Montana to host North Dakota in three-game series

The Montana softball team, after a weekend off from games, will host North Dakota this weekend at Grizzly Softball Field in Missoula.

The teams will play a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. on Friday and a single game on Saturday, also at 1 p.m.

(The series was originally scheduled to be Friday-Saturday-Sunday but got moved up because of the weather forecast.)

The series will be the final games for the Grizzlies (10-16) before they open Big Sky Conference play next week at Weber State.

North Dakota is 5-27 and will arrive in Missoula on an 11-game losing streak. The Fighting Hawks open Summit League play next week at league favorite South Dakota State.

UND has played games in Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, California and Nebraska, everywhere but North Dakota. The Fighting Hawks don't play their first home game until April 6.

Coverage: All three games of the series will be streamed on ESPN+ with Ace Sauerwein calling the action.

At a glance (Montana): After opening the season with four straight weekends of road tournaments, the Grizzlies hosted the Montana Softball Classic from March 7-10.

The Grizzlies went 4-2 at their home tournament, going 2-1 against both Holy Cross and Northern Illinois.

Montana batted .351 across its six games to raise its season average to .253 and had an ERA of 4.14. That lowered the team's season ERA to 4.90.

Montana ranks fourth out of six teams in the Big Sky in batting average, sixth in ERA.

Riley Peschek went 11 for 22 at the Montana Softball Classic with six of her hits going for extra bases. She scored a team-high seven runs and drove in seven, second on the team behind Jocelyn Eisen's nine.

Her productive tournament earned Peschek Big Sky Player of the Week honors. She joins Maygen McGrath as the only freshmen in program history to be named Big Sky Player of the Week.

Presley Jantzi also went 11 for 22 at the tournament to up her season average to a team-best .391. She ranks fourth in the Big Sky in batting average.

Montana leads the Big Sky in doubles (47) and ranks second behind Idaho State in extra-base hits. The Bengals have 70, the Grizzlies have 65. Montana had 68 extra-base hits all of last season.

Three times in their four wins at the Montana Softball Classic, the Grizzlies overcame multiple-run deficits. Montana won games in which it trailed 7-5, 6-2 and 3-0.

At a glance (North Dakota): The Fighting Hawks went 12-38 a season ago, nine of those wins coming in Summit League games. UND was picked fifth out of seven teams in this year's preseason poll.

North Dakota has been all over the map playing nonconference games and actually mirrored Montana's schedule through the first two weekends, first at the Mardi Gras Mambo, then at UTEP and New Mexico State on Weekend 2.

The Fighting Hawks defeated Nicholls in Louisiana and won games against UTEP and Purdue-Fort Wayne in El Paso. UND picked up back-to-back wins over Florida International and Seton Hall in Miami, Fla., in early March but hasn't won since, dropping 11 straight games.

North Dakota traveled to Nebraska last week and dropped two games to Northern Colorado in Lincoln and a wild game to the Cornhuskers when the Fighting Hawks couldn't hold leads of 4-0, 7-3 and 10-7.

It was a rare offensive outburst for UND, which ranks 284th out of 296 Division I teams in batting average (.207), 281st in runs (2.34/g).

North Dakota's ERA is 4.60 is actually better than Montana's, but UND's offensive numbers have kept it from winning more than five times through its first 32 games.

Senior infielder Johana Rodriguez is batting .353. No one else on the team is above .250. North Dakota's pitching staff has allowed 77 extra-base hits through 32 games, 47 doubles, 11 triples and 19 home runs.

Series history: Montana has gone 9-7 against North Dakota, the first 13 of those meetings taking place while the teams competed as members of the Big Sky Conference. The last three have been neutral-site games.

Montana won its first seven games against North Dakota, the Fighting Hawks have won seven of the last nine.

Montana has gone 5-1 against North Dakota at Grizzly Softball Field, going 3-0 in a Big Sky series in 2015, 2-1 in a home series in 2017.

The teams' last meeting was a 1-0 Montana victory in Hawaii in 2022. Dana Butterfield threw a three-hit complete game. The Grizzlies' lone run came in the top of the fourth on an RBI single by Julie Phelps that scored Kendall Curtis.

Summary:

After five straight weekends of games, 26 in all, Montana's off weekend could not have been scheduled for a more ideal time.

"I think it was a good break for us," said coach Melanie Meuchel, whose team has not played since falling 3-1 to Northern Illinois on March 10. "An opportunity to gain some health but also get our feet underneath us."

Through its first four weekends, Montana went 2-3, 1-4, 2-3 and 1-4. Playing at home two weekends ago, the Grizzlies went 4-2, scoring 39 runs in six games (6.5/g) while batting .351 and pounding out 24 extra-base hits.

"We ended our last weekend strong. I thought we played well," said Meuchel. "We know what our identity is and want to present our identity every time we're on the field."

Next up will be North Dakota for a series that was originally scheduled to be one game each day, Friday through Sunday. The weather forecast pushed the games up, now two on Friday, one on Saturday.

It's a schedule that mimics what Montana will face once league opens next week at Weber State. "It will be set up like a conference series, with one opponent sitting in front of us," said Meuchel. "It will lead us into that style."

Montana's three active pitchers all made two starts at its home tournament two weekends ago and all won at least one game.

Grace Haegele went 2-1 with a 3.68 ERA, Rylee Rehbein 1-0 with a 3.73 ERA and Emmalyn Brinka 1-1 with a 4.91 ERA.

"All three have been put in every situation and all three have risen to the occasion along the way," said Meuchel. "I feel really comfortable in who they are on the mound and what they are doing."

Montana's pitchers have been the beneficiaries of an offense that put up five or more runs in eight straight games before those bats were quieted by Northern Illinois 3-1 on Sunday, March 10.

It was only the fourth time in program history Montana scored five or more runs in eight or more consecutive games.

"It was great to see us play full-team offense and manufacture runs. No matter what inning it was, someone was there to step up," said Meuchel. "We were able to finish some innings. We have a grittiness to us. There is a competitive desire but also an understanding of what we're trying to do.

"That's what makes us very dangerous, the ability of anybody at any time to be able to step up and come up with the clutch hit, come up and get on for the next person, continuing to pass the bat. We showed that last weekend. I'm excited to put it more into play this weekend."

Montana notes:

* The Grizzlies rank 21st nationally in doubles per game (1.81). Riley Peschek ranks 48th nationally in doubles with nine.

* Presley Jantzi's team-high 10-game hitting streak came to an end against Northern Illinois on Sunday, March 10. During her streak, Jantzi had three three-hit games, two two-hit games.

* Riley Peschek owns the team's longest active hitting streak at nine. She had three multiple-hit games out of six at the Montana Softball Classic.

* Montana's opponents are 51 for 56 on stolen base attempts this season. The Grizzlies are 6 for 9. … Montana's opponents are batting .355 this season.

* Presley Jantzi leads Montana with 10 multiple-hit games. Jocelyn Eisen, Riley Peschek and Riley Stockton lead the team with four multiple-RBI games.

* Presley Jantzi has batted leadoff all 26 games this season. Riley Peschek has started at shortstop all 26 games, the only player to start all 26 at the same defensive position.

* Montana recorded its 10th win of the season on March 9 with a 6-3 victory over Northern Illinois. The Grizzlies had 10 wins all of last season.

* Montana's 12-7 victory over Holy Cross on March 8 was the 200th win in program history.

* Montana is 1-12 when it scores four runs or fewer, 9-4 when it scores five runs or more.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Sacramento State, behind the pitching of senior Marissa Bertuccio, is off to a 19-12 start, which includes victories over Michigan and No. 9 Stanford.

* Bertuccio is 9-5 with a 1.92 ERA. She has thrown 11 complete games.

* Preseason favorite Idaho State is 16-14 without having played a home game this season. Weber State also has not played at home yet. The Bengals raced out to a 10-1 start to the season.

* Portland State is the league's hottest team, with seven straight wins. Three of those came in a series sweep of Seattle, the team picked third in the WAC, two of those in a pair of 1-0 wins over Oregon State in a doubleheader.

* Sacramento State leads the Big Sky in both batting average (.294) and ERA (2.91). Idaho State, at .285 and 3.28, ranks second in both.

Upcoming: Montana will open league play at Weber State next Friday and Saturday in Ogden.

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Players Mentioned

Emmalyn Brinka

Dana Butterfield

Kendall Curtis

Jocelyn Eisen

Grace Haegele

Presley Jantzi

Riley Peschek

Julie Phelps

Rylee Rehbein

Riley Stockton

University of Montana Athletics