By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
Griz defeat Idaho State 70-24. Photo by Austin Smith.
Saturday‘s 70-24 Griz win over Idaho State marked the first time in 13 years the Griz had reached 70 points in a conference game, back in October of 1999 the Griz beat Idaho State 73-23 in Pocatello.
The Montana Grizzly football team head to Weber State this weekend, a place that has not been kind to the Griz recently. The Wildcats have defeated the Griz in Ogden the last two times the teams have met there. Despite having lost in Ogden recently the Griz lead the rivalry in games played in Ogden 16-6.
The Griz have won the Saturday before a Presidential election the last six Presidential Cycles, the last Presidential election that followed a Griz loss was 1984 when Reagan defeated Walter Mondale.
The Montana State Bobcats have won their nine road Big Sky conference games dating back to mid-October 2010. This week the Cats head to Sacramento to take on the Hornets of Sac State, a team fresh off an upset of Cal Poly. The Cats have won 4 of their last 5 visits to Sacramento. Ten years ago this coming Friday (November 2, 2002 the Bobcats blocked a Sac State extra point attempt securing a win over the Hornets 31-30. That 2002 win in Sacramento began a 4 game cats winning streak that was completed with a 10-7 win over the Grizzlies breaking a 16 year UM mastery of the rivalry.
With their sweep of the Detroit Tigers the San Francisco Giants became the first National League to sweep a World Series since the 1990 Cincinnati Reds white wash of the Oakland A’s. Over the last 20 years American League teams have won the World Series in a sweep 5 times.
An ironic twist to the selection of Pablo Sandoval as Series MVP, Sandoval shares an August 11th birthday with Banned Giants star Melky Cabrera.
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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.