Griz sweep Yellowjackets in home openers

Wednesday, March 19

Missoula, Mont.

Noon

Montana

6-21

MSU Billings (DH)

8-15

MSU Billings

Montana

Photo by: Ella Palulis/University of Montana

3/19/2025 6:25:00 PM | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2 Photo Gallery Photo Gallery 2

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana softball team celebrated its first home games of the season on Wednesday with a doubleheader sweep of MSU Billings at Grizzly Softball Field in Missoula.

Madison Tarrant's two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the fifth in Game 1 capped a 3-2 comeback win, after the Yellowjackets had jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

Game 2 belonged to Grace Haegele. The junior allowed two hits over five innings while striking out a career-high seven batters, then hit the walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the fifth to send the Grizzlies to a 9-1 win, the 15th grand slam in program history.

Haegele, an accomplished hitter at Redmond High in Washington, never got the chance to hit in her first two years as a Grizzly. One of her first questions when she met new Griz coach Stef Ewing over the summer was, do you let your pitchers hit?

"If you can hit, I'll let you hit," said Ewing at the time. Haegele didn't get a chance to hit or pitch through the first month of the season as she dealt with an injury.

She made her pitching debut 10 days ago, then had a single three days ago in her first collegiate at-bat against San Diego.

"We've been focusing on her pitching rehab. It wasn't until last week that she started swinging the bat in practice. On Sunday in pregame, she was just crushing the ball. Okay, you're hitting. She's doing a great job of managing both and being the best version of herself."

After Haegele worked a 1-2-3 top of the first inning in Game 2, her teammates gave her some immediate support.

Anna Cockhill led off with a single through the right side, stole second, then scored when Sveva Sweeney homered to right on a 2-0 pitch, her first collegiate home run.

Later in the inning, Hannah Jablonski, who went 5 for 6 on Wednesday, hit a two-out double to right. She scored on a triple to right by Tarrant, who has gone 4 for 8 with five runs batted over the last three games.

Haegele took a 3-0 lead to the circle in the top of the second and continued to cruise, facing just 17 batters over five innings, allowing a second-inning single and a solo home run in the fourth.

"Right when I got back (from my injury), I was trying to do too much. I was throwing super hard and kind of overdoing it," said Haegele, who needed 73 pitches to throw her eighth career complete game.

"The past outing or two, I've been trying to spin the ball and not do too much. Being able to hit is super helpful to me. That way I'm not too focused on just pitching. I can get my mind off it."

The lopsided win took time to develop. MSU Billings held Montana scoreless over the next three innings, the Grizzlies going down by infield pop-up or outfield fly out six times in eight batters over one stretch.

"Our swings got a little big in the middle of the game," said Ewing, whose team only led 3-1 going into the bottom of the fifth.

Anna Cockhill, as she tends to do, started all the good things that came Montana's way in the bottom of the fifth, leading off and reaching base, then stealing second, her third stolen base of the day and her 18th of the season, tying Gabby Martinez's program record from 2015.

Then it was an avalanche to the walk-off. Sweeney doubled to left-center, Chole Saxton had an infield single, Jablonski doubled to right-center and then Tarrant walked on four pitches, bringing Haegele to the plate with her team leading 5-1.

"When I was on deck and saw Maddie get a couple balls on her, I thought, shoot, I might come up with the bases loaded," said Haegele, who turned and told Griz pitching coach Megan Casper that she just might hit a home run, which she did, just left of straightaway center on a 1-1 pitch.

"I'd like to think I called it. It goes to show you can speak things into existence. I just got up there and said, I'm going to swing as hard as I can," said Haegele.

Montana went 8 for 22 (.365) in Game 2. "After we put some runs up in Game 1, we went into Game 2 and just swung the bats with confidence," added Ewing.

The opener didn't have near the celebratory vibes, at least not through the early innings, not after MSU Billings put up a pair of runs on three hits in the top of the first.

With one out, Ewing didn't wait around. She brought in Cameryn Ortega in relief and the freshman was outstanding, throwing the final 6 2/3 innings, allowing three hits, striking out a season-high five batters and picking up her second win.

"Being a reliever, you have to be ready no matter what," said Ortega, who has made 15 appearances this season, more than half of them in relief. "It can happen at any time, so my mindset going in there was just, be yourself, you can do this, just do your thing."

Her pitching gave Montana a chance to slowly come back.

The Grizzlies pulled within 2-1 in the bottom of the first. Sweeney doubled to left-center, advanced to third on a ground out, then scored on an infield single by Presley Jantzi.

Montana had hits in the first, second, third and fourth innings but had to wait until the fifth to finally go ahead.

Jantzi doubled to right-center with two outs in the fifth, Jablonski singled to shortstop, putting runners at the corners for the hot bat of Tarrant, who doubled to the gap in left-center to give Montana its first lead of the day.

Montana scored only three runs in the opener but pounded out 10 hits, the most for the Grizzlies in more than a month.

"We had a lot of quality at-bats in Game 1," said Ewing. "You saw people going up there confident, no heavy weight on their shoulders like we did at times during the USD series. We'd have runners on base and we'd be really tense.

"Today we had quality at-bats. Even when we were making outs with runners in scoring position, they were good outs, good at-bats. I told the girls, we're right there. We just have to keep doing what we're doing and we're going to punch a couple across. They did a good job of staying with it."

Ortega allowed one hit to the final 17 batters she faced.

"Cam came in and did a great job of shutting it down and being steady for us," said Ewing. "We knew we'd be able to swing the bats and support her."

Jantzi and Jablonski, hitting in the four and five spots in the lineup, both went 3 for 3 in Game 1. Jantzi had had just two hits over her last eight games played, Jablonski three hits in her last 11 games played.

Jablonski added a pair of doubles in Game 2, Montana finishing the doubleheader with nine extra-base hits, six doubles, a triple and two home runs.

Haegele, Tarrant and Sweeney had 10 of Montana's 12 RBIs on the afternoon, with Jablonski and Sweeney both scoring three runs.

The doubleheader sweep snapped Montana's six-game losing streak and comes two days before the Grizzlies open a three-game series against Oregon State (11-13) on Friday afternoon.

"Softball is a game of momentum, whether it's pitch to pitch or inning to inning or game to game," said Haegele. "This is great momentum going into a weekend against a higher-level opponent. We showed ourselves today we can bust a game open with our bats and can make stellar plays, too."

The Grizzlies and Beavers are scheduled to play at 3 p.m. on Friday, 1 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. on Sunday.