped on Rehbein, who was making her first collegiate start, for five runs in the bottom of the first.

Haegele came on in relief and gave up the Aggies' sixth run of the first and New Mexico State's second home run in four at-bats in the bottom of the second to make it 7-0.

Haegele would allow only five more hits through the end of the seventh, holding the Aggies at seven runs.

Montana got on the board in the third on an RBI single by Elise Ontiveros and made it 7-2 in the fourth when Kynzie Mohl led off the inning with pinch-hit double and later scored on an error.

Montana rallied to tie it in the sixth, with four runs coming with two outs, on a Madison Tarrant RBI single, a Presley Jantzi two-run triple and an RBI double by Ontiveros.

Both teams went down in order in the seventh.

With a runner placed at second for the Grizzlies in the top of the eighth, Montana had a fly out, a ground out and a fly out before New Mexico State won it with a walk-off single.

It would have been the third-largest deficit ever overcome in a victory in program history had Montana been able to pull it out.

Jantzi went 4 for 4, the first four-hit game of her career. Ontiveros and Mohl both had two-hit games as Montana collected a season-high 12 hits.