Wiesgram hits another slam for Griz

CEDAR CITY, Utah — Brooklyn Weisgram hit another grand slam and the Montana softball team wrapped up its three-game series at Southern Utah on Saturday afternoon with a 19-8 win over the Thunderbirds.

The Grizzlies (16-16 overall, 4-2 in the Big Sky Conference) put up 56 runs on 51 hits while batting .486 to sweep the series and improve to 11-1 all-time against Southern Utah, which is in its final season of Big Sky play.

“Griz softball came to play,” said coach Melanie Meuchel, whose team set a program record for runs scored and margin of victory in Friday’s 23-7 win in the series opener.

The Grizzlies came back from a six-run deficit to win 14-11 in eight innings in Friday’s second game, and on Saturday scored six runs in the third, six in the 4th and five in the 5th on Saturday.

Montana won its fourth consecutive game after two one-run losses to league foe Portland State last weekend. The Grizzlies are 500 or better after April 1 for the first since the program’s NCAA tournament season of 2017.

“We saw a lot of great things last weekend, and we saw it again this weekend,” Meuchel said. “We didn’t take anything for granted or anything off. We were just so present and played really loose.”

On Saturday McGrath led off the third with her ninth home run of the season, and sixth in the last nine games.

Brooklyn Weisgram followed later in the inning with her second grand slam in as many weekends.

McKenna Tjaden hit her first home run of the season, a three-run shot over the fence in left as part of Montana’s six-run fourth.

McGrath then came up with the bases loaded in the top of the 5th and nearly had Montana’s second grand slam of the game, hitting one off the base of the fence in center. For the weekend she went 8 for 13 with eight RBIs and four runs scored.

Dana Butterfield pitched into the bottom of the fifth to pick up her seventh win of the season. Allie Brock threw 10 pitches to get the final two outs.

Jaxie Klucewich had a team-high nine hits in the series, Julie Phelps scored eight runs, and McGrath, Cami Sellers and Elise Ontiveros all drove in eight.

Glacier High product Kynzie Mohl, a true freshman, saw action in her seventh game this spring as a designated player. She drove in her first run of the season with a fielder’s choice grounder; she later scored.

Montana will host Idaho State in a three-game series Friday and Saturday at Grizzly Softball Field in Missoula.

—UM Communications