Huskies quiet Griz offense

Sunday, March 10

Missoula, Mont.

11 AM

Montana

Northern Illinois

Photo by: Coral Scoles-Coburn/University of Montana

3/10/2024 3:19:00 PM | Softball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

Northern Illinois limited Montana to four hits and one run as the Huskies closed out the Montana Softball Classic with a 3-1 victory over the host team on Sunday at Grizzly Softball Field in Missoula.

Montana (10-16) dropped a tight game in its tournament opener on Thursday, 6-5 in eight innings against Holy Cross, and lost another close game on Sunday.

In between, the Grizzlies won four straight games while putting up 33 runs on 47 hits.

On Sunday, NIU starter Madison Carlson and Lily Cassell in relief held Montana to a single run, Jocelyn Eisen's solo home run in the bottom of the third.

Eisen's second home run of the season tied the game at 1-1 before the Huskies added one run in the fifth, another in the sixth.

"It was a pretty clean game on both sides. Hard fought, well played, just happy where we are as a team currently and how we're playing," said coach Melanie Meuchel.

Northern Illinois opened the scoring in the top of the second, putting up an unearned run on Griz starter Grace Haegele, after an outfield misplay allowed the game's first run to score from third.

Montana had a number of hard-hit balls that led to outs, the first coming in the bottom of the second.

Chloë Saxton hit a two-out double to right-center. Montana's next batter, Breiana Bonkavich, ripped a line drive to center that was snagged off the green turf by a diving Ellis Erickson.

In the bottom of the fourth, with the score tied 1-1, Saxton hit a deep fly to left that NIU's Katy Ramage caught high up on the fence while crashing into the chain links.

"We squared some balls up that they were able to make plays on. It felt like they made one more play in those situations," said Meuchel.

Northern Illinois went up 2-1 in the top of the fifth on an RBI double, 3-1 in the top of the sixth on an RBI single. The Huskies had nine hits in the game.

Montana went hitless over the final three innings.

"I think they got us outside of ourselves just a little bit, just enough to keep us a little bit off balance where we weren't able to piggyback some things together," said Meuchel.

Haegele (4-5) took the loss, allowing nine hits over 5 2/3 innings. Rylee Rehbein threw 1 1/3 innings of hitless relief.

Presley Jantzi went 0-2 with a walk to see her 10-game hitting streak come to an end. Riley Peschek went 1 for 2 to up her hitting streak to nine games.

After playing 26 times over the first five weeks of the season, Montana will have a week off from competition before hosting North Dakota for a three-game series from March 22-24.

"This week comes at a great time for us," said Meuchel. "We're playing well, we're confident and we've played hard to this point, but we've been on the road, then had a long week in Missoula.

"It will give us an opportunity to heal up a little bit, rest up, catch a little breather and really get after academics the next week."

After hosting North Dakota, Montana will open its Big Sky Conference schedule with a three-game series at Weber State the last weekend of March.