The Craig Hall Chronicles :: Sydney Haustein and Marley Muelhaupt

The response was almost always the same, every time Brandi Muelhaupt told another parent that her middle of three daughters didn't live with the rest of the family. That she attended school at Shattuck-St. Mary's, three hours away from the family home in Des Moines, Iowa.

Oh, I could never send my daughter to boarding school. It wasn't more than two weeks ago that she heard it again.

So often the reply came with a hint of judgment, at worst a whiff of condescension, just one letter turning the sentiment from I could never send my daughter to boarding school to I would never send my daughter to boarding school. That's what so many of them wanted to say, wasn't it?

Maybe you'd have had the same reaction, to being told that Marley Muelhaupt three years ago had packed her bags and been dropped off at boarding school, where she would live and attend classes through her senior year.

It's the boarding school part of it that probably doesn't sit well, isn't it? If so, it's most likely based on where your mind goes when you hear that term. Me? I think of a place for wayward youth, those who have left their parents throwing their hands in the air and saying, We give up! Here, you try!

Heidi Haustein heard the same things, though with her it was even more so. She had two kids. Twins, Sydney and Logan. And they both ended up at Shattuck-St. Mary's from Las Vegas three years ago.

She and her husband knew the days of an empty nest were coming. Just not so soon. "People thought we were crazy," she says. "Oh, I'd never let my kids go that young and live away from home."

But what if your mind went somewhere else when you heard Shattuck-St. Mary's?

What if you learned it was one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the nation, with internationally renowned academics to go along with powerhouse athletic programs, all while sitting humbly in Faribault, Minn., where it was founded in 1858?

Or that it drew students for its grades 6-12 curriculum from 41 states and 27 countries, that it had seven of its former hockey players selected in the NHL draft in June, giving the school more than 80 draftees since 1995, including a pair of No. 1 overall selections in Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon.

It's not a boarding school as much as it is an opportunity.

The Muelhaupts had heard of the school 200 miles up the interstate but never enough to know much about it, but there were the Shattuck coaches, at their daughter's soccer tournament in Wisconsin, after her eighth-grade year, after her club team had won the state cup in Iowa and advanced to regionals.

"We got a letter a few days later," recalls Brandi. "Marley was so excited, and we were flattered." So they looked into it. The giddiness lasted about as long as it took to find the school's annual tuition: north of $52,000. "Yeah, that's not going to happen" was the official response.

The school offered a free camp, which Marley attended later that summer. She was becoming more and more hooked on the idea, as middle schoolers can get when it's not their money and the idea of moving away from home sounds like an adventure, without giving any thought to the hardships or sacrifices.

Brandi had her doubts. As a mother. As a co-provider of three children. Then she visited the school. "The minute we drove through the arch, I was pretty sold on it," she says. "Of course some other things had to happen."

They did, in the form of an offer that made it much more realistic. But it wasn't going to happen as a ninth grader. That was a bit much for everyone. But the coaches kept after her, recruiting Marley the same way college coaches would soon be doing, begging her to come play soccer at their school.

Shattuck-St. Mary's is a prep school of 500 students spread over six grades, three-quarters of whom are boarders.

Its seven soccer teams -- girls U15, U17, U19, boys U15, U16, U17, U19 -- operate at the club level, not the scholastic. It's one of 200 in the nation that has the distinction of operating within the U.S. Soccer Development Academy. In short, it's a DA club, and that's a big deal.

And then there are the academics and the Centers of Excellence in BioScience, Engineering, Vocal Performance and Pre-Conservatory Music, among others. It's a landing spot for high achievers, for those who want to be challenged at a higher level than public school and get a jump-start on life.

"They made a good offer, so I felt like we really didn't have a choice, like we would have been holding Marley back," Brandi says. "All the students there were pretty passionate about what they were doing. All of them had that common drive and passion.

"Usually you regret the things you don't do, more than the things you do do, right? I didn't want to look back and say, We should have. Those tend to be your biggest regrets."

The final obstacle? Calvin Muelhaupt. "I had to ask, 'What's holding you back?' " Brandi says of her husband. "He said, 'She's my best friend.' That was pretty cute."

Calvin didn't visit the school until Christmas break of his daughter's freshman year. "He was there for maybe an hour and was like, 'Yeah, she needs to go here.' He saw how special it was."

Logan Haustein, who will be a freshman at Guilford College in North Carolina this year, discovered the same thing, when he was looking to leave Las Vegas early in his high school career to find a level of soccer that was more immersive than just high school and club.

He explored an academy-type opportunity in Colorado, another in Utah. Then Shattuck-St. Mary's popped up at a tournament in Las Vegas, spotted him, and some coaches sidled up to Heidi and Dan and asked if their son was interested in relocating.

"We both grew up in Minnesota, so it was the weirdest thing how it worked out," Heidi says.

A trip was set up, for Logan and his parents, and it happened to coincide with spring break for Logan's twin sister, Sydney. "She was like, 'I want to go,' " says Heidi. And that's how the Hausteins went from having two kids under their roof to two kids who visited mom and dad on their breaks.

Since Sydney, then just 15, was on the trip, the coaches asked if she wanted to jump in and practice with SSM's U18 team, the only girls' team around and training that weekend.

She did, and Syd was Syd. "She's so good, the way she sees the game, the way she finds space, the through-balls she plays," says Chris Citowicki, who would become her coach at Montana. "She's on another level I feel like."

For a player who had big dreams but didn't feel like the level of soccer in Las Vegas was going to allow her to reach her big goals, she had found the place she, too, wanted to call home.

"By the end of the weekend, they approached us and said, 'We'd really like to have both kids,' " says Heidi. "I was preparing myself for one. I wasn't really ready to give up two.

"Their side of it was for soccer. Our side of it was academics. It was going to be a better school academically than any school in Las Vegas. That's how we made our decision as parents. We'll sacrifice not having you home for the next three years because of the academics. And they got the soccer."

Since this is the Craig Hall Chronicles, the preseason series that highlights Montana's freshmen, you already know that Muelhaupt and Haustein both ended up as Grizzlies.

Add their paths traveled to the long list of unique roads taken to Missoula. We told you on Wednesday that this was going to be far different than the tale of Molly Massman, who grew up on 20 acres near San Luis Obispo, her grandparents living on the same property, her club team just down the road.

The motto at Shattuck-St. Mary's? All in. Indeed. Half-measures not accepted. And yet they are all teammates in the end, no matter the route followed.

"Some people remain somewhat local and (make it to Montana). Some people drive hours and do it. Other people leave home completely to end up at a place like this. That was (Marley and Sydney's route)," says Citowicki.

The players arrived at Shattuck the same month, in time to begin their sophomore years. They quickly fell into the routine, more collegiate than high school.

Classes beginning at 8 a.m. A midday training session. Rush to lunch and shower. Back for classes until 4 p.m. Then dinner and studying. A lot of studying.

By the time Shattuck-St. Mary's students enter 11th grade, they take on the school's Blended Learning schedule. Classes on Tuesday and Thursday, maybe eight to 12 students in each, with Monday, Wednesday and Friday open for internships or independent research projects.

Or travel for competition. SSM has Centers of Excellence in figure skating and golf in addition to soccer and hockey, the sport that has brought Shattuck 25 USA Hockey national championships across different age groups, both boys and girls, over the years.

Unlike at most schools, athletes were more the norm than the exception. Shattuck-St. Mary's knows it. And somewhat relies on it.

"Everyone knew our schedules and was on top of it. As an athlete, you didn't get behind unless you didn't do your work," says Haustein, who took high-level classes she says she never would have attempted had she remained in public school in Las Vegas. Credit the environment.

She had personal breakthroughs. She learned time-management. She got to travel and compete at a higher level of soccer than if had she remained in Las Vegas. It all put the prep in preparatory school, a term that brings up better visions than boarding school.

Muelhaupt had the same experience. "Our schedule was very similar to how college is going to be," she says. "The first year was hard, but by the end of my sophomore year, I had it down.

"I liked that environment because I prefer to get what I need from the classroom, then I focus and do my work better on my own time, when I want to do it. That works better for me."

"A massive advantage" is what Citowicki calls it. "Everything a college freshman experiences? They've already done it. They'll still go through a learning process with everyone else, but I think it will be easy for them to make the transition. They already know what it takes."

Shattuck-St. Mary's is not an unknown to Citowicki, who spent six years earlier this decade coaching at Division III St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn., just 50 minutes north of Faribault. In fact he had an SSM player on one of his teams.

Plus he knew some of the coaches well, so he just had to check out the school's U19 team that was playing at a showcase tournament in San Diego last summer, not long after being named Montana's new head.

He saw Haustein, "this crafty scientist," doing her thing. Then there was Muelhaupt, a defender who "will just wreck you," says Citowicki.

"You've got a nice little pairing there, of Marley playing in the back, just taking it to people and getting it done, even if it's a little messy, and Syd just painting beautiful pictures up the field."

It would have been a mostly new position for Muelhaupt, who started the sport scoring goals as a forward. Then she began playing midfield at Shattuck. Finally she moved to outside back last year, which is where Citowicki saw her destroying all comers.

Had he known her history, he would have said, "Yep, that's Marley."

"It's always been like that," she says. "I've had to learn how to tone it down. When I was a kid, it would get pretty bad sometimes. My coaches would have to pull me off the field. Hey, chill out. Calm down.

"It was never dirty, just aggressive. Very aggressive. It comes from passion and just wanting to get there first. And win."

Citowicki dug out his information guide that day, wanting to see where Muelhaupt and Haustein were committed. Probably Big Ten. Power Five for sure.

"I looked at the roster and AHHHH!!!," he says, screaming in both delight and surprise, like he's just jumped into a pool that was colder than he was expecting. One that totally energizes you.

"They are not committed anywhere? How are they not committed? I started texting people. What's going on here? Am I missing something?"

Both had their reasons. Muelhaupt had interest from some schools on the East Coast and plenty from those in the Midwest, where she had made a name for herself.

Her older sister, Jaqui, had stayed somewhat local, attending Iowa, where she is close to earning a degree. But Marley wanted to see, again, what else was out there.

But it was more than just geographic. She wanted the kind of coach who could move her to tears during her official visit. Citowicki: guilty.

"He talked about everything that matters to him, about actually living your life, and that it's not always going to be soccer, how there is so much more," she says.

"I didn't want to be just another player on the team or just a player a coach is using to win matches. Chris cares about every single person on the team, more than just as a player. That was a big thing for me. The biggest."

Haustein wasn't brought to tears, at least that she admits, but she does say she was waiting for that OMGx10 moment when she stepped foot on campus, and Montana got it done. Per usual.

"I was just waiting to be wowed by a school," says Haustein, who had plenty of interest from schools in California. "And I wasn't until I came on this campus.

"I was like, Yeah, this is where I want to be. It took me to be here to understand that. When I got here, I just kind of knew."

Attending Shattuck-St. Mary's wasn't all about getting here, to playing soccer at the Division I level, but it was a big part of the reason they made the jump they -- and their families -- did three years ago.

Now their first official practice as Grizzlies is just five days away. Haustein will add playmaking and scoring punch to an offense that should be much more dynamic than it was last fall, the team's first season under Citowicki.

Muelhaupt, at 5-foot-8, is going to make the transition from outside back to center back, a process of discovery she's already begun the last few weeks during player-led practices.

"There is a big difference. Outside back allows for more risk-taking, and I like to get up and get in the attack," says Muelhaupt, who will be one of the players trying to fill the first-team All-Big Sky Conference role of Taryn Miller. "There are some big shoes to fill."

Of course nothing could be better for an incoming freshman than to have perhaps the Big Sky's best goalkeeper behind her. That's what Muelhaupt has in Claire Howard.

"I love Claire. She's been great. It's already an awesome relationship," says Muelhaupt. "She's very vocal and makes me feel confident.

"I don't need a goalie yelling at me when I do something wrong. They make me panic instead of making me feel comfortable, and I play best when I'm comfortable. Claire gives me this confidence with what she says and how she directs me to do something. It motivates me."

Muelhaupt and Haustein, two of 11 freshmen, two of 12 newcomers, all fighting for a spot, an opportunity. Add them to a group of 15 returners, all of whom are coming off a championship season, and it's about to get real.

"I would have been happy getting one. To get them both is pretty unique and special. It will be fun to watch them compete in our environment. They are going to push some people," says Citowicki. "It's going to be a very, very competitive environment this year."

Brandi Muelhaupt didn't know much about Shattuck-St. Mary's when the school's coaches first reached out to her daughter. But the more she learned the more she liked.

Same with Montana. "It's somewhere we hadn't been before. When we started talking to people about it, we'd hear, 'Oh, Missoula is just my favorite place.' Really, why haven't we ever been? Then when we went, it's just this hidden gem."

It's the story of Muelhaupt and Haustein. Discovered by Shattuck-St. Mary's, polished and made even more masterful the last three years. Found again, surprisingly unclaimed, by Citowicki, ready to become their most brilliant, hidden gems no longer.

University of Montana Athletics

The Craig Hall Chronicles :: Sydney Haustein and Marley Muelhaupt

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