Griz sweep road trip, win fifth straight

Sunday, September 26

Cedar City, Utah

1 PM

Montana

6-4-0, 2-0-0BSC

Southern Utah

1-9-0, 0-2-0BSC

Montana

Southern Utah

Photos: Southern Utah Athletics

9/26/2021 7:00:00 PM | Soccer

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana women's soccer team won its fifth consecutive game, all coming by shutout, and finished off a sweep of its Big Sky Conference-opening road trip with a 1-0 victory at Southern Utah on Sunday afternoon in Cedar City.

The Grizzlies (6-4-0, 2-0-0 BSC) opened league with a 1-0 victory at Northern Arizona on Friday night.

Montana's last four wins have been by 1-0 scores, with the goals coming from four different players.

On Sunday afternoon it was Bella O'Brien on the end of an all-freshman scoring connection. Ava Samuelson took a free kick from the right side and sent it toward the far post, where Ally Henrikson headed it to the ground. O'Brien was there for the redirect.

It was O'Brien's second goal of the season, Samuelson's second assist. It was Henrikson's first collegiate point.

Not only was it all freshmen, it was three players who had come off the bench late in the first half. The goal was scored at 43:25.

"It's an amazing feeling to know that it doesn't matter when or who we sub, the quality of play doesn't drop," said coach Chris Citowicki. "We're still going to be good and find a way to win."

On Friday night it was Caitlin Rogers scoring from distance in the 57th minute. The sweep gives Montana a 2-0 start to league for the third straight season.

"It's the longest road trip of the year. Both games are at elevation, both fields are very difficult to play on, and with the travel in between, it makes it hard. To get out of here with two wins is massive," said Citowicki.

"I'm very happy. Two wins, two shutouts. I'm loving the whole thing right now."

Southern Utah (1-9-0, 0-2-0 BSC), which lost its ninth consecutive game, played a competitive first half, creating six corner kicks, but the Thunderbirds could only come up with three shots in the opening 45 minutes.

One of those was heading into the top-left corner of the goal before Griz goalkeeper Camellia Xu made a diving stop. She would finish with five saves, none as dramatic as that one.

"When Cam had to make one save, she did, and when we had to score, we did. I'm pretty happy with it," said Citowicki. "To go back to the word from Friday night, it was a professional performance."

Montana outshot Southern Utah 9-3 in the first half. It was the eighth of those, just before the halftime break, that the Grizzlies broke through.

Southern Utah would double its shot total in the second half, taking six more, but Montana's defense didn't let anything threatening approach Xu. Her three second-half saves were mostly a matter of routine.

"They resorted to playing long and trying to get behind us, and we controlled that quite well," said Citowicki, who used nine subs on Sunday, eight of them playing 23 or more minutes.

Rogers played all 90 minutes on the back line, Taylor Hansen, who plays all over the field, logged 82. Six of Montana's starters played fewer than 60 minutes in what was a true team win.

"We talked beforehand that this was going to be hard, so we were subbing nonstop," said Citowicki. "We have the depth of squad that it doesn't matter who we put in, the kids are going to do well."

Xu went the distance in goal to improve to 6-3-0 while dropping her goals-against average to 0.76 with her sixth shutout of the season, one off the program record for a freshman.

Montana will get Sacramento State (1-6-2, 0-1-0 BSC) and Portland State (3-5-0, 1-0-0 BSC) at home next weekend. The Grizzlies will face the Hornets at 3 p.m. on Friday at South Campus Stadium, the Vikings on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Those two teams opened league against one another on Sunday, with Abi Hoffman's hat trick leading Portland State to a 4-2 victory.

In other Big Sky games, Idaho won 1-0 at Idaho State, Northern Colorado won 2-0 at Northern Arizona on two second-half goals, and Weber State rallied for a 2-1 win, its second time this weekend winning by that score after allowing its opponent to strike first.