Griz finish weekend with four wins

Saturday, October 4

Missoula, Mont.

10 AM

Montana

MSU Billings

Photo by: Marley Barboeisel/University of

10/5/2025 7:17:00 PM | Softball

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By: Montana Sports Information

The only real stress the Grizzly softball team faced over the weekend at the Montana Fall Classic came on Sunday afternoon, after MSU Billings turned three hits and two Montana errors in the fourth inning into a 5-4 lead.

The Grizzlies never trailed in winning their first three games by a combined score of 33-4 but now faced their first deficit in their fourth and final game of the weekend.

Rather than wilting, Montana punched back in a big way. Anna Cockhill led off with a solo home run to tie it and after a hit batter, Mackenzie Bekofsky hit a two-run home run, her second of the weekend. One inning later, freshman Layla Gugino hit another home run as the Grizzlies rolled to a 13-5 win.

"I think it shows maturity and maturity from a group that is young," said second-year coach Stef Ewing, whose team scored 46 runs on .392 hitting at the Fall Classic. "They believe that as long as we have at-bats, we're going to score. It was an incredible response."

Montana went 4-0 at its home tournament, opening with wins over MSU Billings and Carroll on Saturday by scores of 9-3 and 6-0. The Grizzlies opened Sunday morning with an 18-1 victory over Dawson Community College.

Twenty-one of Montana's 49 hits went for extra-bases, with 11 doubles, four triples and six home runs coming off the bats of five different players. Madison Tarrant and freshman Kaci Kiblen also hit home runs in addition to Cockhill, Bekofsky and Gugino.

Four pitchers split 27 innings, with Kaiana Kong, Audri Elias, Brooklynn Braun and Carah Sweet combining for a 1.67 ERA while holding Montana's opponents to a .208 batting average.

All four are first-year pitchers, with Kong, a junior, and Sweet, a sophomore, transferring into the program. Elias and Braun are freshmen. The staff allowed only five extra-base hits, while walking 12 and striking out 30.

"Our pitchers did a great job. They got ahead, they threw strikes. We were not on the field very long because they did what they needed to do," said Ewing.

"We're sitting here four deep with four healthy pitchers. Cam (Ortega) is on her way back and Ny (Herndon) is still working her way back. We've got four kids we can put out there and they can get people out."

It's the offensive side that's going to give Ewing problems, simply because she has more players who can hit and hit it well than she has spots on her roster card.

Nine players hit .500 or better on the weekend, six of them freshmen.

Kiblen went 5 for 7, hitting a home run in her debut plate appearance as a Grizzly, leading off the bottom of the sixth on Saturday afternoon against Carroll. Thanks to the free substation rule and her speed, Kiblen scored 10 of Montana's 46 runs.

Freshman Brianna Gutierrez went 7 for 14, JoJo Christiaens went 5 for 9 with a team-high six RBIs. Tarrant drove in five, as did freshman Mya Ward, all five coming on two-run and three-run doubles in Sunday's opener.

Montana went 10 for 11 in stolen-base chances.

"Offensively, how do you make a lineup right now?" asked Ewing. "We've got 1 through 18 hitting up and down the lineup. We've got a ton of depth.

"We had a lot of kids have really good performances. It's great to see. We knew we recruited some good players. They are just doing their thing."

Montana had only four errors over four games but two of them came in the fourth inning against MSU Billings on Sunday, putting the Grizzlies in a hole, a place not many Montana teams of recent vintage would have fought their way out of.

Cockhill, the very next batter after the Yellowjackets had taken the lead, hit a no-doubter over the fence in left. Two batters later, Bekofsky went the opposite way, hitting one way out in right-center.

"This team follows Anna. She is a leader. For her to come up in that moment and be like, that's not how this is going to go, everybody was right back on the train," said Ewing.

"We had some returners say after the game, in the last two years, that's never happened. This team believes they are going to win every game and that as long as there are still outs left, we're still in the ball game."

Montana will face tougher competition in two weeks when the Grizzlies play at Utah State and Utah Valley. The Grizzlies' fall schedule will conclude on Saturday, Oct. 25, with a doubleheader against North Idaho.