By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
Washington Grizzly Stadium has not proven to be an enjoyable palce for the Weber State Wildcats. Weber State has lost its last 13 visits to the home of the Griz. The last two times the Wildcats have faced the Griz in Missoula they were defeated by a combined margin of 87-16.
For the fifth consecutive game the Griz will be facing an opponent who lost the week before, in Weber’s case a 44-0 at home to Southern Utah
Weber State does not have a lot of players among the Big Sky’s statistical leaders but one is sophomore running back Eric Wilkens. Wilkens leads the Big Sky in kick-off return yards and is among the top 10 in All-Purpose yards. Part of Wilkens’ training to move quick on his feet comes from several years of ballet lessons as a youngster.
True freshman Justin Shaw had “one of those days” last Friday against Southern Utah. Shaw completed three of his four pass attempts it was just that all three were caught by Thunderbird defenders.
Griz true freshman Jeremy Calhoun made an auspicious debut in College football last Saturday. Calhoun who was taken off his redshirt season with the injuries already to the Griz running back corps, had 4 rushes for 18 including a TD run. Calhoun is truly a “twin-threat” as his twin brother Justin is a red shirting freshman wide receiver for the Griz.
The Griz have won 35 of the last 41 games played in October.
Montana State faces another defensive challenge this week against Sacramento State. The Hornets have two quality quarterbacks in SMU transfer Kloney Cassel and Texas native Daniel Kniffin. Both QBs have posted impressive stats early on and both are ranked in the top 5 in at least one stat category.
While it is true that the Chicago cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908 they have won a post-season play-off series more recently than 7 other major League franchises (including the Twins Braves and Mariners). The Cubs downed the Atlanta Braves in an NL Divisional Series in 2003.
When the Houston Astros face the New York Yankees Tuesday night the Astros will become the 24th different franchise to face the Yankees in post-season play; if they get that far the Yankees could add a 25 team to that list should they face Toronto in the ALCS.
The Los Angles Angeles and San Francisco Giants were the last team eliminated from play-off contention in 2015. One might think that coming so close would be a motivating for the following season. Last year it was the Seattle Mariners and Milwaukee Brewers who were the last ones eliminated and neither was a serious contender in 2015.
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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.