UM Sports Trivia | Week of Sept 12

By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN

The Montana Grizzly football team is off to its seventh 2-0 start since 2000 and in the previous six, the Griz have gone on to average 12 wins a season. Cautionary note: neither of Montana’s FCS National titles was in a season that began 2-0.

Jerry Louie McGee’s 81-yard punt return on Saturday is the only punt or kick-off returned for a TD thus far this season in the Big Sky.
A fun fact: with their win Saturday at Northern Iowa the Griz have now won 100 games since the Rolling Stones appeared at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in early October of 2006.
Saturday the MSU Bobcats take on a dangerous Division II team in Western Oregon. The WOU Wolves have already beaten one Big Sky team on the road this season when they defeated Sacramento State two weeks ago in the California Capitol.  Bobcat fans might recall that 10 years ago this week the Cats were roundly defeated on their home turf by D-II Chadron State.
Even though the Griz have the weekend off there are two games on the schedule this week they might be interested in. In their Big Sky opener, last season’s surprises Portland State and Southern Utah meet to see who is for real and who was a flash in the pan in 2015. In Iowa City Iowa five-time defending FCS Champs North Dakota State ventures in to take on last season’s Rose Bowl participant from the Big Ten the Iowa Hawkeyes.
It has been a tough start in 2016 for the Griz volleyball team with just a 1-7 record, but there is a bright spot. Redshirt Sophomore Mykele Hammer an outside hitter. Mykele is third in the Big Sky in Service aces and helps Montana to its best stat in Conference rankings eighth in Service aces. Hammer was born on December 9, 1995, the day the Griz football team defeated Stephen F. Austin F. Austen 70-14 to earn the first ever trip to an FCS title game.
As the Major League baseball season nears the play-off a quick reminder to fans of the Chicago Cubs. You remember that all-Star game in July (sorry to remind you)? With the American League win, if the Cubs get to the World Series, they will not have home field advantage no matter how many games they win in the regular season.

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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.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 13th, 2016 at 7:49 pm
Category Archive: All Sports & Recreation, Blogs, Spectator Sports, UM Athletics, University of Montana
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