The time of their lives

A strange thing happened on Saturday morning, when Chris Citowicki awoke in his hotel room in Flagstaff not that many hours removed from his team's season-ending loss in the Big Sky Conference semifinals.

He'd been there before. Pretty much every fall since he began coaching collegiate soccer a decade and a half ago. The dejection. The emptiness. The immediate search for answers. What could we have done differently? What do we need to change going forward? How do we take the next step?

He awoke this particular morning, not even 12 hours after his team had lost 1-0 to Northern Arizona, ending a memorable, historic season, and found none of it. Even if he had tried, the feelings just weren't there to be mustered. There were no questions that needed to be answered.

There was sadness, of course, on what had come to an abrupt end, the Grizzlies' first loss in 54 days, but there was no anger, just contentment, no despondency, only thankfulness.

The texts and emails had come flooding into his phone since the loss, per usual, coaching colleagues, family, friends, all sending well wishes, asking if he was okay, reminding him that his team had had a great season, to hang in there, that he and the Grizzlies would get 'em next time.

This time, after this loss, as much as he appreciated the thoughts and support, he didn't need any of it. His 2023 team had been sustaining him since it came back together last spring, on dark, cold evenings inside Washington-Grizzly Stadium, the offseason work commencing.

Most coaches in most sports are mere shells of themselves by season's end, even championship coaches, the grind and pressure of the season unrelenting, taking a bit of a coach each day, the cost of doing business in Division I athletics.

He had had a magical season before, in 2016 at St. Catherine in St. Paul, but that came at the Division III level. He went to North Dakota. Couldn't replicate it. Came to Montana, won championships seemingly every year, but couldn't replicate it either.

Could he win and find that same level of happiness at the Division I level? After six seasons, he began to have his doubts, not that the joys didn't come year after year, team after team, but there is a reason Division I coaches get to the end of a season and feel like they have just finished an endurance race.

When Citowicki woke up last Saturday morning, he felt like he could have coached this team every day for the rest of his life. It was that fulfilling, that enriching. If the season wore him down, the team lifted him back up, day after day, practice after practice, win after win. He just needed to be in their presence.

"I don't think I ever gave up on the idea, but maybe that type of season is reserved for the Division III world, that you can only have that much enjoyment in what you do at that level. Here, maybe it's just too intense," he said this week after returning from Flagstaff.

"Can we win at this level with our methods, being fully focused on the person, then trying to have fun while balancing life and winning? Or do you have to be so obsessed with it that it eats you alive and you crawl out of the season on the back end destroyed because you're just hanging on?"

You think, thank god that's over because I didn't have any more to give. I couldn't have survived another week. "I didn't feel that way this year," he said. "I could have done this forever." It was that kind of team made up of those type of players.

He got his first hint of it last spring, the team that was to come, the team the Grizzlies might become, when Montana played BYU in an exhibition game, the same Cougars who are now 16-2-3 and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament that opens today.

The Grizzlies resorted to hanging back, defending, not playing or believing like they could go punch for punch with a women's soccer heavyweight. Montana trailed 2-0 at the half.

"We were playing pretty average, scared. I thought, we've just got to play, we've got to be ourselves. We can't go through this whole thing again where we're just defending against good teams," said Citowicki. "They were pounding on us and we were just hanging on."

Before he could get to the locker room and relay that message to his team, Charley Boone beat him to it. We're good enough to compete with this team but we're not even trying, she told her teammates. "Do what Charley said. That was my halftime message," said Citowicki.

The second half: Montana 2, BYU 1. "They just played. It was free and beautiful. The way they carried themselves and the way we played in the second half, there was a lot of happiness about the soccer and the way we played. It was after that game that I thought, this could be a pretty special group."

To a strong group of seniors – Boone, Sydney Haustein, Maysa Walters, Kathleen Aitchison, Molly Quarry – Citowicki in the summer added fifth-year transfers Abby Gearhart and Audrey Teague, which only strengthened the Grizzlies' leadership.

"You have to get the right people at the highest level because they influence so much beneath them. (Gearhart and Teague) were amazing. Just more quality people," said Citowicki.

Skyleigh Thompson noticed a change in the spring, when the team began allotting more time to game-specific situations, to 1-v-1 moments, "which usually is daunting to a lot of players," she said. "We did a good job of creating uncomfortable moments in practice to make them more comfortable in games.

"Without discomfort, you don't grow much. It made me more eager to go into 1-v-1 moments instead of being afraid to mess up."

And who can think back on the 2023 season without Thompson comfortably and confidently going at someone 1-v-1 on her way to a team-high six goals, four assists and Big Sky Conference Offensive MVP honors?

Summer arrived and the players could sense it, wanted to be a part of it, wanted to accelerate the season and the process by putting in the work well before the opening day of practice.

"A lot of people were showing up to our captain-led practices. Normally we wouldn't be playing 11-v-11, but everyone was showing up. Everyone wanted to get better," Thompson said, then pointed to the team's exhibition match against Air Force less than a week into fall practices as the result.

Montana looked October-level sharp in early August. "It kind of clicked in our first game. Everything was flowing. Every unit was so cohesive together."

Ava Samuelson, All-Big Sky first-teamer, thought, this could be really good. "If we just play our game, we do really well. If we play frantic and don't play our game, it doesn't go well for us. The mindset of, don't match them, do what we do, that's when it all fell into place."

Montana opened the season with a 1-0 road win at North Dakota, then blitzed North Dakota State in Fargo three days later, scoring three goals in the first 12 minutes on the way to a 3-1 win.

Yeah, this was different. "That really set the tone for the season," said Thompson. "Last year we wouldn't be cutthroat with teams. Now when we beat teams, we want to be cutthroat. That was reflected through the season."

Montana defeated MSU Billings 4-0 in its home opener, three days before Ohio State, the mighty Buckeyes who are playing in their 17th NCAA tournament this weekend, was going to pay a visit to Missoula and South Campus Stadium.

The reports started coming in a few days before the game. Did you hear how many tickets have been pre-sold? Wouldn't it be cool if the attendance record, of 1,093 from 1999, could be approached? Wouldn't that be amazing?

By Sunday morning, the day of the Montana-Ohio State match, pre-sold tickets had surpassed the program record. And it kept rising, 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, and there were fans lining up at the gate at hour before the match. It was electric, and the match hadn't even started yet, was still 60 minutes away.

"That game was a pivotal moment for our team," said Samuelson. "If the community is going to support us, we need to show up and show out. I don't think it overwhelmed us. It was, let's do something great and show everybody who we are."

Montana scored first. Ohio State answered with back-to-back goals and took a 2-1 lead at halftime. The Grizzlies tied it in the second half and had the Buckeyes playing for the draw the final 20 minutes of the match.

Nearly 2,000 fans left the 2-2 draw with hearts full. Some of them knew. The rest of them learned that warm summer evening: this wasn't like Montana teams of years past. This one had something unique. This was a team and a program to get behind. There was just something special about it.

"I re-watched the highlights the other day. Almost makes you want to cry. What an environment," said Citowicki. Montana, taking the lesson from the BYU match in the spring, played liked it believed it could win. Fans noticed and got taken along for the ride, believing just as much.

For the first time in a long, long time, since the Era of Duerksen, it felt like everyone was in it together, fans and program united.

"Believing in yourself on an individual level, believing in your teammates and in the way we play, that was a big push this year, to play our style of soccer throughout the year," said Citowicki. "Doesn't matter who we play, we're doing our thing.

"It evolved to the Griz way of doing things. I told them at the start of the year, work so hard that no matter who is at the game, they are going to be so proud of you. We did that in every game we played. We gave it everything we could and tried to put on a show."

After Montana pulled even with Ohio State at 2-2 in the 59th minute, Thompson came maybe an inch away from creating bedlam in the 69th. Playing the ball up the right side, she cut in and took a shot with her left foot that seemed destined for the upper-left corner had a defender not gotten a toe on it.

Yep, Montana was facing Ohio State and it was the Grizzlies who were on the attack, playing for the win, not the moral-victory draw.

"I told my teammates, if I had scored that goal, I would have had to just walk off the field and leave my soccer career behind," she said. "I would have had to retire from soccer. Nothing would have beaten that moment."

People who had been fans became next-level supporters. People who were curious elevated their status to OMG WE NEED TO COME BACK. And return they did. Montana averaged nearly 800 fans for its home games. People wanted to watch this team, be around it, just be associated with it.

"It was a great reminder that we're the only Division I women's soccer team in Montana. We are that representation for the entire state," said Thompson.

"That game was a cool reminder of how many people are there to support us and want to watch us succeed. Seeing it that up close and being in it, it adds more meaning to what we do. It's a reminder that what we do means more than we think."

They came with regularity, they watched, they hung out afterwards, wanting to meet and connect with the players they felt like they knew. "It really ties it all together," said Samuelson. "If we didn't have that interaction with them, it wouldn't feel quite as real."

A week later, Montana defeated Oklahoma in Spokane 1-0 to hand Citowicki his first Power 5 victory. Two weeks after that, Montana played to a 0-0 draw at Oregon State to end nonconference 6-2-2, unbeaten against Power 5 competition and ranked in the West Region.

The team that is always targeted by its opponent, the date circled on the calendar, in good seasons and in bad, was going to have it even harder now. These Grizzlies were good and everyone knew it, especially their Big Sky opponents.

Never was that more evident than on a frustrating Thursday afternoon in Cheney, when Eastern Washington, which would finish the season with a single win against Division I competition, played Montana to a 1-1 draw as the Grizzlies opened league.

They played Montana like the Grizzlies had a crown, and they were going to knock it off. Montana needed to be ready for it. It would be that way every match the rest of the fall.

Leave it to Boone to bring the right message before Montana returned to the field three days later and scored twice at Idaho in the opening 17 minutes on the way to a 2-0 win. It would be the first of seven straight wins to end the regular season, as the Grizzlies outscored their opponents 13-2.

"Conference games are nerve-racking. They mean so much more," said Thompson. "Charley, before the Idaho game, said, don't make it personal. They want to make it personal. Do whatever you can to not make it personal. It's hard because it's an emotional and physical sport.

"That shifted a lot of things for a lot of people. We went into every game saying, be professional. Conference games can have a lot of turmoil. Talking, an elbow just to make it personal. Rising above that is a game-changer, especially when you're doing that as a whole team. It's hard to touch you."

Montana won the regular-season title before its final league game, got to celebrate on its home field, collected a full mantel of postseason honors from the Big Sky Conference, including Citowicki's first Coach of the Year honor, which finally came after six Big Sky championships in six seasons.

The Grizzlies finished the regular season 13-2-3, one of the best campaigns in Big Sky history, and outscored their opponents 33-8, allowing just two second-half goals through 18 matches.

"Our team played so consistently throughout the whole season. I think consistency, arguably, is one of the hardest things to achieve in sports, to show up every day and perform the best you can in every game. To be able to pull that off is amazing and needs to be celebrated," said Thompson.

The dream season came to an end last Friday, the Grizzlies falling to the host Lumberjacks 1-0 despite outshooting the home team 25-10, putting 12 shots on goal, another two off the crossbar.

It was just Montana being Montana and sports being sports. "We do play a sport. Even if you're the better team, there might be a loss in there," said Samuelson. "We took an L after 54 days of having an amazing season. Sometimes you don't get the result you want and that's okay.

"The team as a whole and the whole season was harmony. The drive, the motivation, the culture was all there. Everything fell into place. When we lost, it hurt for a while, but when I think about the season, I only think about the positive things because there was so much good that came of it."

That's why Citowicki awoke the next morning to a new end-of-season feeling. He could have focused on what could have been – advancing to the Big Sky championship game, playing in another NCAA tournament – but his mind just couldn't go there. Any negative thoughts quickly were brushed aside.

There were too many good memories that had priority, that were more fun to focus on. Any bad ones could get no foothold.

"Other years, I'd be thinking, I hate losing, we're not good enough. I didn't feel that way this year. You have to look at the whole picture," said Citowicki, whose team finished the season with a top-100 RPI. "I could wake up the next morning and think, do you have any idea what we accomplished this year?

"Do I hate losing? Of course, I do. Are we motivated to get better? Of course. But that can't be the only thing we talk about.

"For years we've talked about it in recruiting, that this is our way, the Griz way, this dream season when everything will be perfect. You'll feel it in the culture and you'll see it in the results and we'll beat the Power 5s. It was all just talk, until this past season." A season to remember, indeed.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Kathleen Aitchison

Charley Boone

Abby Gearhart

Sydney Haustein

Molly Quarry

Ava Samuelson

Audrey Teague

Skyleigh Thompson

Maysa Walters

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