Griz open fall season in Bozeman

The Montana women's golf team will open its five-tournament fall schedule next week when the Grizzlies compete at the Yellowstone Intercollegiate in Bozeman.

The 54-hole tournament will be held Monday and Tuesday at the Riverside Country Club. Teams will play 36 holes on Monday, 18 on Tuesday, with the action starting at 8:30 a.m. both days.

Third-year coach Jimmy Mee will have his full team competing, eight golfers, with the top five still to be determined through this week's qualifying rounds.

"We're going to have some fluctuation in our lineup this fall because everything is insanely close. We want that kind of competition," said Mee.

Mee's third team is a mix of experience and newcomers, with freshmen Katie Lewis and Hope Torres making their collegiate debuts next week, along with redshirt freshman Anna Stensrud.

Lewis, from Frenchtown, won the Montana Class A state title as a sophomore, junior and senior, winning those three tournaments by a combined 38 strokes.

Sophomore Salina Lui joined the team over the summer. She played at Utah Tech in 2022-23 before embarking on a two-year mission.

"They've jumped in and fit right in with the team," said Mee of his newcomers. "It's like they've been with the other girls for five years. It's been fun to see how close but competitive this group is."

The rest of the team needs little introduction: seniors Raina and Hannah Ports, junior Kate Bogenschutz and sophomore Bella Johnson.

Both Ports sisters plus Johnson played in all nine tournaments last season, with Bogenschutz playing in eight.

Raina Ports had a season stroke average of 75.68 last year. With her program-record 75.42 average from the year before, she has two of the top three season scoring averages in program history.

"She is unbelievably steady," said Mee. "It's a very nice weight lifted off of me."

Ports enters her senior season with a career stroke average of 76.27. The program record is 76.85, set by Tara Green (2011-15).

"You know she is going to grind, you know she is going to compete and you know at the end of the day she is going to put up a good score," said Mee. "It's what she does.

"She's been under par early and held on to it. She's been over par early and brought it back. She just doesn't shoot bad scores. She's one of the most consistent players we've probably ever had here."

Johnson had a stroke average of 78.77 last season, Hannah Ports 79.95, Bogenschutz 80.47. Bogenschutz played her final six tournaments of the spring to an average of 76.3.

Next week's tournament will be the start of four consecutive Monday-Tuesday competitions for Montana, which will take its full team to Spokane on Sept. 22 and 23 for the Kalispel Invitational

Scores from the first two tournaments will determine the five players who will travel to Tacoma, Wash., for the Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational (Sept. 29-30).

Montana will host the Sun Mountain Intercollegiate on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 6-7, at The Ranch Club.

"By the end of four weeks, we should see improvement in quality of shots, mental preparation, course management. We should see improvement from every player," said Mee.

The Sun Mountain Intercollegiate will be Montana's first home event since the fall of 2021.

"It's going to be a lot of fun. We get that question a lot. When can we see you play? Now we can tell people that on October 6 and 7, we'll be out there," said Mee.

Full teams from Montana, Eastern Washington, Idaho, Idaho State, Portland State and Weber State will compete, with Washington State sending some individuals to Missoula.

"There are some really good players in the Big Sky now," said Mee. "It's fun to watch girls go out and shoot really good scores. Hopefully we can continue to grow the event and do it every year."

The fall schedule will conclude with a late-October trip to the mountains of western Carolina and the French Broad Collegiate Invitational in Arden, N.C.

"We end up playing against a lot of the same people all of the time. There we'll be playing against teams we've never played against," said Mee. "We'll find out how we stack up against some East Coast teams."

Montana's spring schedule will open on Feb. 10 at the Bowling Green Intercollegiate in Arizona. The Big Sky Conference Championship will be April 20-22 at Wigwam Golf Club in Litchfield Park, Ariz.

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Players Mentioned

Kate Bogenschutz

Bella Johnson

Katie Lewis

Salina Lui

Hannah Ports

Raina Ports

Anna Stensrud

Hope Torres

University of Montana Athletics