By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
It has been a decade since the Montana Grizzly soccer team won the regular title and earned the host spot in the Conference tournament. Montana hosted 6 of the first 8 conference tournaments. Montana did earn an NCAA berth with a pair of wins three years ago when the event was held in Portland. As a matter of fact three of the last 4 Big Sky tournaments titles have been won by a team other than the host.
Montana played two conference matches that ended in a draw, against 3rd place Northern Arizona and 7th place South Utah.
Goal Keeper Kailly Norman posted 10 shutouts for Montana this season.
Last season the Griz soccer team finished 6th in the standings and missed the tournament (with the addition of Idaho to the league the tournament was expanded to six teams this season.)
In 2013 Portland State won the regular season title, but was upset by Weber State in the tournament title game.
The Montana Grizzly football team is defending a special winning streak as they head to Eastern Washington for a Big Sky showdown with the EWU Eagles. Saturday is the 125 anniversary of Montana becoming the 41st state in the Union. The Griz have a 7 game winning streak playing on “statehood Day”. With a calendar quirk the Griz are likely not to have another November 8th game until 2025.
The eagles are hoping to have Payton Award candidate Vernon Adams back after a month on the shelf. However, Adams fill-in, Jordan West is doing quite well. West’s passing stats are very comparable to the Grizzlies’ Jordan Johnson.
A WIN OVER Montana would be the Eagles fourth straight in the series, EWU longest winning streak in the rivalry.
Saturday is senior day in Cheney and many of the eagles Senior were part of the program in 2010 when the Eagles won the FCS title.
A Bobcat win Saturday would mark the 11th time since 2002 the Bobcats have won at least 7 games in a season.
Liberty University head football coach Turner Gill is likely too much a gentleman to laugh or smirk at the plight of his two previous employers University of Buffalo and the University of Kansas. Buffalo was unwilling to spend more money to retain Gill and KU gave the former Nebraska star just two seasons before they let him go. Over the last Month Buffalo and Kansas have fired (in mid-season) the fellows that were brought in to replace Gill. Gill is 6-3 at Liberty this season and in play-off contention.
********************
Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.
Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament
When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.