Griz primed for breakthrough season

The Montana softball team's season opener is three weeks from today. The Grizzlies will face Saint Louis at UC San Diego's La Jolla Invitational on Feb. 5, the season's first pitch being thrown less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean.

The game will come against one of those teams from another part of the country that might be really good or might not be. It's hard to keep track of it all. In this case, the Billikens are really good, coming off seasons of 30, 31 and 34 wins, Saint Louis last May playing in an NCAA Regional at Arkansas.

Second-year Griz coach Stef Ewing knows what's ahead, in San Diego, then Las Cruces and El Paso, then Phoenix, the season off and running, the gauntlet every college softball team from the northern part of the country faces, weekend after weekend heading south to find games.

Saint Louis is probably looking ahead by this point too, seeing that Montana, the Billikens' opponent in their first two games of the season, went 8-42 last year, had an ERA that finished at 7.88, a team batting average that ended at .227, neither number doing much to kindle any kind of fear of the Grizzlies.

Ewing is fine with that. Not the numbers but future opponents overlooking her team, thinking last year's results will be a predictor, an indicator of things to come in 2026.

She saw everything she needed to see last week, when the team returned to campus ahead of preseason practices, coming off more than a month away from the structure and demands that were in place during the fall semester.

For all the joys that come with the holiday season, it's a time of angst for a college softball coach, wondering what her players are doing, if all the gains from September, October and November have been lost to the temptations of the moment, the lure of rest, relaxation and dare we say laziness.

"We talked about it before they left for break, how softball teams are made or lost over the holiday season," Ewing said. "Who we are when we come back is going to dictate a lot of who we are going to be this spring."

Turns out she had nothing to worry about. They had done the work on their own. They were ready. "Their buy-in on that was incredible. The first thing we did when we got back was run our conditioning test and they just blew it away."

She said this on Tuesday morning, before that afternoon's practice, knowing there were likely players already at the indoor hitting facility, getting in their cuts before practice demanded they be there, showing up on their own because things are different now, work as opportunity, not chore.

"It's been a major shift. This group loves to do extra, to put in the work. As a coach, that's really exciting," Ewing said. "They are just so invested. They've taken what we're doing and made it personal."

The returners in particular, those who had to go through the ups and mostly downs from an eight-win season, who had to navigate their way through losing streaks of 11 games, of 10 games, twice of six games, just one Big Sky win in 15 league contests.

Endure that and you're either broken or strengthened. In this case it was the latter, because have you met Anna Cockhill? She could break a Geiger counter with the amount of competitiveness and intensity she gives off. Have you met Madison Tarrant, the team's clear, ever-present, uplifting voice?

"It's no longer a We Can Do It mentality," said Ewing. "It's a We Will Do It mentality. They don't want to go through another season like that. They want to be able to compete in every single game.

"What that means is we have to work harder every single day and outwork our opponent. Having that chip on their shoulder has been great for them to be able to show the new players in the program that this is how we're going to do it. This is the new standard, these are the new expectations."

That revealed itself in the fall, in an exhibition game against MSU Billings, when a 4-0 lead turned into a 5-4 deficit after the Yellowjackets put up five runs in the bottom of the fourth.

It had a here-we-go-again vibe for a program that was 2-33 last year when trailing after four innings, right up until Montana's first batter in the top of the fifth, a simmering Cockhill, hit a home run to left. Two batters later, Mackenzie Bekofsky homered to right-center. Final: Montana 13, MSU Billings 5.

Punch, counter-punch. On the way to a knockout.

"To see their response, for them to say, we're not backing down, that's what excites me about this team," said Ewing, who has 25 players on her roster, 21 of them underclassmen. "Even though we're super young on paper, they want to compete. They want to do the little things right.

"As their coach, that's what you want, that fight. We have that dog. That's something we did not have last year. It's become a strong piece of our culture."

That's a long answer to the first question Ewing was asked on Tuesday, about what excites her most about her second team at Montana. But she's not done. She still has the second half of a two-part answer. She's rolling now.

That 7.88 ERA last season? It ranked 294th nationally out of 300 NCAA Division I teams. It was something that had to be addressed immediately.

It was Ewing's top priority once last season ended with 19 runs allowed versus Northern Colorado at the Big Sky Conference tournament in Greeley. Montana closed the season allowing nine or more runs in each of its final eight games.

Ewing took a deep breath, dove headfirst into the transfer portal and didn't come up for air until she had found what she was looking for: Kaiana Kong, who led Western Washington to a pair of Division II World Series appearances, and Carah Sweet, who pitched as a freshman last season at Sacred Heart.

Now she can give us the second part of her answer. "The other thing I'm excited about is the depth we have in our circle," she said. "We've got five pitchers now who are healthy and ready to go. They want the ball.

"Every day (pitching coach Megan Casper) comes in from working with the pitchers and is really excited from what she's seeing from them. You love that going into the spring."

What a difference a year makes. Last January, Ewing did everything outside of holding student tryouts to try to fortify a thin staff that was also battling injury.

"A year ago, it was, who's going to be healthy enough to pitch? We had to ask position players if anyone had pitched in their career," said Ewing. Then-senior Grace Hardy hadn't pitched since high school. She stepped up and gave the team 18 appearances.

In addition to Kong and Sweet, Montana has Cameryn Ortega, the only returner from last year's staff. She held a Grand Canyon team that would go 47-8 to three runs over six innings in her second collegiate appearance.

Freshmen Brooklynn Braun and Audri Elias round out the staff. "In bringing in Kong and Carah, we have some pitchers with some experience, and we've seen the maturity of Cam Ortega," said Ewing.

"Then you've got Audri and Brooklynn, who are going to be able to supplement that while they get comfortable and get their feet wet."

The headliner will be Kong, who had a two-year record at Western Washington of 31-3 with a 1.42 ERA. She was an honorable mention Division II All-American as a freshman, third-team All-American as a sophomore.

"Really excited to see what she's going to do at the Division I level," said Ewing. "She's such a stoic workhorse. She just goes, goes, goes. Our team loves that. The consistency you get from her is something you're going to get every single day.

"Her expectations for herself are so high that she's fun to coach. She's always raising the bar."

What Ewing is hoping for, an ERA in the low to mid threes, isn't unprecedented. Montana had a 3.09 ERA in 2017, a program-record 3.08 ERA in 2018. The Grizzlies had an ERA of 2.55 through a dozen games when the 2020 season was cut short by the arrival of COVID.

That ERA has been above six more often than not since then, which is a tough way to go into a game.

"If we can be three, three and a half, that's half of what it was last year," said Ewing. "That keeps you competitive. If I have to tell our offense we have to score four or five runs to win a game, that's manageable. Then we're talking a run an inning, a run every other inning. You can manage that."

Ewing took over the team's hitting and offense late last season and the results were immediate. The Grizzlies put up 13 runs in a three-game series at regular-season champion Idaho State, which finished with the Big Sky's top ERA. The season ended with Montana scoring nine runs on Northern Colorado.

Last season, the top four in the batting order – Cockhill, Presley Jantzi, Hannah Jablonski and Tarrant – accounted for 77 of Montana's 135 RBIs on the season, with five batters still to go before the Grizzlies could get back to the top of the order.

The team's 3.0 runs per game ranked 284th nationally.

Montana won't have .300 hitters, all capable of 10 or more home runs, from top to bottom of the lineup. Instead, Ewing talks about speed on the bases, of going first to third, of hitting behind runners, of making productive outs. Instead of bludgeoning, death by a thousand relentless paper cuts. Both work.

"Last year I felt like we had a shot to score one through four in the lineup," Ewing said. "This year there will be more things we can do. Running the bases better, having more speed, understanding how to play team offense better."

All in search of team success, of runs scored, over individual glory, a ground out to first that scores a runner from third getting the same result as a base hit. A runner crossing home plate is worth celebrating, especially if a team has the type of pitching that a single run can be a difference-maker.

"As an offense, we care about one stat and one stat only: runs. How many runs can we score, not how we score them," said Ewing.

"It's not about your batting average or on-base percentage or (slugging percentage). How many runs can we score? If you hit a ground ball and we score a run, we love it. We have to have that selflessness on offense that the only thing that matters is runs and that we score as many as we possibly can."

On a team with only one senior – Chloe Saxton – and two juniors – Kong and Tarrant – it's the sophomore class that gives Montana its foundation, that provides the Grizzlies their engine.

They were the ones who spent much of last season on the ropes, fighting from a defensive position, limited by runs scored and runs allowed, numbers that did not equate to winning.

Now they are back, toughened, hungry, experienced beyond their time as college softball players, knowing they have 13 freshmen to lead, many of whom will be counted on once the team arrives in San Diego early next month. Time waits for no one, not even first-year college softball players.

"The makeup of our team has made the sophomore class mature a lot more," said Ewing. "When I look at our sophomore class, I don't view them as sophomores. I view them as experienced. They know what the gauntlet of a college softball season is, with how many games there are and how long it is.

"They get it. They understand the standard. They are not here to participate. They are here to win. They are motivated by competing."

It's different now, in January, than it was in the fall. There is more urgency. A season that felt so far off – who's thinking about February during a glorious Missoula fall? – is now right in front of them, bearing down.

Ewing could sense it at the team's first practice, on Saturday, when a line drive was hit in no-man's land between third and short, single all the way. Except all of it is Cockhill Territory, her speed, quickness and tenacity all defying the space-time continuum.

"Anna lays out, full Superman. I've seen someone make that play maybe one time in my life," said Ewing. "We're making plays and doing things at a completely different level. I don't know if the team senses it yet but our standard is so much higher than it was before."

Even last season, Ewing knew it, that Cockhill, at short, and Tarrant, at catcher, would be the team's bellwethers, their particular rings hitting their teammates in different ways, one the lightning, the other the thunder.

"They bring consistency every single day in all things they do," said Ewing. "They bleed it through and through."

If it's the quiet but constant pursuit of greatness that does it for you, Cockhill is your player. "Anna is not necessarily a vocal leader but she leads by example and will run circles around anyone when it comes to hard work. She has raised the bar for everybody to follow her and be at her level."

Tarrant has the presence, both through personality and through position, the perfect pairing for an elite catcher. "She is the heartbeat of the team on the field," said Ewing. "She is our we've-got-this rock.

"Her maturity, her game IQ, her confidence in everything she does, it's all grown from last year. She's the coach on the field, the quarterback. You love to have that. You have to have that. It's crucial in that position."

But let's keep all this, all this excitement, to ourselves, shall we? No need to tip off Saint Louis or Wagner or UC San Diego, Montana's opponents on opening weekend, that this isn't the eight-win team of last season. Let them project all they want. Nothing to see here, probably easy wins, just like before.

Let's not tell them how a freshman has taken over the position of center field, how sophomores Hailey Boer, JoJo Christiaens and Bekofsky are making the freshman-to-sophomore leap, how another pair of freshmen, both Southern Cal talents, are going to bolster the infield.

"Our infield is more athletic than last year. We get to more balls. Our routine range is wider, and that helps out the pitching staff," said Ewing. "That leads to success at all levels. You have to be able to make the routine play. We get to balls we just didn't get to last year."

It's all connected, a stronger, deeper pitching staff combined with an out-producing infield and a ball-tracking outfield, a lowered ERA keeping Montana in more games, with a more varied offense producing more runs, leading to more competitive games, more wins for the Grizzlies.

Ewing has a number written in her office. It's how many wins she'd like to get to in Year 2, knowing that this is another building block in a long-term project. Most people might think it's stretch, a bit out of reach, but she knows something you don't. What Saint Louis doesn't know. What only they see.

"Their hard work is paying off. I'm excited for them to be able to show it," said Ewing. "We are going to be better. No doubt about it."

University of Montana Athletics

Related News

Players Mentioned

Mackenzie Bekofsky

Hailey Boer

Brooklynn Braun

JoJo Christiaens

Anna Cockhill

Audri Elias

Grace Hardy

Hannah Jablonski

Presley Jantzi

Kaiana Kong

Cameryn Ortega

Chloe Saxton

Carah Sweet

Madison Tarrant

Related Videos