GREAT FALLS, Mont. – As the bus pulls away from campus, on its way to Ashland, Ore., many things will be familiar for UGF softball. They will be playing in the same conference tournament as the year before with largely the same roster and will even be facing one of their postseason opponents from 2015, but one this will be dramatically different: experience.
The Lady Argos left Wednesday, May 4 for the program's second consecutive trip to the Cascade Collegiate Conference tournament, but will be doing so as conference members for the first time. While the program was allowed to join the 2015 CCC tournament, it did so as an affiliated team after playing essentially conference less during that season as one of two Frontier Conference schools with a softball program.
Because of that arrangement, UGF went into the CCC playoffs without having played a full regular season schedule against teams from that conference. Now full CCC members, the Lady Argos have played a full conference schedule and earned the sixth and final spot in the playoffs after finishing third in the CCC East Division with a conference record of 12-12 (6-6).
UGF's first round opponent will be (23) Oregon Tech, the team that booted the Lady Argos from the playoffs in 2015. The Owls finished the regular season second in the CCC West division with a conference record of 20-8 (13-7). When the two teams met earlier this season, OIT swept the doubleheader in Great Falls 7-3, 7-5.
The game will pit the two top hitters in the conference in terms of batting average, Tara Moates and Ali Graham of OIT, against the third best era pitcher in the conference, UGF senior Keeley Van Blaricom.
That game will be played Friday, May 6 at 12:30 p.m. MST in Ashland, Ore., where Southern Oregon University will be hosting the entire tournament. If UGF defeats OIT in their one-game playoff matchup, the Lady Argos will move on to play divisional foe Carroll College at 5:30 p.m. MST that same day.
UGF and Carroll split both doubleheaders this season with three of the four ending with a mercy rule victory and the other ending in an eighth inning UGF walk-off.
