Griz reach Big Sky Championship week

The Montana women's golf team has reached the end point of its season-long journey.

The Grizzlies will compete this week at the Big Sky Conference Championship, which is being held at Wigwam Golf Club in Litchfield Park, Ariz.

Teams will play 18 holes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, with the winner advancing to the NCAA Championship.

Coach Jimmy Mee will have Raina Ports (1), Elle Higgins (2), Bella Johnson (3), Kate Bogenschutz (4) and Hannah Ports (5) in the lineup as Montana tries for its first top-five finish since the 2015 Championship.

It will be a tough climb in a sport that has become increasingly competitive within the Big Sky since the Grizzlies won their only Big Sky title in 2006 by eight strokes with team scores of 298, 305 and 301.

The Big Sky has two teams ranked in the top 100 nationally, four in the top 150, six in the top 180, with Montana ranking eighth at 223rd.

Sacramento State, which has won four of the last five titles and hasn't finished outside the top two in the Big Sky since 2013, holds a national ranking of 52. Northern Arizona also is in the top 100 at 90.

The Hornets have a season scoring average of 289.3, with only two of their 27 rounds dating back to last fall above 300.

Montana State (137), Weber State (142), Northern Colorado (152) and Idaho (180) round out the Big Sky's top six in the national rankings.

"It's deep for sure," said Mee. "We can start sneaking up into that upper echelon but we have to play really well, which is not out of the question.

"It's so close from three to nine. Whoever plays well will be top five, whoever plays poorly is going to be ninth. It's very interchangeable. It's fun to be in that conversation at least."

This will be the second consecutive year the tournament will be held at Wigwam, a course the Grizzlies know well.

They played on the course twice last season and again in February at the Bowling Green Intercollegiate.

At last year's Big Sky Championship, Higgins opened with a 68 before ending the tournament in a tie for 16th. She was the Grizzlies' top finisher as Montana placed seventh.

"It's a second-shot golf course," said Mee. "We're going to have to be very specific and intelligent about where we hit and leave our second shots.

"The greens are pretty firm. If you start hitting it over the back of the greens, you're in for a long day. We'll have to be very smart about what we do with our second shots to give ourselves chances."

Montana has the talent to finish top five this week.

At last week's Bobcat Desert Classic, Raina Ports, Elle Higgins and Hannah Ports all had rounds of 1-under 71. Johnson and Bogenschutz had rounds of 74.

Hannah Ports, Johnson and Bogenschutz also had a round in the 80s, while Higgins shot a final-round 77.

Raina Ports was the team's most consistent player at Estrella, carding rounds of 72, 71 and 74 to record her fourth collegiate top-10 finish.

For the season, Ports has a scoring average of 76.05, Higgins a scoring average of 76.06. Those would be the fourth- and fifth-best season scoring averages in program history.

"Every single person we have going has the ability to shoot par. A couple of them have the ability to shoot in the mid-60s if they let themselves do it," said Mee.

"Nobody has to do anything special. We just can't make poor decisions on course management and can't let our emotions get the best of us.

"We have to stay in the moment. If they do that and just play like they can play, we'll be fine. It's the other things that can trip us up. It sounds simple but it's harder than it is."

Monday's first group tees off at 6:30 a.m. local time. Montana will be in the final five groups, teeing off between 8:40 and 9:20 a.m.

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Players Mentioned

Kate Bogenschutz

Elle Higgins

Bella Johnson

Hannah Ports

Raina Ports

University of Montana Athletics