Griz continue league schedule at Portland State

The Montana softball team has reached the midpoint of its Big Sky Conference schedule.

The Grizzlies will travel to Oregon this week for a three-game series against Portland State, then play a single game at Oregon State on Monday.

Montana (7-31, 0-6 BSC) and Portland State (9-32, 2-4 BSC) will play at doubleheader on Saturday starting at 2 p.m. (MT) at Hillsboro Stadium, then play a single game at 2 p.m. (MT) on Sunday.

The Grizzlies and Beavers (16-16) will play on Monday at noon (MT) at Kelly Field in Corvallis.

Montana and Oregon State played a three-game series in Missoula last month, with the Beavers sweeping their way to 5-3, 3-2 and 6-0 victories.

Portland State played a doubleheader at Oregon State on Wednesday evening, falling 11-1 in five innings and 9-2.

Montana has played Big Sky series against Northern Colorado and Weber State. After facing the Vikings this weekend, the Grizzlies will play at Idaho State and end the regular season hosting Sacramento State.

Coverage: All four games of Montana's upcoming road trip will be streamed on ESPN+.

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzlies will go into this week's road trip on a 10-game losing streak and seeking their first Division I win since March 2.

Montana hosted Weber State at Grizzly Softball Field in Missoula last week and dropped all three games, the Grizzlies' 16th consecutive Big Sky series loss dating back to the 2022 season.

In Game 1 of Friday's doubleheader against the Wildcats, the game was scoreless after three innings before Weber State scored five in the fourth and six in the fifth to win 11-2 in five innings.

In Game 2 on Friday, Montana led 2-1 after three innings before Weber State pulled away with runs in each of the last four innings to win 6-2.

In Saturday's finale, the Grizzlies took a 3-1 lead to the top of the seventh. A three-run home run by the Wildcats in the seventh gave Weber State a dramatic 4-3 win.

Montana couldn't keep up offensively in the series, with the Wildcats batting .369 with 12 extra-base hits, including seven home runs. Weber State had 57 total bases in the series to Montana's 30.

The Grizzlies used all five of their available pitchers in the series and came away with a three-game ERA of 7.00.

In Saturday's finale, Mackenzie Bekofsky hit her first collegiate home run, Kynzie Mohl hit her first of the season, the seventh of her career.

It marked only the second time this season the Grizzlies have hit multiple home runs against a Division I opponent. The other? Nebraska.

Through 38 games, Montana is batting .221, which ranks last in the Big Sky and 292nd nationally out of 300 teams. The Grizzlies rank 286th in runs scored (2.82/g).

Montana's ERA of 6.71 ranks fifth in the Big Sky, ahead of Northern Colorado's 6.76. It ranks 281st nationally.

Montana notes:

* Freshman Anna Cockhill stole her 21st base of the season against Weber State, adding to her single-season program record.

Cockhill leads the Big Sky in stolen bases and ranks 29th nationally. She ranks 40th in steals per game (0.55) and 44th in stolen base percentage (.875).

* Cockhill had a hit in all three games against Weber State and takes a five-game hitting streak into this week's road trip. She is one off Montana's high for the season, Presley Jantzi's streak of six.

* Chloe Saxton had a hit in all three games against Weber State as well and has the team's second-longest active hitting streak of three. She has hit safely in six of her last nine starts.

* After striking out 24 times in three games against Oregon State, Montana has seen its strikeout numbers plummet.

The Grizzlies have struck out just 16 times the last seven games, only five times in last week's three-game series against Weber State.

* Montana had four extra-base hits in Saturday's 4-3 loss to Weber State, two doubles and home runs by Mackenzie Bekofsky and Kynzie Mohl.

It marked just the fourth time this season that Montana has had four or more extra-base hits against a Division I opponent.

* Grace Hardy hadn't pitched since Feb. 28 when she was called upon in Game 1 against Weber State. She pitched two innings of Game 3 as well and finished the series with a team-best 2.62 ERA.

She allowed four hits and one run over 2 2/3 innings.

* All five Montana pitchers who threw against Weber State gave up at least one home run to the Wildcats, who had 30 home runs through 38 games before hitting seven in three against Montana.

* Cameryn Ortega's lone appearance against Weber State was as the Game 2 starter. She struck out four batters in two innings before an injury forced her off the field.

* Presley Jantzi (.330) is Montana's only batter hitting better than .272. … Jantzi and Hannah Jablonski share the team lead with 11 extra-base hits. Madison Tarrant has 10.

* Montana is 1-14 in true road games this season, its lone win coming at CSU Bakersfield 6-3 back on Feb. 21.

* Junior Makena Strong has four career multiple-hit games. Three of those have come since March 19. She had a two-hit game against Northern Colorado, another against Weber State.

* Monday will be a homecoming for first-year Montana coach Stef Ewing, who played at Oregon State from 2006-09.

The Oregon State team from 2006, when Ewing was a freshman, was the first from OSU to make the Women's College World Series. That team was inducted into the OSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.

* Presley Jantzi ranks in the top 10 in program history in 14 career offensive statistical categories, Hannah Jablonski in four. (See the full lists on pages 5-6 of the notes package.)

At a glance (Portland State): The Vikings were picked third in the Big Sky preseason coaches' poll, collecting a first-place vote, but went just 5-26 through its pre-league schedule.

Portland State had a 13-game losing streak and had one stretch when it went 1-21 across 22 games.

The Vikings are batting .229 on the season and averaging 3.4 runs per game. PSU's pitching staff has a 5.92 ERA with 101 extra-base hits allowed.

Portland State is 2-4 in league after going 1-2 against Weber State on the road and 1-2 at home last weekend against Sacramento State.

In Ogden, the Vikings lost 6-1 and 4-0 in Games 1 and 3 but pounded out a season-high 16 hits to take Game 2, 9-6.

Against the Hornets at home last weekend, Portland State dropped Friday's doubleheader, losing 6-1 and 2-0. The Vikings bounced back with a 4-3 win on Saturday, rallying from a 3-1 deficit.

Lorraine Alo was first-team All-Big Sky last season and the Big Sky Freshman of the Year. She is batting .246 after hitting .440 last season.

Grace Kimball is 3-16 with a 5.12 ERA. She was second-team All-Big Sky last season and voted the league's Top Newcomer after transferring from Boise State. She went 15-10 with a 3.42 ERA in 2024.

Meadow McWhorter is in her ninth year as head coach.

Series history: Montana is 20-12 all-time against Portland State but hasn't won a series against the Vikings since 2021. PSU has won seven of the teams' last 11 match-ups.

Montana is 7-5 in games at Portland State, going 1-2 in 2015, 2-1 in '17, 3-0 in '21 and 1-2 in '23.

The Vikings have won the teams' last three series, including winning two of three games last season in Missoula when Portland State put up 21 runs.

At a glance (Oregon State): The Beavers, who swept Portland State on Wednesday evening and won't play again until hosting Montana on Monday, are 16-16 and 0-2 in West Coast Conference games.

Oregon State had been winless since sweeping the Grizzlies in Missoula last month before downing the Vikings twice on Wednesday.

In the teams' series in Missoula, Oregon State batted .322 with 10 extra-base hits on seven doubles and three home runs. The Grizzlies were limited to a .151 batting average.

OSU's Logan Hulon threw complete-game victories in Games 1 and 3, allowing seven hits and three earned runs over 14 innings.

She struck out 12 Grizzlies in Game 1, tied for the fourth-most by an opposing pitcher in Montana's history.

Ellie Garcia threw a complete-game four-hitter in Oregon State's 3-2 win in Game 2. The teams traded runs in the first and sixth innings before the Beavers won it with a run in the top of the seventh.

Montana had just 11 hits in the series. No Grizzly had more than two.

In Game 1 against Portland State on Wednesday, Hulon threw a complete-game, five-inning three-hitter. Her teammates gave her a 4-0 lead after one inning, then scored six in the bottom of the fourth.

Garcia threw a seven-inning three-hitter in Game 2. The Beavers led 4-2 going into the sixth before scoring five runs in the bottom half of the inning to pull away.

Jada Lewis, a first-year transfer from Arizona State, is batting .365. Samantha Gutierrez, who went 7 for 12 in the teams' series in Missoula, is hitting .325.

Hulon and Garcia have started all 32 of Oregon State's games this season. Hulon is 8-10 with a 3.31 ERA, Garcia is 8-6 with a 3.25 ERA. Hulon has thrown 14 complete games, Garcia eight.

Series history: Montana and Oregon State had not played prior to this season. The Beavers now lead the series 3-0 after their three-game sweep in Missoula last month.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* After sweeping Northern Colorado and Montana, respectively, last weekend, Idaho State and Weber State sit atop the league standings at 5-1.

* In a match-up of the league's preseason favorites, the Bengals put up 34 runs in three games in Pocatello against the Bears. … Weber State has won six straight and nine of its last 10 games.

* Idaho State plays at Weber State on Friday and Saturday in this week's key Big Sky series.

* Sacramento State and Northern Colorado, tied for third at 3-3, play a three-game series in Sacramento on Friday and Saturday.

Upcoming: Montana will play a three-game series at Idaho State on Friday and Saturday, April 18-19.

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Players Mentioned

Mackenzie Bekofsky

Anna Cockhill

Grace Hardy

Hannah Jablonski

Presley Jantzi

Kynzie Mohl

Cameryn Ortega

Chloe Saxton

Makena Strong

Madison Tarrant

University of Montana Athletics