By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
The last time the Montana Grizzlies played a home football on October 19, was 2002 and the scoreboard operator worked overtime. The Griz faced Southern Utah in a battle of big plays with a record 113 points scored in a 68-45 Grizzly victory, it was a record for a Grizzly game.
Cal Poly head coach Tim Walsh is facing the Grizzlies as a head coach for the 16th time, 12 while head coach at Portland State and this will be his fourth meeting with the Griz as head coach at Cal-Poly. In September of 2010 the Mustangs upset the Griz ending Montana’s 19 game regular season winning streak.
Cal Poly has a couple of members of their staff that are particularly noteworthy. Offensive assistant Joe Harper spent 14 seasons as the Mustangs head coach from 1968-81 leading Cal Poly to the D-II nationals in 1980. Harper was the head coach at Northern Arizona from 1982-1984. Mustangs Equipment Manager Steve Kracher is a native of Columbia Falls and was a star running back at Montana State, Kracher feasted on the Grizzly defense in his days with the Bobcats scoring 6 touchdowns and running for nearly 350 yards against the Grizzlies.
Twenty years ago Wednesday the Skydome was the place to be if you were named Curt/Kurt Schilling. Curt Schilling was the starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies at the Toronto Skydome he lost to the Jays. In Flagstaff Arizona Grizzly Linebacker Kurt Schilling was part of a punt block, recovered a fumble and intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown.
Monday night the first Griz-Cat volleyball match takes place. Both UM and MSU are fighting for the final playoffs spots for the Big Sky tournament. In five of the nine major team stat categories Montana and Montana State are right next to each other. The Bobcats have a freshman duo of setter Anna Sykora and Middle Blocker Kennadie Clute who are both among the league statistical leaders.
Robin Pflugrad is having a tough time in his new job at offensive coordinator at Weber State as the Wildcats have scored 41 points total in their last 6 games. However, this week’s opponent for Weber is a team Pflugrad has had great success against. In his years coaching at both Portland State and Montana Pflugrad has been a part of 12 wins in 14 meetings against the MSU Bobcats.
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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.