Griz open league at Northern Colorado

The Montana softball team will open its five-weekend Big Sky Conference schedule this week with a three-game series at preseason league favorite Northern Colorado.

The Grizzlies (7-24) and Bears (9-21) will play a doubleheader on Friday at UNC's Gloria Rodriguez Field starting at 2 p.m. The series will conclude with a game at noon on Saturday.

Montana will then make the short trek from Greeley to Fort Collins and play Colorado State (12-17) in a single game at 11 a.m. on Sunday at CSU's Ram Field.

Coverage: Montana's games at Northern Colorado will stream on ESPN+. Sunday's game at Colorado State will stream on the Mountain West Network.

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzlies enter the week with a record of 7-24 after going 2-3 on its recently completed five-game home stand.

Montana outscored MSU Billings 12-3 to take a midweek doubleheader, then got swept by Oregon State in a three-game series, losing by scores of 5-3, 3-2 and 6-0.

The Grizzlies will be trying to snap a nine-game losing streak against Division I opponents this week. Montana has scored 17 runs over those nine games, four times getting shut out.

The Grizzlies batted .236 during their five-game home stand but batted only 11 for 73 (.151) in three games against Oregon State.

For the season, Montana is batting .223, which ranks fifth out of six teams in the Big Sky, 286th nationally.

Montana's pitchers have allowed five or fewer runs in 10 of the Grizzlies' last 15 games. A team ERA that was north of eight a month ago is down to 6.47, the lowest it's been since mid-February.

Montana ranks fourth in the Big Sky in ERA, ahead of Northern Colorado and Weber State, its first two league opponents. The Grizzlies rank 271st nationally.

Presley Jantzi (.333) is the only Grizzly batting above .300. She and Madison Tarrant lead the team with 10 extra-base hits.

Brianna Lachermeier leads Montana's pitchers with a 2-5 record and a 5.44 ERA.

Montana storylines:

* Anna Cockhill set a Montana single-season record when she stole her 19th base in 21 attempts in Saturday's 3-2 home loss to Oregon State.

The previous record of 18 was set by Gabby Martinez in the first year of the program, in 2015.

Cockhill is tied for 20th nationally with 19 steals. She ranks 27th nationally in stolen bases per game (0.61), 30th in stolen-base percentage (.905).

Cockhill, a freshman, is already nearly halfway to Martinez's career record of 39. She has already stolen more bases than any player in program history outside of Martinez (39) and Makenna McGill (36).

* Montana is trying to reverse some recent history as league play opens. The Grizzlies finished sixth out of six teams in the Big Sky the last two seasons, going 5-25.

Counting the Big Sky tournament, Montana is 5-31 in its last 36 games against league opponents.

The Grizzlies have lost their last 14 league series, their last series win coming in 2022, and 16 of their last 17.

At a glance (Northern Colorado): The Bears have quickly become one of the Big Sky's top programs under third-year coach Dedeann Pendleton-Helm.

UNC finished third in the Big Sky in 2023 in her first season, one game out of first, then won the league tournament in Ogden, Utah, to advance to the NCAA tournament.

Last season, the Bears won the regular-season title and repeated as tournament champions to advance to their second straight NCAA tournament.

Not surprisingly, Northern Colorado topped this year's preseason poll.

The Bears go into league with a 9-21 record but faced at least one ranked opponent in three of its first five non-conference tournaments and played another tournament at North Carolina State.

After going 3-0 at the Colorado Classic in Fort Collins in early March, UNC went 0-5 at Nebraska's tournament, then went 0-4 on a trip to Loyola Marymount and Long Beach State.

Two home losses last week to Santa Clara extended UNC's losing streak to 11 before the Bears bounced back with a doubleheader sweep on Sunday against Santa Clara.

Northern Colorado is batting a healthy .287, second in the Big Sky behind Sacramento State, but has an ERA of 6.76, fifth in the league.

UNC has four players back who were first- or second-team All-Big Sky last season, including first baseman Amailee Morales, who was last year's co-Player of the Year.

Catcher Sabrina Javorsky, outfielder Nya Chacon and utility player Ella Gonzales all were second-team selections last season.

Those four players have combined to hit 19 home runs this season. Montana enters this week's series with eight as a team.

The team's leading hitter, junior Katie Walling (.369), is in her first season after transferring from Seattle.

Northern Colorado lost Erin Caviness, last year's Big Sky Pitcher of the Year, to graduation.

Senior Isabelle DiNapoli has 29 career wins and leads the team this season with a 6-7 record and 5.83 ERA.

Series history: Montana is 14-17 all-time against Northern Colorado. The Bears have won five straight against the Grizzlies and eight of the teams' last nine match-ups.

Montana is 5-7 against Northern Colorado in Greeley.

In last season's series in Missoula, the Bears put up 29 runs and won all three games by four or more runs.

At a glance (Colorado State): The Rams are 12-17 and are already two weekends into their Mountain West Conference schedule.

Colorado State went 2-1 at home against UNLV, including a 20-19 loss to the Rebels, and 1-2 last weekend at San Jose State.

The Rams host Utah State in a three-game series this week before facing Montana on Sunday morning.

Colorado State went 27-20 in 2023, 26-21 a year ago and was picked sixth in this year's Mountain West preseason poll.

The Rams have a team batting average of .274, an ERA of 5.86.

Brooke Bohlender is batting a team-best .379. Reagan Wick is 7-7 with an ERA of 3.06. CSU's other three pitchers who have thrown more than seven innings all have ERAs higher than eight.

Series history: Montana is 1-3 all-time against Colorado State, all four match-ups coming at neutral sites.

The teams played in Las Cruces, N.M., in 2015, in Tucson, Ariz., in 2018 and twice in Melissa, Texas, in 2022.

Montana's lone win in the series was a 7-1 victory at the Tracy Beard College Classic in Texas in 2022, with Dana Butterfield throwing a complete-game four-hitter.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Only one Big Sky team – Idaho State at 19-12 – came through the non-league part of the season with a record above .500. The Bengals were picked second in the preseason poll behind Northern Colorado.

* Portland State picked up one first-place vote in the preseason poll but is 5-26 and in last place going into league.

* The high-profile series this weekend is Idaho State at Sacramento State. The Hornets were humming along a few weeks ago but have dropped seven of their last eight.

Sacramento State ranks first in the Big Sky in hitting (.313), second in ERA (4.67). Idaho State ranks first in ERA (3.96), third in batting (.285).

* The league's other series this week has Portland State playing at Weber State. The Vikings rank last in the Big Sky in hitting (.222), the Wildcats rank last in ERA (7.46).

Upcoming: Montana will host Weber State in a three-game series at Grizzly Softball Field with a doubleheader on Friday, April 4, a single game on Saturday, April 5.

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Players Mentioned

Anna Cockhill

Presley Jantzi

Brianna Lachermeier

Madison Tarrant

University of Montana Athletics