(Editor's note: University of Montana media release)
Four players from the Montana softball team earned All-Big Sky Conference honors on Tuesday, the league announced.
Senior Cami Sellers was voted first team, while juniors Kylie Becker and Maygen McGrath, and freshman Anna Toon were named second team.
Sellers was named second team in 2019 and the Big Sky’s Top Newcomer. Becker was honorable mention.
The four All-Big Sky selections are the most for Montana since 2016 and the second-highest total in program history.
Seniors Tristin Achenbach and Jessica McAlister, and sophomore Jaxie Klucewich received honorable-mention honors.
Montana went 16-28 during the COVID-affected 2021 season and tied for third in the Big Sky at 8-10.
Sellers batted .317 during the regular season, with seven home runs and 10 doubles while starting all 44 games at first base.
It was just an extension of what she’s been doing since arriving prior to the 2019 season after transferring from Boston College.
The .340 career hitter is all over the Montana career lists despite playing less than three full seasons for the Grizzlies.
She ranks second in doubles (37), third in home runs (20) and is tied for fourth in RBIs (85). She ranks in the top five in batting average, slugging percentage (.584) and on-base percentage (.406).
McGrath had first-team numbers this season but was bumped to second team at shortstop by Northern Colorado’s Mady Young.
McGrath, who takes a 14-game hitting streak into the postseason, ranks second in the Big Sky in runs (38), third in hits (56), RBIs (40) and doubles (11), and fourth in batting average (.392) and home runs (12).
Her career-high 12 home runs this season give her 24 for her career, which rank second in program history behind Delene Colburn’s 45.
Starting all 44 games at shortstop, McGrath went just eight games all season without recording a hit and struck out only 10 times in 143 at-bats.
McGrath at short and Becker at third give Montana an All-Big Sky left side of the infield and at the top two spots in the order.
Over the last month of the season, those two have been setting the table for Sellers and Toon, who have been batting in the No. 3 and 4 spots in the order.
The Big Four are collectively hitting .357 this season and have Montana at .305 as a team, the second-highest average in program history.
Becker, who has batted leadoff in all but six games this season, closed the spring on a tear, going 14 for 22 over Montana’s final six regular-season games, with four three-hit games, five multiple-hit games to raise her batting average from .275 to .331.
Batting .358 less than a month ago, Toon has been on weeks-long tear as well to up her season batting average to .420, which is threatening Bethany Olea’s program record of .416 from 2017.
She recently had an eight-game hitting streak, one of which was the walk-off single as Montana knocked off Big Sky champion Weber State in Missoula on Friday afternoon.
She has made seven appearances at pitcher, with two starts, and has taken over as the starter in right field. She earned second-team honors in the pitcher/utility category.
Achenbach, the Montana career leader in wins with 32, leads the Big Sky in strikeouts with 160, 74 more than any other league pitcher.
She has 370 for her career, leaving her 18 shy of Michaela Hood’s program record of 388.
McAlister, also voted honorable-mention All-Big Sky as a sophomore, is batting a career-best .325 this season.
Prevented from playing defensive because of offseason shoulder surgery, McAlister has found a home as Montana’s designated player.
Klucewich has started 41 of 44 games in left field, where she has committed just two errors in 76 total chances.
She ranks third on the team in batting average (.337) as a dangerous slap hitter hitting in the No. 9 spot. She has five multiple-hit games over the last month.
Montana, the No. 6 seed, will open the Big Sky Conference Championship on Thursday with an opening-round game against No. 3 Sacramento State at noon.
