Griz to host Fighting Hawks on Thursday

The Montana soccer team will play a single match this week, hosting North Dakota on Thursday afternoon at South Campus Stadium in Missoula.

The Grizzlies (4-2-2) and Fighting Hawks (3-2-2) will kick off at 4 p.m. at the field where Montana is 4-0-0 this season and 28-7-8 (.744) since the start of the 2019 season.

After opening the season with four straight two-match weeks, the Grizzlies will have four consecutive weeks with a single match.

Montana will host Boise State a week from Thursday, then open Big Sky play with matches against Northern Arizona on Sunday, Sept. 29, and Northern Colorado on Sunday, Oct. 6.

The Grizzlies' home match against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 22, was canceled last week.

Montana will play five of its next six matches at home, following up its road trip to Northern Colorado with home matches against Idaho and Eastern Washington on Oct. 10 and 13.

Coverage: Thursday's match will stream on ESPN+ with Ace Sauerwein calling the action.

At a glance (Montana): In a match-up of regionally ranked teams in Colorado Springs on Thursday, Montana and Air Force played to a 0-0 draw.

The Grizzlies entered the match ranked No. 9 in the United Soccer Coaches West Region poll, the Falcons No. 5 in the Pacific Region.

Air Force had a significant advantage in shots and time of possession, but Bayliss Flynn, making her second career start in goal, made nine saves to keep the Falcons off the scoreboard.

It was the third consecutive match and fifth time in eight all-time meetings that Montana shut out Air Force.

The Grizzlies then headed north and faced Wyoming in Laramie on Sunday, that match also ending in a draw, this one higher scoring at 3-3.

It was only the eighth time that Montana has allowed three goals or more to an opponent under seventh-year head coach Chris Citowicki.

After Jen Estes opened the scoring in the seventh minute, Montana, which allowed nine goals all of last season, uncharacteristically gave up three in less than nine minutes to the Cowgirls.

Wyoming scored in the 16th, 20th and 24th minutes, only the second time a Citowicki-coached Montana team has allowed three goals in the first half.

Estes answered right back, making it 3-2 later in the 24th minute, her team-leading fourth goal of the season. Ava Samuelson scored the equalizer in the 64th minute, her first goal of the season.

Delaney Lou Schorr assisted on Estes's first goal, Schorr's sixth career assist. Samuelson assisted on Estes's second goal, her 13th career assist.

That assist moved Samuelson into a tie for 10th in program history.

Sunday's result was the second time under Citowicki that Montana has rallied from down two goals to earn a result.

The other also came against Wyoming, in 2022. The Grizzlies, trailing 2-0, scored in the 68th and 81st minutes to get a 2-2 draw at South Campus Stadium.

At a glance (North Dakota): The Fighting Hawks enter the week with a 3-2-2 record and will likely head to Missoula with the same 4-2-2 record as Montana. UND hosts Jamestown on Tuesday afternoon.

North Dakota's wins have come against Minnesota-Crookston and Alabama State, by a combined score of 10-0, and at home on Friday, 2-1 over Idaho State.

North Dakota's losses came on the road at 21-time national champion North Carolina and at College of Charleston.

Against the Tar Heels, the Fighting Hawks trailed just 1-0 at the half and lost 3-0 but ended up getting out-shot 41-0. College of Charleston had 22 shots against North Dakota.

Not counting the Jamestown match, North Dakota has five players who have scored multiple goals.

North Dakota went 5-7-6 a year ago and tied for seventh in the Summit League with a 1-3-4 conference record. The Fighting Hawks were picked to finish ninth in this year's nine-team Summit preseason poll.

Junior forward Amelia Loeffler, who scored a team-leading eight goals last year and was first-team All-Summit League, was named a preseason Player of Watch by the Summit League.

Chris Logan is in his eighth year as head coach of the Fighting Hawks.

Series history: Montana leads the all-time series against North Dakota 9-2-2 and is unbeaten against UND in Missoula, going 6-0-1.

North Dakota's lone wins in the series came in 2011 and 2015, both by 2-1 scores.

Montana's nine wins have come by a combined score of 27-3. Six of those nine wins came by shutout, including last season's 1-0 victory in Grand Forks to open the season.

The Grizzlies have outscored the Fighting Hawks 19-2 in seven matches in Missoula, though the matches have been tight more recently.

Montana won 1-0 in overtime in 2016, 2-1 in 2017 and the teams played to a 0-0 draw in 2018, their most recent match-up at South Campus Stadium.

Game notes:

* Montana's Chris Citowicki and North Dakota's Chris Logan coached together at UND in 2017, Logan's first year at the school and Citowicki's only season in Grand Forks before being hired by Montana.

* Montana is No. 10 in this week's United Soccer Coaches West Region poll. The Grizzlies have been ranked in all four polls this season.

* Among Montana's previous opponents, Washington State is ranked No. 8 in the West Region, Air Force is ranked No. 4 in the Pacific Region, Fresno State is ranked 5th.

* Next week's opponent, Boise State is No. 3 in the Pacific Region. The Broncos are 4-1-0, with three of those wins coming against the Big Sky (Portland State, Idaho State, Idaho).

* Goalkeeper Bayliss Flynn opened her on-field career with shutouts of IU Indianapolis and Air Force, and went 195 minutes without being scored on before Wyoming scored its first goal on Sunday.

* Wyoming scored its three goals in Sunday's 3-3 draw in a span of 8:15 in the first half.

* It was the quickest three-goal burst for an opponent since Stanford scored three in a span of 1:53 in the Cardinal's 8-1 win over Montana in 2002, the fifth-quickest allowed in program history.

* Montana's 4-0-0 start at home has the Grizzlies at 140-67-31 (.653) in home matches in program history.

* Jen Estes's two goals on Sunday gave her four for the season. That is tied for second in the Big Sky behind the five goals of Idaho's Margo Schoesler.

* Estes and Schoesler are tied for the Big Sky lead with 10 points.

* Estes's two goals were the first for a Grizzly since Delaney Lou Schorr netted two goals at Idaho last season.

* Montana's 33 corner kicks this season rank second in the Big Sky behind Eastern Washington's 38.

* Charley Boone has played every minute this season at center back. Her 90-minute run is at 11 consecutive matches dating back to last season and 41 of the team's last 47 matches.

* Ava Samuelson's three-point match on Sunday, on a goal and an assist, was the second of her career. She had a goal and an assist in last season's 4-0 victory over Utah Tech.

* Riley Carolan's 66 minutes played at Wyoming on Sunday was a career high by 14 minutes. She played 52 minutes last season at North Dakota State.

* Hayley Bass started both matches last week at Air Force and Wyoming in place of Ally Henrikson, who sat out due to injury. Bass played 111 minutes in the two matches.

* Skyleigh Thompson had started 26 consecutive matches before coming off the bench on Sunday at Wyoming.

Upcoming: Montana will host Boise State at 4 p.m. at South Campus Stadium on Thursday, Sept. 19.

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Players Mentioned

Hayley Bass

Charley Boone

Riley Carolan

Jen Estes

Bayliss Flynn

Ally Henrikson

Ava Samuelson

Delaney Lou Schorr

Skyleigh Thompson

University of Montana Athletics