By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
The last 3 times the Seattle Seahawks have played the Atlanta Falcons the Falcons have come out on top. The last time Seattle defeated Atlanta in a regular season game (the teams have never met in the post-season) was September 18, 2005 when Matt Hassleback and Shaun Alexander were leading the Hawks on a run to the Super Bowl. The last time the Hawks played in Atlanta was December 2007 when the Falcons closed out a season that had seen their star quarterback go to prison and their head coach resign after just 13 games with the team.
Even though this Thursday’s game at Dahlberg Arena will be the Lady Griz and North Dakota Sioux first Big Sky encounter the gals from Grand Forks are a familiar foe. The Sioux have been part of the Lady Griz classic the previous two seasons
North Dakota star guard Brianna Williams isn’t the only star athlete from her family as her brother Marcus is one of the defensive leaders of the two-time defending FCS champion North Dakota state Bison. Marcus Williams helped break open a tight title game last Saturday with 2 interceptions.
Emily Evers may be the tallest player in Big Sky women’s basketball at 6-5, but no other school had a chance at Evers. At least a dozen of Evers’ extended family are UND alums.
A true Freshman Shanae Gilham has been a major factor in the Lady Griz success in the early Conference schedule. Gilham has had great success from behind the 3-point line and leads the conference in 3-point percentage in league games. Gilham and Montana teammate Kellie Cole were teammates at Bozeman in 2010 when the Hawks won the AA title.
Northern Colorado enters the weekend as the only Big Sky women’s team with a perfect record, but now they have to go on the road. Northern Colorado is 6-6 overall and 3-3 in league play but all their wins have come on their home court in Greeley
The Bears depend greatly on junior guard D’Shara Strange, who is ranked among the top 10 in the Big Sky in 8 different categories. Strange was last season’s Big Sky Defensive Player of the year.
The Bears Lauren Oosdyke is among the league leaders in rebounds and blocked shots and has been big part of UNC improvement in the Conference. Oosdyke is an academic all-conference with a double major, Journalism and Communications.
The Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers haven’t met in the play-offs in 11 seasons but for a time they had a great play-off rivalry. From 1995 to 2001 the Niners and Packers met 5 times in the post-season. Green Bay has won 4 of their 5 meetings in the play-offs. Both teams might feel that without the New York Giants they would be reigning Super Bowl Champs as Eli Manning and the Giants came into both Green Bay and San Francisco and pulled off upsets.
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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.