Grizzlies head to Greeley for Big Sky Championship

The Montana softball team heads to Greeley, Colo., next week for the Big Sky Conference Championship, hosted by Northern Colorado at UNC's Gloria Rodriguez Field.

The double-elimination tournament opens on Tuesday and goes through Friday, with the winner advancing to the NCAA Softball Championship.

Montana (8-40), the No. 6 seed, will open play at the tournament with a game against No. 3 Weber State (22-29) at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

The winner will play No. 2 Sacramento State in the last of four games on Tuesday, at 6:30 p.m. The loser will drop to the elimination bracket and play at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Coverage: All 10 or 11 games of the Big Sky Conference Championship will stream on ESPN+.

The field:

1) Idaho State (34-15/13-2): The Bengals rolled through league at 13-2, dropping games to Sacramento State and Portland State. ISU is 15-3 in its last 18 games.

Idaho State, which is batting .313, leads the league in just about every offensive category and also owns the Big Sky's best ERA (3.66).

The Bengals have now won or shared four Big Sky regular-season championships but have yet to win the tournament title since the league first began sponsoring the sport in 2013.

2) Sacramento State (26-21/10-5): Like the Bengals, the Hornets have been on a late-season surge, going 13-4 since late March. They have now finished top three in the Big Sky 10 times since 2014.

Sacramento State (3.95) joins Idaho State in holding the Big Sky's only ERAs lower than 5.5. The Hornets have the Big Sky's second-best offense behind Idaho State's.

For all of its top-three finishes in the Big Sky the last decade, Sacramento State has won the tournament only once, in 2018.

3) Weber State (22-29/8-7): The Wildcats were picked fifth in the preseason poll but finished a strong third, winning series against Portland State, Montana and Sacramento State.

Weber State hosts Utah Tech in a doubleheader on Saturday after dropping two of three at home last weekend to Northern Colorado.

After opening the UNC series with a 7-2 win, the Wildcats lost 9-0 and 3-0, recording only four hits in the two losses.

The Big Sky's most successful program in the league's short softball history, Weber State won tournament titles in 2015, '16, '19 and '22.

4) Northern Colorado (16-28/7-7): The Bears are looking to three-peat after winning the last two tournament titles, in 2023 in Ogden and last year in Pocatello.

Northern Colorado was picked first in the preseason poll but a 6.28 ERA and a .345 batting average by its opponents have kept the Bears from playing up to those expectations.

After opening league with a sweep of Montana, Northern Colorado went 0-6 on road trips to Idaho State and Sacramento State. The Bears have since won series over Portland State and Weber State.

UNC won the tournament title in 2023, its first Big Sky championship in softball, then swept the regular-season and tournament titles a year ago.

5) Portland State (12-37/5-9): The Vikings were 5-27 on March 28 but had a competitive run through the Big Sky, winning a game in series against the top three seeds and going 2-1 against Montana.

Portland State shut down Idaho State in a 6-2 home win to open that series last weekend, snapping the Bengals' nine-game Big Sky winning streak.

The Vikings won the first Big Sky tournament in 2013, then won their second tournament title in 2021.

6) Montana (8-40/1-14): The Grizzlies finished last in the Big Sky for the third straight year, the second consecutive season going 1-14 in league.

Montana's lone league win and only Division I victory since March 2 was a 7-0 road win at Portland State on April 12.

In 15 league games, the Grizzlies gave up 127 runs (8.5/g) while opponents batted .378 and had 63 extra-base hits, including 37 home runs.

Montana has not won a game at the Big Sky tournament since knocking off Portland State in a first-round game in 2022. The Grizzlies are 0-6 in tournament games since then, getting outscored 58-12.

Montana will be playing in its ninth Big Sky tournament next week. The Grizzlies, who won the title in 2017, have a record of 11-14 at the Big Sky Championship.

The first meeting: Weber State traveled to Missoula last month and swept the series, winning by scores of 11-2, 6-2 and 4-3.

In was the Grizzlies' most competitive Big Sky series. Game 1 was 0-0 going to the fourth, Game 2 was 2-2 going to the fifth, and Montana took a 3-1 lead to the seventh in Game 3.

The difference was the top half of Weber State's batting order.

Abby Grundy went 3 for 3 with five RBIs in Game 1, Riley Whalen went 3 for 4 with two RBIs in Game 2 and Sadie Kirk went 2 for 4 with three RBIs in Game 3, including a three-run home run in the seventh.

The Wildcats hit seven home runs in the series as part of their 31 hits.

Series history: Weber State leads the all-time series with Montana 26-10. The Wildcats have won nine straight over the Grizzlies and 13 of the last 14 against Montana.

The teams have met four times at the Big Sky Championship, each team winning twice. Weber State ended Montana's season a year ago, winning 11-0 in an elimination game.

The Grizzlies' only postseason wins over the Wildcats both came in 2017, as Montana twice defeated Weber State on WSU's home field on its way to winning the tournament title.

Montana notes:

* Presley Jantzi is hitting .336 and will end the season leading Montana in batting average for the second consecutive year. She batted .393 last season.

Bethany Olea ('16, '17) and Maygen McGrath ('20, '21, '22) are the only other players in program history who have led the team in batting average in consecutive seasons.

* Jantzi ranks in the top 10 in program history in 15 offensive categories. She is third in doubles (38), fifth in batting average (.344), seventh in hits (179), eighth in runs scored (87) and ninth in RBIs (69).

* Anna Cockhill went 2 for 2 in stolen base attempts last weekend against Sacramento State to up her program record to 27 steals in 31 attempts.

Cockhill is tied for 26th nationally in stolen bases, ranks 33rd in steals per game (0.56) and is tied for 37th in stolen base percentage (.871).

* Chloe Saxton led Montana in its 15 league games with a .333 batting average. She was batting .156 when the Grizzlies opened league at Northern Colorado. Her season average is now up to .238.

Saxton played in 11 of Montana's 15 league games, missing the Idaho State series, and hit safely in nine of them. She takes a team-high four-game hitting streak into the postseason.

* Presley Jantzi leads Montana with 11 multiple-hit games, Hannah Jablonski leads the team with five games with multiple RBIs.

* Jantzi has reached base eight straight games, the longest streak for the Grizzlies this season. … Anna Cockhill has at least one hit in 12 of Montana's last 15 games, with a pair of six-game hitting streaks.

* Siona Halwani, who pitched just once between March 29 and April 24, got the start in Game 2 against Sacramento State last weekend and threw a season-high 6.0 innings.

* Presley Jantzi went 5 for 9 with four runs scored in Montana's three-game series against Sacramento State last week.

* Jessica Stanfield has gone 6 for 14 over Montana's last six games to raise her season batting average 52 points.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Anna Cockhill

Siona Halwani

Hannah Jablonski

Presley Jantzi

Chloe Saxton

Jessica Stanfield

University of Montana Athletics