Montana falls twice as series with Santa Clara opens

Saturday, March 14

Santa Clara, Calif.

1 PM (MT)

Montana

4-18

Santa Clara

12-14

Montana

Santa Clara

Montana falls twice as series with Santa Clara opens

3/14/2026 7:28:00 PM | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana softball team opened its three-game series with Santa Clara with two losses on Saturday afternoon at SCU Softball Stadium.

The Broncos, the preseason favorites in the West Coast Conference, won 10-0 in five innings and 7-1. The setbacks extended the Grizzlies' losing streak to 12 games.

Montana opened its six-game road trip to California with three losses at Saint Mary's on Thursday and Friday. The Gaels were picked second in the WCC preseason poll behind Santa Clara.

"We're playing good teams who are playing good, quality softball," said coach Stef Ewing. "We just have to keep going.

"It feels like the wall that's in front of us is made of steel, titanium and concrete. Eventually the ball is going to fall for us. We just have to keep swinging it, keep pitching it and make some plays on defense."

Montana got outscored 17-1 on Saturday but had 14 hits to Santa Clara's 19. The Broncos had seven extra-base hits and turned six Griz errors into eight unearned runs.

"We made some errors today that were a little uncharacteristic of us, but I really liked the way we swung the bats," said Ewing.

"We had a great mindset today. We just looked a lot better, a lot lighter and really competed for every inning. It was a great response from yesterday when I felt like our energy was down."

In Game 1, Santa Clara scored two runs in the first, two in the third and took control in the fourth when the Broncos scored six runs on four hits and four Montana errors.

Sophomore pitcher Cari Ferguson scattered seven hits while striking out three to pick up her sixth win of the season.

Kaiana Kong, Cameryn Ortega and Brooklynn Braun all pitched for Montana, which was led offensively by Grace Lopez, who had two hits in the opener.

Lopez would go 2 for 4 in Game 2 to up her batting average to .370. She has a team-leading eight multiple-hit games this season.

"People right now can't beat her inside, outside or off-speed. She's just finding her pitch and hitting everything," said Ewing.

"The game has really slowed down for her. You can just see it. She's confident going into the box knowing no one is going to beat her. The ball looks big to her right now."

She scored Montana's only run of the day in the top of the fourth in Game 2. She led off with a double, her team-leading 10th extra-base hit of the season, then advanced to third on a wild pitch.

Anna Cockhill, hitting third on Saturday after batting lead-off for her first 71 games as a Grizzly, hit a one-out fly ball to center. The throw home got away from the catcher, allowing Lopez to score.

That pulled Montana within a run at 2-1. Mackenzie Bekofsky and Chloe Saxton both followed with two-out singles, putting the potential tying run at second base.

JoJo Christiaens hit a line drive to second that 2025 WCC Player of the Year Cairah Curran climbed the ladder to snag, keeping Santa Clara in front.

The Broncos scored two in the fourth, one in the fifth and two in the sixth to pull away.

Audri Elias got the start in the circle for the Grizzlies and allowed three hits through the first three innings.

She was replaced by Carah Sweet with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth. Sweet pitched Montana out of trouble when she got an inning-ending fly out to center.

Sweet got out of a two-out, bases-loaded jam again in the sixth with a fly out to left.

Montana was held to one run despite having multiple hits in the fourth, sixth and seventh innings.

The teams will wrap up their series on Sunday with a game at noon (MT).