Griz head back to Southern California

The Montana softball team, already with three weekend tournaments completed, will return to Southern California for the second straight week and play five games over three days at the CSUN Champions Classic in Northridge.

The Grizzlies (3-12) will play the host Matadors (4-11) twice, both of those games streaming on ESPN+, and get three games against Fairleigh Dickinson (2-6).

Montana will play at Idaho State's Black and Orange Classic in Pocatello the following week, then get a three-game series at San Diego before finally getting the opportunity to play at Grizzly Softball Field.

Montana will make its home debut against MSU Billings in a Wednesday doubleheader on March 19, then host Oregon State in a three-game series March 21-23.

That five-game home stand will lead into the start of league play, with the Grizzlies opening at Big Sky Conference preseason favorite Northern Colorado the final weekend of March.

Schedule:

Friday, 10 a.m. (MT) – at CSU Northridge (ESPN+)
Friday, 2 p.m. (MT) – vs. Fairleigh Dickinson
Saturday, 10 a.m. (MT) – at CSU Northridge (ESPN+)
Sunday, 10 a.m. (MT) – vs. Fairleigh Dickinson
Sunday, noon (MT) – vs. Fairleigh Dickinson

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzlies have played three weekends of tournaments and have had one win at each, with victories over Colgate, Manhattan and CSU Bakersfield.

Last week, Montana played four games over two days at CSUB's Kathy Welter Classic, coming away with a 1-3 record in four mostly tight games.

On Friday, the Grizzlies opened with a 5-3 loss to Pacific, a game Montana led going into the bottom of the fifth. They followed that up with their most complete performance of the season, snapping CSUB's six-game winning streak with a 6-3 win over the host Roadrunners.

Montana's pitchers gave the Grizzlies a chance on Saturday, but Montana went just 3 for 36 at the plate across two games.

Montana's game against Pacific was tied going into the fourth before the Tigers scored two in the fourth, seven in the fifth to win 9-0.

Against CSU Bakersfield, the Grizzlies held the Roadrunners without a hit through the first three innings and trailed 3-0 after five innings. CSUB scored five in the bottom of the sixth to hand Montana its eighth run-rule loss of the season.

The Grizzlies batted just .176 across four games at the Kathy Welter Classic, with Presley Jantzi and Anna Cockhill combining for eight of Montana's 16 hits and seven of the team's nine RBIs.

Montana's staff had a four-game ERA of 5.70, which lowered the Grizzlies' season ERA from 9.37 before the tournament to 8.33.

At a glance (CSU Northridge): The Matadors will go into the Champions Classic with a 4-11 record, a 1-5 mark at home.

CSUN went 1-3 at San Diego State's tournament to open the season, 1-4 at its Matador Classic two weeks ago, then went 2-3 last week at the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic in Cathedral City, Calif., picking up wins over BYU and San Jose State.

The Matadors picked up a Monday home game this week, falling to Washington as former Grizzly Rylee Rehbein threw a five-inning one-hitter as the Huskies won 11-0, giving Rehbein her first win with her new team.

CSUN went 25-26 last season and finished ninth out of 10 teams in the Big West, going 9-18 in league. The Matadors were picked for a seventh-place finish this season.

Through 15 games, CSUN is batting .247 with 20 extra-base hits. Opponents are batting .324 against the Matadors with 43 extra-base hits. The team has an ERA of 5.41.

In common opponents with Montana this season, CSUN lost three times to Pacific, 4-2, 10-3 and 12-10 in eight innings. Against future Griz opponent Oregon State, the Matadors lost 1-0 on an RBI double in the bottom of the seventh.

Charlotte Morgan is in her fifth year as head coach at CSUN.

Series history: Montana has never faced CSUN or played a game at Matador Diamond.

At a glance (Fairleigh Dickinson): The Knights, whose campus is in Teaneck, N.J., will head to California with a record of 2-6.

FDU opened the season at the Frank Griffin Classic in DeLand, Fla., going 0-5 and getting outscored 27-2.

Fairleigh Dickinson played a three-game series at Morgan State in Baltimore over the weekend and went 2-1, winning 1-0 and 6-1 before losing the finale 4-1.

Through eight games, the Knights are batting .213 with 10 runs scored and 11 extra-base hits. They have a competitive ERA of 3.62, with opponents batting .297.

FDU went 22-27 a year ago and finished sixth in the Northeast Conference at 11-13. The Knights had a season-ending RPI of 232.

They were picked fourth in this year's poll behind Central Connecticut, Long Island University and Saint Francis.

Series history: Montana and Fairleigh Dickinson will be playing for the first time this weekend.

Montana notes:

* Anna Cockhill has stolen six bases in seven attempts. That's already more stolen bases than the Montana leader had in each of the past three seasons.

Gabby Martinez stole a program-record 18 bases in 2015, MaKenna McGill had 14 and Martinez 13 in 2016. No other Grizzly in program history has reached 10 stolen bases in a season.

* Montana used its four available pitchers last week at the Kathy Welter Classic, each throwing in at least two of the team's four games, with Cameryn Ortega eating up 12 of the 23 1/3 innings.

Six unearned runs resulting from five Montana errors over the four games had the Grizzlies post a road-trip ERA of 5.70. Montana left for the tournament with an ERA of 9.37, returned with an ERA of 8.33.

The Grizzlies still rank last in the Big Sky in that category and 285th nationally out of 300 teams.

* Presley Jantzi is batting .413 through 15 games. She flirted with a .400 batting average last season before finishing at .393. She has hit safely in 11 of 15 games this season.

A Montana player has batted .400 or better only four times in program history: Bethany Olea in 2016 (.408) and 2017 (.416), Maygen McGrath in 2021 (.410) and Lexie Brenneis in 2015 (.400).

* Jantzi leads Montana with six multi-hit games this season. Hannah Jablonski and Anna Cockhill both have four multi-RBI games to lead the team.

* Jantzi opened the season with a hit in each of Montana's first six games. That's Montana's longest hitting streak of the season. She has just one strikeout this season in 46 at-bats.

* Cockhill has the team's longest reached-base streak of the season at eight.

* Starting every game in the same position this season: Hannah Jablonski at first base, Anna Cockhill at shortstop and Presley Jantzi in right field.

* Cockhill has batted leadoff every game this season, Jantzi has batted No. 2 in the order every game.

* Jantzi is tied for the Big Sky lead with 19 hits. … Cockhill leads the Big Sky in hit-by-pitch (5) and is tied for second in walks (8). Her on-base percentage (.510) ranks fourth.

* JoJo Christiaens, Grace Lopez and Sveva Sweeney, all freshmen, have combined to strike out just three times in 85 at-bats.

* Freshman pitcher Cameryn Ortega has walked a mere six batters in 24 2/3 innings of work. She leads the team in both ERA (6.81) and strikeouts (11).

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Idaho State (10-3) and Sacramento State (8-5) are playing better-than-.500 softball through three weekends of play.

* Not surprisingly, the Bengals lead the Big Sky in batting average (.335) and rank second in ERA (3.86). The Hornets rank second in batting average (.303) and have the Big Sky's best ERA (3.50).

Those two teams also rank first (Idaho State, .972) and second (Sacramento State, .954) in fielding percentage.

* Big Sky preseason favorite Northern Colorado is 4-10. Weber State, like Montana under a first-year coach, is 4-11.

* Montana and Portland State are both 3-12. The Vikings, who have a team batting average of .199, take an eight-game losing streak to Oregon's tournament this weekend.

Upcoming: Montana will face Washington (9-7) twice and Boise State (12-3) once in Pocatello at the Black and Orange Classic.

The Broncos are among the teams outside the top 25 but receiving votes in this week's NFCA coaches' poll.

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Players Mentioned

JoJo Christiaens

Anna Cockhill

Hannah Jablonski

Presley Jantzi

Grace Lopez

Cameryn Ortega

Rylee Rehbein

Sveva Sweeney

University of Montana Athletics