Sloss joins softball staff as pitching coach

The process of Jayline Sloss becoming the Montana softball program's new pitching coach started in late April with a simple note of congratulations. She had no idea where it would take her.

After Stef Ewing was named the Big Sky Conference co-Coach of the Year, Sloss hopped on Instagram and messaged her former coach at Cal State San Marcos, where Ewing and Sloss elevated a struggling program to the 2023 NCAA Division II College World Series and into an annual contender.

Congratulations! I'm not surprised!

"I loved playing for Stef," Sloss said this week, days before her new team starts fall practices. "We were winning all the time and having so much fun. It was the greatest experience ever."

Few people outside the Montana program, including Sloss, knew what transpired last season, outside of the Grizzlies going on a late-season tear and playing for a Big Sky title on the final day of the regular season after being picked for a last-place finish in the preseason polls.

Ewing lost her pitching coach 15 games into the season, forcing the staff to adjust on the fly, with Ewing taking over those duties while keeping everything else associated with the team moving forward.

Knowing she would be in the market for a pitching coach at season's end, she kept Sloss in mind after their brief exchange. And why wouldn't she?

"She will go down as one of the best pitchers to ever play there," said Ewing of Sloss, who won 65 games as a Cougar over four seasons while posting a 2.05 ERA. She was a one-time NFCA first-team All-West Region selection, twice earning second-team honors.

"San Marcos doesn't make the College World Series or have the run it had without her in the circle. She was the ultimate competitor, someone who held herself and her teammates to a high standard, all the things you look for in a coach."

Not long after Montana's season came to an end in Pocatello at the Big Sky tournament and after some back-and-forth messages between coach and former player, Ewing decided to throw the idea out there. "Do you want to coach?" Ewing asked. "There was no doubt in my mind she could be great at it."

Coaching at the college level was not exactly front of mind for Sloss, who played her final season for the Cougars in 2025 and graduated with a degree in liberal studies this past December, but it didn't take long for her to come around on the idea.

"If I would have been asked by any other coach, I would have been hesitant, but I already know how Stef is and how she works and who she is as a person," Sloss said. "I knew she was going to do great things here, so I thought, that's an opportunity I can't pass up."

She joins Ewing's staff that already included Marc Kendrick and Makena Strong, and at a time when the prospects for the Grizzlies are as high as they've been in nearly a decade.

The Grizzlies went from 8-42 in Ewing's first season to 22-32 in 2026, tying for the nation's 12th-best turnaround this past season. Montana had six players earn some level of All-Big Sky Conference honors at season's end. All six are back.

"The foundation has been set," said Ewing, whose second team at Montana had only one senior. "The goal is no longer to win the Big Sky championship. That's now the expectation, and we all have to have that.

"There is a different bravado when we walk into the building every day. (Jayline) gets that because we had that at San Marcos. When we stepped on the field, we expected to win every single game. That's how we feel in the office when we talk about this team."

Born and raised in Bakersfield, Calif., Sloss more fell into the position than sought it out. She was one of the only players on her under-eight rec team who could consistently get the ball over the plate. So, she became a pitcher. "I loved it and stuck with it," she said.

It wasn't a novelty. Her dad's sister was a pitcher, as was an older cousin. When Sloss showed an early aptitude for it, her dad built a backyard batting cage, got her to private lessons to learn the spins, then took over her development, coaching her all the way through the day he handed her over to Ewing.

"(Pitching in college) always felt like a reachable goal because I was determined to do it," she said. "Stef was one of the big reasons I went to San Marcos. She sold the program and the idea of building it from the ground up."

The Cougars won just 21 games over the three COVID-impacted seasons of 2019, '20 and '21 but went 45-14 and made Super Regionals when Sloss was a freshman in 2022. The right-hander with the heavy down-ball and good off-speed stuff went 16-4.

The College World Series appearance came when Sloss was a sophomore. When she was a junior, in Ewing's final season at San Marcos, Sloss won 19 games and had an ERA of 1.32.

In Ewing's first season at Montana, in 2025, when the Grizzlies were going 8-42, the Cougars won 43 games and lost a 3-2 game in Super Regionals with another trip to the College World Series on the line.

Sloss stayed on campus at San Marcos one more semester last fall to wrap up her degree, then spent the spring working as an instructional aide at a middle school while staying in the game by giving pitching lessons.

Then she messaged Ewing, only for her former coach to present her an opportunity she couldn't pass up. "I loved the idea of sticking around softball longer," said Sloss, who will also be working towards a master's degree in education at Montana, her career path beyond the next two years undecided.

"I can get my school done while being around softball. That's a win-win."

She inherits a staff at Montana that will be a mix of experience and youth, and has the benefit of having pitched at San Marcos for her head coach with the Grizzlies.

"She's really into hitting spots and locations. That comes from her having me for three years (at San Marcos)," said Ewing. "She'll be able to teach our hitters how to pick apart hitters based on their swing planes.

"Our pitchers are looking for someone to lead them and Jayline was the leader in the bullpen the whole time she was at San Marcos and she'll continue to be the leader in the bullpen here."

Montana had an ERA of 7.88 in 2025 in Ewing's first season. That dropped to 6.01 in 2026. Paired with an offense that went from tepid in 2025 to improved early last season to downright explosive late in the year, it resulted in a jump from eight wins to 22.

The next step will be to cut the team ERA down even more because no team gets to where it wants to go on offense alone.

"When you're a pitching coach in college, there is a lot of pressure. That position group has to perform for a team to be successful," said Ewing.

"It was important for me that whoever filled this role would be somebody the pitchers could trust and someone they know will make them better. Jayline is passionate about it and loves softball. She's going to do a great job and our pitchers are going to trust her. She's going to make us better."

It will be a learning process for all involved, even for Sloss, who hadn't lived anywhere except Bakersfield and San Marcos prior to moving to Missoula earlier this month.

When she was in Bakersfield for the better part of two decades growing up, the hometown Roadrunners of Cal State Bakersfield had a niche audience at best. San Marcos got the attention it could in the greater San Diego market.

When Sloss made her first visit to Missoula and went out to dinner with Ewing, she wasn't prepared for what would come next, with people stopping by their table, greeting the coach, wishing her luck in the season ahead.

It felt staged. It wasn't. It was just Missoula being Missoula, the nation's Best College Sports Town. "Wow, you're known around here," Sloss told Ewing. "It was awesome."

Just wait until Saturday, when the softball team has its usual pregame tailgate before that night's football season opener. Saturday night won't only be Sloss's first college football game at Montana, it will be her first-ever in-person college football game. Her current benchmark is high school football.

"She's going to have a life-changing experience tomorrow when she shows up and sees what it's like," said Ewing, who uses fall weekends as both recruiting opportunities and as tests for potential Grizzlies. If they don't recognize Missoula and its university as the best thing ever, well, this probably isn't for them.

"When you're a competitor and pour your heart into something, you want that support. We have it here." Twenty-four hours from now, Sloss will discover that and know that she made the right decision, that a softball team can be successful, but it's the added element of community that makes it special.

University of Montana Athletics

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