Griz travel to UC Santa Barbara for Friday match

The Montana women's soccer team will play a single match this week, facing UC Santa Barbara Friday at 6 p.m. (MT) at UCSB's Harder Stadium.

The Grizzlies will open Big Sky Conference play next week with a road trip to North Dakota and Northern Colorado.

Coverage: Friday's match at UC Santa Barbara will have video and live stats options. Links to both services can be found on the soccer schedule page at gogriz.com.

Where they stand: The Grizzlies are 3-4-1 and coming off a pair of home losses at the Montana Cup. The Grizzlies lost 3-1 on Friday to Purdue and fell to Creighton on Sunday 1-0.

UC Santa Barbara is 4-2-1 and on a five-match unbeaten streak since losing its first two matches of the season. The Gauchos' first win of the year came on Sept. 4 with a 2-0 home win over Texas. Three straight wins have followed, including a road sweep last week at Duquesne, 2-1, and St. Francis, 3-2.

More on UC Santa Barbara: Friday's women's match will be followed by the UC Santa Barbara men's team taking on College of Charleston. The UCSB men drew more than 3,300 fans for their last home match, a 1-0 victory over Stanford. ... The Gauchos (women) host Dayton on Sunday. ... Freshman forward/midfielder Mallory Hromatko is on a five-match scoring streak, with three goals and three assists during that stretch. ... Junior midfielder Dakota Griggs has dished out four assists the last three matches. ... UC Santa Barbara coach Paul Stumpf needs one more win to reach 150 for his tenure at the school. ... UCSB has outshot its opponents this season 102-55 and has put 45 shots on goal to its opponents' 25. ... The Gauchos took a season-high 27 shots in their 3-2 win at St. Francis on Sunday. ... UC Santa Barbara tied for sixth out of nine teams in the Big West Conference preseason poll. The Gauchos finished ninth out of nine teams a year ago with a 2-6-0 league mark.

Coach Mark Plakorus on UCSB: "It's a team that's played well over the last two or three weeks, so they are playing with a lot of confidence. Their coaches do a great job of getting some of the better players from Southern California, so Santa Barbara is always going to be a team that is extremely talented.

"But all of our opponents are a challenge. Right now it's more about us and how we perform and what we do to make sure we're playing at a high level. We just need to go out and compete with everything we have. If we do that, we give ourselves a chance to win no matter who we play."

History: Montana and UC Santa Barbara have met just once before, a 4-0 UCSB victory in Hawaii during the 2008 season.

Who is Montana? Fans who attended both of the Grizzlies' matches at the Montana Cup last weekend saw two different teams. Within the same match.

Montana fell behind Purdue 3-0 by halftime on Friday. The Grizzlies came out and took nine of the first 10 shots to open the second half but could only pull within 3-1.

On Sunday Montana spent most of the match's first 30 minutes against Creighton possessing the ball in the Bluejays' end. From that point, Creighton outshot Montana 17-6.

"I don't think it's that we don't have an identity," said UM coach Mark Plakorus. "I think we know who we are, and I think we know how we want to play. It's a matter of consistently competing at that level. It's a matter of believing in ourselves and rising to the occasion we have in front of us.

"We're doing the things we need to do, but only in spurts. Now we need to take the steps to making it happen all the time."

Trending: Montana has won its last two matches played in California. The Grizzlies won 4-0 at UC Riverside to close out the 2013 season and won 2-1 at Sacramento State last season. ... Montana has scored just two goals in its last four matches. The Grizzlies have generated only four corner kicks in those matches; their opponents have taken 16. ... Montana has not outshot an opponent since winning at Nevada on Aug. 28. ... Sophomore Ashlee Pedersen scored her first career goal early in the second half against Purdue. ... Senior Mackenzie Akins had the assist on the play when her penalty kick hit off the right post and went to Petersen. It was Akins' 14th career assist, which moved her into a tie for sixth on the Montana career list with India Watne (2010-13) and Colleen Joyce (1998-99). ... Freshman forward Dani Morris and redshirt junior center back Tess Brenneman are the only players to start all eight matches this season. ... Junior goalkeeper Kailey Norman had a save percentage of .829 last season while earning second-team All-Big Sky Conference honors. She is at .718 in seven matches played this fall. ... Norman has a goals-against-average of 1.66 this season. She finished last year at 0.88.

Upcoming: Montana will play at North Dakota at 3 p.m. (MT) on Friday, Sept. 25, and at Northern Colorado at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27. The Grizzlies will then return home for matches against Southern Utah, Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington.

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Players Mentioned

Mackenzie Akins

Tess Brenneman

Dani Morris

Kailey Norman

Ashlee Pedersen

University of Montana Athletics