Montana continues string of challenging road matches

The Montana soccer team, which dropped its first game in more than a month on Sunday at Northern Colorado, will continue its stretch of three straight road matches when it plays at Idaho and Eastern Washington this weekend.

The Grizzlies (7-5-1, 3-1-1 BSC) will face the Vandals (8-4-2, 2-3-1 BSC) in Moscow on Friday at 7 p.m. (MT), the Eagles (5-9-0, 3-3-0 BSC) on Sunday at 2 p.m. (MT) in Cheney.

Montana will wrap up its regular-season schedule with home matches against Weber State and Idaho State on Oct. 22 and 24. The six-team Big Sky Conference tournament will open in Greeley, Colo., a week and a half later, on Wednesday, Nov. 3.

At a glance (Montana): The Grizzlies traveled to Greeley last weekend for a matchup against first-place Northern Colorado and came away with a 1-0 loss after the Bears scored a goal late in the first half and made it stand up with their third shutout in their last four matches.

Montana had gone 6-0-1 over its previous seven matches without a goal allowed prior to Sunday. The loss was the first for the Grizzlies since they fell 3-0 at Gonzaga on Sept. 5. UNC's goal was the first allowed by Montana in 705 minutes, since the second half of its loss at Gonzaga.

The Grizzlies sit in third place in the Big Sky standings, behind Northern Colorado (7-6-2, 5-0-0 BSC) and Weber State (7-6-0, 4-1-0 BSC). Four teams are within three points of Montana in the standings, including both of this weekend's opponents.

At a glance (Idaho): The Vandals were the talk of the Big Sky after opening the season 8-2-1. Even in those two losses, both on the road at Oregon State and Weber State, both by 2-1 scores, Idaho scored the first goal.

Then came a somewhat surprising 0-0 home draw with Southern Utah. Last week the Vandals went on the road and fell 2-1 at Sacramento State and 3-2 at Portland State. Against the Vikings, Idaho led 2-0 at the half but got outshot 19-6 the rest of the way and lost in overtime on a goal in the 95th minute.

The sweep has left Idaho in a tie for sixth with three critical matches remaining, at home this weekend for Montana and Northern Colorado, then a single match next week at Eastern Washington.

The Vandals have been shut out just twice this season, in 0-0 draws against Cal Baptist and Southern Utah. In its other 12 matches, Idaho has held a lead in 11 of them.

At a glance (Eastern Washington): It was a slow start to the season for the Eagles under first-year coach Missy Strasburg, with 4-0 losses to Gonzaga, Washington State and Arkansas, and a 3-0 setback at Texas Tech, but the Eagles have been one of the surprise teams in the Big Sky the last three weekends.

EWU has split all three of its weekends, including a 3-1 road win at Idaho State and a 1-0 win at Portland State, plus a 2-0 home win over Southern Utah. The Eagles lost 2-1 at Weber State, 1-0 at Northern Arizona and 4-2 at Sacramento State on Sunday in its most recent match.

Eastern Washington gets its last three matches at home, where the Eagles are 3-2-0 this season. EWU, in a tie for fourth with Northern Arizona, one point behind the Grizzlies, gets Northern Colorado and Montana at home this weekend, Idaho next weekend.

Series history (Montana-Idaho):

* Montana leads the all-time series with Idaho 11-7-1 and has gone 5-5-0 against the Vandals in Moscow.

* The Grizzlies are unbeaten against the Vandals in the teams' last five matchups (4-0-1). All four of those wins have been 1-0 decisions, with two of them being decided in overtime.

* Montana has won its last four matches against Idaho in Moscow, all by a 1-0 score.

* The Grizzlies swept the teams' two-match series in Moscow in March, winning both matches 1-0.

* In the first game, Montana won on Alexa Coyle's goal in the fourth minute. Two days later, Rita Lang scored in the 100th minute off a free kick.

Series history (Montana-Eastern Washington):

* Montana leads the all-time series with Eastern Washington 16-8-2 and has gone 9-5-0 against the Eagles in Cheney.

* After winning seven straight against the Eagles, from 2010 to 2016, the Grizzlies have won just two of the teams' last six matchups.

* The teams' last matchup in Cheney was a memorable one. Montana won 1-0 in 2019 in the final match of the regular season, on a goal by Kendall Furrow in the 79th minutes, to claim the outright Big Sky championship.

* The teams played a two-match series in Missoula last spring. The Eagles won the opener 3-2 in overtime to hand the Grizzlies their first loss of the shortened season. Montana bounced back two days later with a 3-1 win on Senior Day.

Summary:

Through three of five weekends of league matches, Montana finds itself in a good position. The Grizzlies are in third place with 10 points, with four matches still to be played, while three of their four closest pursuers for the six-team Big Sky tournament have just three matches remaining.

Because, after all, Montana's dream of playing in its third NCAA tournament in the last four seasons, its sixth overall, can't be realized if the Grizzlies don't first punch their ticket to Greeley for the first week of November.

"At this point of the season, you want to be in playoff contention, if not challenging for first place," said coach Chris Citowicki. "I feel like we're in a pretty good spot that way.

"The ultimate goal is to make it to the NCAA tournament, and you can't do that if you don't make it to playoffs. I think we're one or two wins away from a playoff spot."

But not all is rosy for the Grizzlies, who have been shut out the last two games and haven't scored in the last 252 minutes.

If you discount Montana's 4-0 and 6-0 lopsided wins over MSU Billings and Texas Southern, the Grizzlies have scored just seven goals in their other 11 matches, never more than a single goal in any of those contests.

"We need to be playing better if we want to end up winning in playoffs once we get there," said Citowicki. "There are things we need to fix, things we need to correct."

It's been a season of razor-thin margins. On Sunday afternoon in Greeley, Montana found itself on the wrong side of that margin when the Bears scored a goal in the 41st minute when goalkeeper Camellia Xu couldn't cleanly wrap up a cross and a UNC player was there to kick in the dropped ball.

Down 1-0 at the half, Montana would only get off four second-half shots and only put one of them on goal.

The result: a loss. The result that followed the result: a bus ride from Greeley to Denver that led to some program soul-searching.

"We had probably the most productive coaching session I've had in my life on that bus ride. It was a deep dive into what our mentality is," said Citowicki, whose team had five straight 1-0 victories before playing to a scoreless draw against Portland State and Sunday's 1-0 loss in Greeley.

"The best thing about a loss is it exposes you in certain areas and shows you what you need to get better at. If we had pulled off a tie against Northern Colorado, I don't think we would have taken as deep a dive into what is ultimately wrong."

Of course there is plenty to like. Northern Colorado broke a 705-minute scoreless streak by Montana's defense, and the Grizzlies have still allowed just a single goal over its last eight matches.

But maybe there was too much emphasis on the defense at the expense of the offense.

"Our mentality has been to be brilliant defensively. Even when we were attacking, we were thinking about defending," said Citowicki. "We were getting stuck in games where it's 1-0 all the time or 0-0.

"The scoring phase has to improve. It's committing people to scoring. We need to create more opportunities. We need to get more people in advanced areas, so it's exciting to move into this week."

Montana notes:

* Back in 1996, former coach Betsy Duerksen's third team set a program record of 702 consecutive minutes without allowing a goal. That record stood until Sunday, when the 2021 team made it to 705 minutes before Northern Colorado scored late in the first half.

* Speaking of records, Taylor Hansen is now the Montana all-time leader for career minutes played at 6,942, which broke Lauren Costa's previous standard. She has spent more than 115 hours in competition, or nearly five days of her life.

* Hansen has now played in 85 games, which matches the program record set by Ellie Otteson (2015-18). Hansen will establish a new standard on Friday in Moscow, then continue adding to it as the season rolls on.

* Montana has made the last seven Big Sky tournaments and is trying to make it eight straight, which would match the program record, set from 1997 to 2004.

* Fourth-year Montana coach Chris Citowicki is 23-5-8 against Big Sky opponents, including the postseason. Three of those five losses have come against Northern Colorado.

* Citowicki is 3-0-1 against Idaho, 2-1-1 against Eastern Washington.

* Montana had won seven consecutive Big Sky road matches, dating back to 2019, before Sunday's loss in Greeley.

* The Grizzlies have made three team saves the last two matches, meaning a defender positioned on the end line has stopped three shots from entering the goal.

* Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Camellia Xu, a four-time Big Sky Defensive Player of the Week this season, has allowed one goal in the last 98 shots she's faced. She has a goals-against average of 0.64, a save percentage of .873.

* Xu is tied for 11th nationally in save percentage, tied for second with eight shutouts.

* Montana ranks 27th nationally with a .670 goals-against average, is tied for 11th with a .875 save percentage and is tied for eighth with eight shutouts.

* Montana has taken just 11 corner kicks its last seven matches while its opponents have taken 39.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Preseason favorite Northern Arizona, which opened the season 2-10-0, has won three straight to work itself back into tournament contention. The Lumberjacks had a big home sweep last weekend, handing Weber State its first league loss, 4-1, then taking down Idaho State 2-0.

* NAU gets Southern Utah at home this weekend, then closes the season at Sacramento State and Portland State.

* Sacramento State also had a 2-0-0 weekend at home, sweeping Idaho, 2-1, and Eastern Washington, 4-2. Like Montana, the Hornets have played their travel partner and still have four matches remaining to pick up points, starting this week at Weber State and Idaho State.

* Idaho State picked up its first win of the entire season on Friday when it won 3-2 at Southern Utah. Those two teams are a combined 2-25-2, with one Division I win.

* After dropping its first league match on Friday night, a 4-1 setback at Northern Arizona, Weber State was in a scoreless draw at Southern Utah at the half on Sunday. The Wildcats pulled it out with a goal in the 57th minute to win 1-0.

* Friday matches: UM at UI, UNC at EWU, PSU at ISU, SAC at WSU

* Sunday matches: UM at EWU, UNC at UI, SAC at ISU, PSU at WSU, SUU at NAU

Upcoming: Montana will close out its season with home matches against Weber State on Friday, Oct. 22, and against Idaho State on Sunday, Oct. 24, on what will be Senior Day.

Montana continues string of challenging road matches

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Players Mentioned

Alexa Coyle

Kendall Furrow

Taylor Hansen

Rita Lang

Camellia Xu

University of Montana Athletics