Griz to play final nonconference matches

The Montana soccer team will play its final nonconference matches of the regular season this weekend when the Grizzlies travel to California to take on San Francisco and Saint Mary's.

Montana will face the Dons on Friday at 8 p.m. (MT) at USF's Negoesco Stadium. Sunday's match against the Gaels, at Saint Mary's Stadium in Moraga, will start at 1 p.m. (MT).

The Grizzlies have never defeated either team. Montana is 0-2-0 against San Francisco, 0-2-0 against Saint Mary's, without a goal scored against either program.

Montana will open its five-week Big Sky Conference schedule next week, with matches at Idaho and Eastern Washington.

Where they stand:

* Montana is 1-3-3 after picking up its first win of the season at home last Friday, 1-0 over Cal Poly. The Grizzlies nearly made it a weekend sweep but had to settle for a 1-1 draw against Wyoming on Sunday after allowing a penalty-kick goal with two seconds remaining in regulation.

* San Francisco, which won 2-0 at Missoula last season, has already picked up five wins and sits at 5-3 on the season. The Dons have shutout victories over San Diego State, Illinois and UC Riverside. Two of USF's three losses have come to USC and Stanford, teams ranked No. 2 and 3 in this week's national poll.

* Saint Mary's, which hosts Portland State on Friday afternoon, is 3-4, with three wins in its last five matches. The Gaels, who handed Idaho State its first win of the season last week, played opposite Montana to open the season, losing 1-0 at North Dakota State and 2-1 in overtime at North Dakota.

Montana notes:

* The Grizzlies picked up their first win of the season on Friday, taking down Cal Poly 1-0 on a goal by McKenzie Kilpatrick in the 80th minute. The shutout was the 19th of her career for junior goalkeeper Claire Howard.

* Montana led Wyoming 1-0 on Sunday when the Grizzlies were whistled for a foul in the box with two seconds remaining in regulation. The Cowgirls converted and neither team scored in overtime. It was the fourth straight meeting between Montana and Wyoming played to a draw.

* Montana's goal against Wyoming came on a Kendall Furrow header off a Caitlin Rogers corner kick in the 49th minute.

* Both of Montana's goals last weekend, from the foot of Kilpatrick and the head of Furrow, were the first of their collegiate careers. Kilpatrick's came on her second career shot, Furrow's her first. (Furrow's second career shot came in the first overtime against Wyoming. It went off the left post.)

* Kilpatrick's performance against Cal Poly and Wyoming -- one goal scored, part of a defense that allowed one goal in 200 minutes -- earned her Big Sky Conference Defensive Player of the Week honors on Tuesday. It was the first time a Montana player has been recognized by the league this season.

* Montana's list of nonconference opponents continues to impress. North Dakota (6-1-1), North Dakota State (4-3-1), Washington State (5-1-0), Gonzaga (6-2-0), California (7-0-0), Cal Poly (2-5-1) and Wyoming (3-1-3) are a combined 33-13-6 (.692).

The only team from that list with a losing record, Cal Poly, owns a 2-1 victory over Pepperdine, a team that on Friday afternoon handed No. 2 Stanford its first loss of the season, 1-0.

San Francisco notes:

* The Dons are coming off an 11-win season and a fifth-place finish in the West Coast Conference, at 4-3-2 in league.

* USF was picked sixth in this year's preseason poll, coming in behind BYU, Santa Clara, Pepperdine, Portland and Gonzaga.

* Senior forward Miciah Madison, who has five goals and three assists through the team's first eight matches, was voted to the 11-player preseason All-WCC squad.

* Samantha Jehnings scored in the 19th and 22nd minutes in San Francisco's 2-0 win at Montana last season. She ended last season with 11 goals and has a team-high six goals through eight matches this fall.

* San Francisco is in its eighth year under coach Jim Millinder, who was the Pac-10 Coach of the Year in 1996 and '98 when he was at USC.

Montana-San Francisco history:

* The Grizzlies are 0-2-0 against the Dons, losing 1-0 at San Francisco in 1996, in Montana's third year as a program, and 2-0 in Missoula last August.

Saint Mary's notes:

* The Gaels are coming off a 7-10-2 season and an eighth-place finish in the West Coast Conference at 2-6-1.

* Saint Mary's was picked ninth out of 10 teams in this year's preseason poll, ahead of only Pacific.

* The Gaels have had just one winning season since 2001, when Saint Mary's went 15-3-2 and had five wins over ranked teams. Following the 2002 season, coach Paul Ratcliffe turned that success into the job at Stanford, where he's won two national championships.

* Saint Mary's has wins this season over Wisconsin-Green Bay, 1-0, Cal Baptist, 2-1, and Wagner, 6-1. All three wins have come at home, where the Gaels are unbeaten this season.

* Saint Mary's traveled to Pocatello last week and lost 2-1 in overtime at Idaho State, the first win of the season for the team picked last in the Big Sky preseason poll.

* Senior forward Jaylen Crim has a team-high four goals this season and will take a three-match goal-scoring streak into Friday's match against Portland State.

Montana-Saint Mary's history:

* Montana is 0-2-0 against Saint Mary's, with a 1-0 loss in 2003 and 2-0 defeat in 2005. Both matches were neutral site, played in nearby Berkeley.

This week's storylines:

* Kilpatrick's big strike: Her instincts told her to just chip the ball back into the box so that one of her teammates could break the late scoreless tie against Cal Poly on Friday. Her teammates called for the ball, certain they were in the perfect position to score.

The free kick in the 80th minute had been kicked around the box and made its way to McKenzie Kilpatrick, 20 yards out from goal. She didn't play it back into the mix of bodies in front of goal. She didn't pass it off to a teammate. This one was all hers.

She saw space and ripped a shot to the upper right corner. Montana 1, Cal Poly 0.

"I haven't scored since high school," Kilpatrick said this week. "As an outside back, you're there to stop the ball from going in our own goal and protect our own goalkeeper.

"On that free kick, I was just up on the 18, doing what I could when the ball came out. I took a touch and was like, nope, this one's mine. I saw the upper V on the right and took it. It's super exciting any time the team is celebrating. It was so cool to kind of have the team rallying with me."

* What good will come from Sunday's heartbreak? Coach Chris Citowicki says it's the most upset he's been over a draw since he's been at Montana, and there have been a number of them (nine in 29 matches under Citowicki).

Montana simply had to play out the clock against Wyoming, a team the Grizzlies led 1-0 going into the final minute of regulation, a team whose only loss this season had come against Baylor.

But the Cowgirls got a late possession, played the ball across the boundary of the box and drew a foul that wasn't debatable. Penalty kick: good. Stomach punch: landed.

"The tie was annoying, just because it was there for us to take. It was our game. Our inability to manage the game hurt us," said Citowicki. "It just loads us up on training ammo for this week for training sessions. When we do, we're going to be even better for it."

It probably would have been the signature regular-season win for the Grizzlies under Citowicki, against a team that was 3-0-0 against Big Sky opponents this season.

"To be at that point, where we're getting ties against upper-mid-major teams and saying we were the better team? It's awesome," said Citowicki, whose team does not have a senior.

"We have a young team and yet we're this close. I expected us to be here next year, and we're already close. It comes down to our competitive training environment. We're going at it. It can be more competitive than games."

"The momentum we have, the way we compete in practice, the way everyone is so hungry, we just want more and more and more," added Kilpatrick. "We're a step ahead of where we were last year at this point.

"We're one percent away. It's just that one percent that's not clicking. When it happens, it won't be that it's coming. It will be that it's here and we've done it."

Upcoming: Montana will open its league schedule next week with matches at Idaho (2-6-0) and Eastern Washington (3-4-1).

The Vandals this week play at Oregon State and host North Dakota. The Eagles host North Dakota State.

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Players Mentioned

Kendall Furrow

Claire Howard

McKenzie Kilpatrick

Caitlin Rogers

University of Montana Athletics