Griz face Lancers on Friday, tournament up next

The Montana soccer team will play an out-of-league match on Friday when it travels to Southern California to face Cal Baptist in Riverside at CBU Soccer Field.

The Grizzlies and Lancers will square off at 4 p.m. (MT) in what will be the final match of the season for Cal Baptist and the last match for Montana before it travels to Ogden, Utah, next week for the Big Sky Conference Tournament.

Montana is the only team in the Big Sky Conference to schedule a match for the weekend before the start of the league tournament on Wednesday, Oct. 31.

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzlies (4-7-6, 3-2-4 BSC) closed their Big Sky schedule last week with a road sweep of Portland State and Sacramento State to give the team its first winning streak of the season.

Montana won 1-0 at Portland State on Friday, a key head-to-head victory over another team in the hunt for a tournament spot, then claimed a postseason berth with a 3-1 win on Sunday at Sacramento State.

The three goals were the most for the Grizzlies since a 4-1 home victory over San Jose State on Aug. 27, 2017, and gave them just their second sweep of the Portland State-Sacramento State road trip since 1998.

Montana finished in a tie for fifth in the Big Sky standings and will be making its fifth consecutive trip to the Big Sky tournament, its league-record 17th overall.

The No. 5 Grizzlies will play No. 4 Northern Arizona in a quarterfinal match in Ogden at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 31. The winner will play top-seeded Weber State at 3 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2, in the semifinals.

Montana and Northern Arizona played to a 0-0 draw in Missoula on Oct. 14.

At a glance (Cal Baptist): The Lancers (11-5-1, 4-4-0 WAC) will conclude their first season as a Division I program on Friday by going for their 12th win.

They lost just once in their first nine matches this fall, a stretch that included a 2-0 home victory over Southern Utah, a team Montana played to a 1-1 draw in Missoula.

Picked eighth out of nine teams in the preseason WAC poll, Cal Baptist finished fourth, going 4-4-0 in league, with three of its four losses coming in 1-0 decisions.

Despite their finish, the Lancers were not eligible for the six-team WAC tournament.

Senior Desarae Felix leads Cal Baptist, which has outscored its opponents 28-14 this season, with eight goals and 19 points. Senior Carissa Christensen, a graduate transfer from Texas Tech, and sophomore Romy Salvador have split the starts in goal.

History: Friday will be the first matchup between Montana and Cal Baptist.

The weekend in review: Needing a win over Portland State on Friday on the road, Montana came through with a 1-0 victory over the Vikings on a goal by Alexa Coyle in the 71st minute off a sweet lead pass by Janessa Fowler.

The Grizzlies finished with a 17-7 advantage in shots, 9-1 in corner kicks, and used four saves by Claire Howard to post their seventh shutout of the season.

Two days later, on Sunday, Montana scored twice in the opening 15 minutes -- and that did not include shots off the crossbar and post -- to take early control at Sacramento State.

Fowler opened the scoring in the 11th minute on a penalty kick, awarded for a hand ball in the box. Less than four minutes later, it was 2-0 thanks to Kennedy Yost, who booted in a cross from Caitlin Rogers.

Montana went up 3-0 in the 63rd minute when a corner kick by Rogers was bodied into the goal by Alexa Coyle, her second of the weekend and team-leading fourth of the season.

Montana's road-trip shutout was spoiled when the Hornets got on the board in the 86th minute.

"I was really happy with the two performances," said coach Chris Citowicki. "We came out flying the second game especially. The first 22 minutes were incredible."

Montana's four goals in the two matches was just one less than the Grizzlies scored in their first seven Big Sky contests.

"I was really happy with the weekend. I thought it was good. It feels like we're peaking at the right time," Citowicki said. "I had a gut feeling the entire time that sooner or later the scoring would come, and it finally happened. We're just flying right now."

Montana didn't officially clinch a tournament spot until the final whistle blew on Sunday.

"We played with fire waiting until the very end, but we never doubted that we weren't going to (make the tournament)," said Fowler.

"We've been waiting for all the pieces to finally feel like they came together. Everything about it feels so right. It's a really good place to be right now."

Friday preview: Citowicki wasn't the one who put the 2018 schedule together, so he had no say in being the lone Big Sky team to be playing a match this week.

Former coach Mark Plakorus scheduled it, and he liked to keep his team in a rhythm late in the season, which he believed taking a weekend off would disrupt.

Not really given a choice, Citowicki has embraced the same outlook.

"If you're a team like us that's built up some momentum, is that going to go away if you're waiting so long before your next game?" he asked. "Potentially.

"I think it's nice to have a game in between (the end of the league schedule and the start of the league tournament). It's a chance to test some players who may not have been getting a lot of minutes, give them some time and see if we can get some other players peaking right before playoffs."

The challenge on Friday will be on both sides. California Baptist hasn't allowed more than a single goal in its last seven matches, with four shutouts, and the Lancers -- though they've scored just two goals their last five matches -- have 28 on the season, a total that would rank second in the Big Sky.

It puts Citowicki in a precarious situation. He has players who have been on the field nearly every minute during league matches, and they could use a break on Friday, or at least a reduced role.

But he also wants to keep his offense humming. And he probably needs his best players on the field if he wants to win Friday's match, which would be beneficial heading into Ogden next week.

He probably won't know if he pulled the right strings until well after the fact.

"It's a tricky situation for us. What do you do?" he asked. "Does the result matter? Does it not matter? We need to show up and be ready to play, otherwise it could be a bad taste in our mouths going into playoffs."

Montana should be able to lean on its defense on Friday. In nine league matches, Montana had four shutouts and three other times allowed one goal.

Unlike scoring, which typically requires a helping of luck, defending is usually more proportional. What a team puts into it, it most often gets out of it.

"One thing you can control in soccer is how you defend," Citowicki said. "Attacking comes down to luck, which we didn't have for a long time, while defending comes down to being in the right place at the right time.

"So we were always in control of that aspect, and I think we've defended extremely well. It's been very difficult to score on us. I knew as soon as it clicked on the other end that we were going to start winning games, and it happened last weekend."

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* It was a tight battle atop the Big Sky this season, with the top four teams being separated by a mere four points. Weber State (22) was trailed by Idaho (20), Northern Colorado (19) and Northern Arizona (18).

* Weber State, the predetermined tournament host, earned the No. 1 seed last weekend, with the Wildcats winning at Idaho State and some other results going in WSU's favor.

* Idaho moved up to the No. 2 spot and earned the other tournament bye with a strong road trip to close out the regular season. The Vandals won at Southern Utah and played to a draw at NAU.

* The No. 5 and 6 seeds at next week's tournament have the league's longest current winning streaks, with Eastern Washington at three, Montana at two. The Eagles have won the last two tournaments.

* It will be interesting to see who wins Big Sky Coach of the Year. Solid cases can be made for Weber State's Tim Crompton, whose team was picked eighth in the preseason poll, and for Idaho's Jeremy Clevenger, who took over a team picked seventh in the preseason poll in July.

Those teams went 13-2-3 in league.

* No. 6 Eastern Washington will face No. 3 Northern Colorado next Wednesday at noon. No. 4 Northern Arizona and No. 5 Montana will play at 3 p.m. The Bears defeated the Eagles in their regular-season meeting, 3-1 in Greeley.

* On Friday, Nov. 2, No. 2 Idaho will play the winner of the first quarterfinal match at noon, top seed Weber State will play either Montana or Northern Arizona at 3 p.m.

* The tournament championship match will be played on Sunday, Nov. 4, at noon.

* Weber State (2013), Northern Colorado (2015), Northern Arizona (2014), Montana (2011) and Eastern Washington (2016, '17) have all won tournament titles since 2011. Idaho was the runner-up to Northern Colorado in 2015, so it will be an accomplished field that descends upon Ogden next week.

* The All-Big Sky Conference teams will be announced on Tuesday, the day before the tournament opens.

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Players Mentioned

Alexa Coyle

Janessa Fowler

Claire Howard

Caitlin Rogers

Kennedy Yost

University of Montana Athletics