Home matches open league schedule

The Montana soccer team, which made it through nine difficult nonconference matches with a winning record, will open its Big Sky Conference schedule this weekend when the Grizzlies host Idaho and Idaho State at South Campus Stadium.

Montana will face Idaho, the league's defending regular-season champion and this year's preseason favorite, on Friday at 4 p.m. and Idaho State at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Coverage: Fans unable to make it to South Campus Stadium can watch the video stream free of charge through Eversport.tv, with Jackson Wagner calling the action, or track the matches via live stats. Links to both services are available at gogriz.com.

Where they stand: Montana came out of its nine-match nonconference schedule with a 4-3-2 record. It is the first time in coach Mark Plakorus's six years at Montana that the Grizzlies take a winning record into league play. Two of his teams had .500 records when Big Sky matches arrived.

Idaho is 3-3-2, with a mixed bag of results. The Vandals lost to South Dakota in what is still the Coyotes' only win of the season, but they also had one of the Big Sky's better nonconference victories, winning 2-1 a dozen days ago at Seattle, a team that won at Texas and played Portland to a 1-1 draw.

Idaho State is 3-7-0, which may appear to be a less-than-desirable record, but it's already three times more wins than the Bengals had last year, when they went 1-17-1 and finished at the bottom of the Big Sky standings.

League play begins: When the whistle blows to start the Northern Colorado-Weber State match shortly after 3:30 p.m. in Ogden on Friday afternoon, the Big Sky Conference season will officially be underway.

Ten matches over six weekends -- each team has a single-match week against its travel partner the final weekend of the season, plus a one-match weekend against lone wolf Weber State -- will lead up to the six-team Big Sky tournament, which will be held Nov. 2-6 at the home of the regular-season champion.

"It's an exciting time of year, because everything resets. That's one of the great things about college athletics," said Plakorus. "No matter how good, average or bad a team has been, everybody gets to take a deep breath, hit the reset button and start all over again.

"What you try to do is use the experiences from your nonconference games to make you better so you can perform better in your conference season."

Fast starters: Even though Montana started 0-2 last season, with road losses at North Dakota and Northern Colorado, the Grizzlies still have a record better than .500 (4-3-2) on opening weekend in Plakorus's first five years.

The last time Montana opened at home, in 2014, the Grizzlies swept Weber State and Idaho State on their way to an unbeaten league finish of 8-0-2.

"We aren't going to win anything or lose anything this weekend," said Plakorus. "It's a start, with a lot of games ahead of us, but you can put yourself on a good foot going forward with a couple of results, or you can give yourself a bigger hill to climb if it goes the other way."

How Montana got here: With wins over Oakland, Purdue and Denver, and a draw at Wyoming, the Grizzlies opened the season 3-0-1, the best four-match start in program history. Montana also moved up to No. 9 in the NSCAA Pacific Region after two weekends.

Montana is 1-3-1 since then, the lone win coming at home against Boise State. The Grizzlies followed with a 1-0 home loss to Gonzaga, then went scoreless on the road last week, playing to a 0-0 draw at San Jose State and losing 1-0 at Fresno State on Sunday.

"We had an extremely challenging nonconference portion of our schedule. We played nine good teams, seven on the road," said Plakorus. "We've been in every game, and every game has been tight. There has been a lot of pressure, and that's a good thing because our conference games are going to be tight.

"We were put in a lot of situations where we had to deal with some adversity, whether it be going down in a game or an injury to a key play. We had to learn how to deal with those things and still play at a high level."

Streaks on the line: Idaho is unbeaten (10-0-2) in its last 12 matches against Big Sky Conference opponents. The Vandals went 9-0-1 in league last year, then defeated Montana 3-2 in the semifinals of the conference tournament at Moscow and tied Northern Colorado in the title match.

The Bears won the shootout 3-0 to deny Idaho a spot in the NCAA tournament.

Montana is unbeaten in its last 11 regular-season matches against Big Sky opponents at South Campus Stadium, dating back to October 2013. The Grizzlies won their final home match in 2013, then went 5-0-0 at home in 2014 and 4-0-1 last season.

The one agonizing loss not part of that streak since it came in the postseason was a 2-1 setback to Idaho State in the semifinals of the 2014 Big Sky tournament at South Campus Stadium.

Idaho personnel note: The Vandals had seven first- or second-team All-Big Sky selections last fall, and none of them were seniors. Two of the first-teamers were defenders, part of the reason Idaho gave up just four goals in 10 regular-season Big Sky matches last fall.

"They have a large group of seniors who experienced success last year. They put together a good year. They were picked to win the thing this year for a reason," said Plakorus.

"They are very good at what they do, so it's going to be a battle. I expect them to be very organized, to be very prepared and to play very hard. Our intensity, fight, focus and effort will have to at least match our opponents this weekend. If we do that, we'll have a chance to do our thing."

Idaho State personnel note: The Bengals went just 1-17-1 last season despite having Maria Sanchez, who led the Big Sky Conference with 15 goals. Sanchez left the team last spring, opting to transfer to Santa Clara. She is not playing collegiately this fall as she trains with the Mexican national team.

"I don't think they're better because she's no longer there," said Plakorus. "I think they're better because they didn't like what happened to them last year. They've done a good job of moving on and getting the most out of their players.

"They play with a chip on their shoulder because of what they experienced last year. They don't want that to happen again."

Montana notes:

* The Grizzlies have been shut out in their last three matches, against Gonzaga, San Jose State and Fresno State, and will take a 342-minute goalless streak into Thursday's match. It's the first time since early in the 2012 season, against Air Force, TCU and Texas Tech, that Montana has gone without a goal in three straight matches.

* Senior goalkeeper Kailey Norman allowed a single goal in 200 minutes on the road last week. Her goals-against average of 0.63 for the season leads the Big Sky. Her shutout on Friday at San Jose State was her fourth of the season and 20th of her career. She trails only Railene Thorson, who had 28 while playing from 1994-97, on the Montana career list.

* Montana leads the series against Idaho 7-6-0 and is 4-0-0 against the Vandals in Missoula. Idaho won a pair of matches against Montana last year in Moscow, winning 3-1 in the teams' regular-season matchup and 3-2 in the Big Sky tournament semifinals. Plakorus is 2-3 against Idaho.

* Montana leads the series against Idaho State 11-7-4 and is 8-2-1 against the Bengals in Missoula. The Grizzlies won last year's matchup 2-1 in Pocatello on goals by Ellie Otteson and Mackenzie Akins. Plakorus is 3-1-3 against Idaho State.

* Senior forward Aspen Peifer and senior center back Payton Agnew made their season debuts last week on the road after recovering from injuries. Peifer played 68 minutes at San Jose State, 47 at Fresno State. Agnew played 23 minutes at Fresno State.

* Montana has been outshot this season by 35, 111-76, but the Grizzlies have put 36 of their shots on goal to their opponents' 40, and that's the better evaluator.

* Montana's goals-against average of 0.63 leads the Big Sky. Northern Colorado, at 0.86, and Sacramento State, at 0.91, also allow less than one goal per match.

Big Sky Conference notes: Eastern Washington, at 6-1-1, takes the league's best record into conference matches. The only team to beat the Eagles this season was 7-2 UNLV. ... EWU, Northern Colorado (5-3-1), Montana and Idaho enter league with nonconference records of .500 or better.

Friday's schedule: Idaho at Montana, Idaho State at Eastern Washington, Northern Colorado at Weber State, Sacramento State at Southern Utah, Portland State at Northern Arizona

Sunday's schedule: Idaho State at Montana, Idaho at Eastern Washington, North Dakota at Weber State, Portland State at Southern Utah, Sacramento State at Northern Arizona

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Players Mentioned

Payton Agnew

Mackenzie Akins

Kailey Norman

Ellie Otteson

Aspen Peifer

University of Montana Athletics