Griz open season with pair of home matches

The Montana soccer team will open its 2015 regular-season schedule this week with a pair of home matches at South Campus Stadium. Montana will host Wyoming at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and Indiana State at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Idaho and Indiana State will play Friday at 2:30 p.m.

Friday's match is the only one of the weekend for Wyoming. Idaho plays at Washington State Sunday night.

Coverage: All three matches this weekend will have video streaming and live stats through gogriz.com. Jackson Wagner and Madi Worst will call the action on Griz All Access.

How they finished in 2014: Montana went 12-6-2 last season and won the Big Sky Conference regular-season championship with an 8-0-2 league record. The top-seeded Grizzlies ended their season with a 2-1 loss to No. 5 Idaho State in the semifinals of the Big Sky tournament.

Wyoming went 11-9-1 a year ago. The Cowgirls finished second behind San Diego State in the Mountain West Conference with an 8-3-0 league record. Wyoming lost at SDSU, 1-0 in overtime, in the championship match of the Mountain West tournament.

Indiana State finished the 2014 season 4-10-3 and last in the seven-team Missouri Valley Conference at 1-5-0. Idaho went 4-14-2 overall and tied for seventh in the Big Sky with a 4-4-2 league record. Both Indiana State and Idaho failed to advance to their conference's postseason tournament.

Where they were picked: In the Big Sky Conference preseason coaches' poll, Montana, with four first-place votes, was picked second behind Northern Arizona, which finished third last season but won the tournament championship. Idaho was picked ninth.

Wyoming was picked third in the Mountain West Conference behind San Diego State and Colorado College. Indiana State was picked fifth in the Missouri Valley Conference poll.

Tight match expected in opener: Friday will mark the fifth straight year that the Grizzlies and Cowgirls have met on the opening weekend of the season and will be the 10th meeting in series history. Montana holds a 5-3-1 advantage, with a 1-1-1 record against Wyoming in games played in Missoula.

Six of the last seven meetings between the teams have resulted in a tie or one-goal difference. The last meeting at Missoula, in 2013, resulted in a 0-0 draw. Last season's match at Laramie was a 1-0 Wyoming win on a goal by Kasey Curtis in the fourth minute.

"The two teams usually play early in the year when both teams are still trying to figure a lot of things out," said fifth-year UM coach Mark Plakorus. "It can take a while to get into a rhythm attacking, and early in the season it can be difficult to find that. That has something to do with the low-scoring games.

"But I also think both teams are really well organized defensively, and it's hard to break a team down when they are that tough defensively."

More on Wyoming: The Cowgirls are coached by Pete Cuadrado, who is entering his fourth year after a successful stint at North Dakota State. ... Wyoming is coming off a pair of exhibition wins, 3-2 over Nebraska-Omaha and 3-0 over Colorado School of Mines. Both matches were played at Laramie. ... Wyoming returns eight starters in 2015, including eight of the team's top 10 scorers from a year ago. ... Sophomore forward Kaitlyn Lomsnes led the team in scoring as a true freshman in 2014 with 10 goals and four assists. She was voted the Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year, and was named first-team All-MWC. ... Sophomore forward/midfielder Alisha Bass ranked second on the team in scoring last year with five goals and six assists. ... Wyoming will have a new goalkeeper this season following the graduation of two-year starter Alex Boehm. .... The Cowgirls are seeking their first Mountain West Conference championship and first NCAA tournament appearance. Cuadrado gives the program a good chance of accomplishing both in the near future.

"Pete does a good job of always having his team ready to play, so we need to make sure we're ready to go Friday and very prepared," said Plakorus. "He's been building his program into one of the better programs in the Mountain West, so Friday is definitely going to be a challenge for us.

"Our players are excited, but I also think they're nervous and maybe a little bit scared. Those are all the feelings you go through when you're stepping on the field for the first time with a brand-new team. You just hope the kids are ready and play at a very high level."

More on Indiana State: The Sycamores, from Terre Haute, Ind., lost both of their exhibition games, 3-1 at Austin Peay and 3-0 against Wisconsin-Milwaukee in a game played in Chicago on Saturday. ... ISU returns eight starters from last year's four-win team, but 13 of its 26 players on this year's roster are newcomers (12 true freshmen, one transfer from Carson-Newman). ... Erika True is in her seventh year as coach. She led the Sycamores to their best season in program history in 2013 (10-9-0) and to the Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship match in 2012 and '13. ... The team's top four scorers are back from last year's team, headlined by junior midfielder Maddie Orf, who scored seven goals and added two assists in 2014, and senior forward Sydeny Lovelace, who had four goals and a team-leading five assists. ... Montana defeated Indiana State 1-0 at Las Vegas in 2012 in the teams' only previous meeting. Erin Craig scored in the 68th minute off an assist from Mackenzie Akins, then a freshman.

"We played Indiana State in Vegas a couple of years ago, but it's nice to play teams we don't normally see," said Plakorus. "I know Erika pretty well, and she has a young team. She has a bunch of new players coming in.

"It will be a good experience for us to have to turn around and play them after a hard game Friday night. We're expecting another tough game on Sunday. We need to get into a rhythm of expecting every game to be a challenge and expecting it to be tough. This is a good way to start."

More on Montana: The Grizzlies did not play an exhibition game this preseason for the first time in five years under Plakorus. ... Montana returns eight starters in 2015, though who will be available to play (due to injuries) this weekend still had not been determined as of Wednesday. ... One returning starter (and last year's leading scorer) who is out for the season is midfielder Hallie Widner, last year's Big Sky Conference Newcomer of the Year who broke her leg in July at the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championships in Tulsa, Okla. ... Last year's third-leading scorer, Savannah Witt, who had two years of eligibility remaining, called it a career in early August due to repeated concussions. ... That leaves only five players on the active roster who scored last year. ... On the other end of the field, the Grizzlies' defense should be solid behind redshirt junior center back Tess Brenneman and junior goalkeeper Kailey Norman. Both were second-team All-Big Sky Conference last season. ... Look for true freshman Taryn Miller, of Greenacres, Wash., to join Brenneman at center back.

Upcoming: Montana will take its first road trip of the year next week with games at Nevada on Friday, Aug. 28, and Utah Valley on Sunday, Aug. 30. The Grizzlies will then be home for four straight matches against Washington State, Iowa, Purdue and Creighton.

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Players Mentioned

Mackenzie Akins

Tess Brenneman

Taryn Miller

Kailey Norman

Hallie Widner

Savannah Witt

University of Montana Athletics