A new season dawns

Let's play a game of Would You Rather, in this case would you rather have had Montana's season last fall or Sacramento State's?

The Hornets won one match in August, over Houston Christian, won one match in September, against a Cal State Northridge team that ended the season with an RPI of 270, and defeated Idaho State and Weber State, two teams that would fail to qualify for the Big Sky Conference tournament in November.

All in all, Sacramento State won only five matches during the regular season, a mostly not-much-to-see-here campaign.

Of course, the Hornets won the Big Sky tournament in Missoula in November by playing to three draws, then winning three shootouts by converting 15 of 18 penalty kicks, one of those a semifinal match-up against Montana that ended the Grizzlies' season on a black Friday at South Campus Stadium.

Sacramento State and its RPI of 237 faced USC in the opening round of the NCAA tournament and fell behind 3-0 just 16 minutes in on its way to a 5-0 loss, the Hornets managing four shots, only one of which was on goal.

How do you judge a season like that? Was it successful despite taking just two wins in 11 matches into October, despite not winning a match at the Big Sky tournament but moving through the bracket anyway in three well-executed shootouts?

On the other hand, Montana had a winning season from start to nearly finish, going 12-2-5 to add onto the previous season's record of 13-3-3, both years seeing the Grizzlies a mainstay in the region poll, four of those two seasons' five losses coming by a single goal.

Montana's second match of the season last fall was a magical 3-0 home shutout of Oregon State in front of 1,190, and who can forget the Grizzlies' 4-0 thumping of North Dakota or their 2-0 home win over Boise State, maybe the best win of the seven-year Chris Citowicki era?

Montana lost at Washington State in its third match of the season, then fell 2-1 at Fresno State in late August, but the Grizzlies would not lose again, closing the fall going 9-0-5 over their final 14 matches, an unbeaten span covering September, October and November.

Along the way, Montana posted a 6-0-2 league record, one season after going 7-0-1, allowing the Grizzlies to make a bit of history by becoming the first Big Sky team to go unbeaten in back-to-back seasons.

But that draw against the Hornets on that black Friday in November, with the pressure building and building against the home team, the favored team, as the match and afternoon moved deeper and deeper? It ended things for the Grizzlies, a tie doubling as a boot into the offseason.

Again, which season would you have rather had, the one that was spent at a high level from start to finish or the one that saw a team playing the postseason to perfection, getting teams to overtime, then seeing what becomes of it, the NCAA tournament as a reward?

"I'd rather have that consistency of performance over two years," says Citowicki, who begins his eighth season with the Grizzlies on Wednesday when the Grizzlies hold their first practice of the season. "Winning regular-season titles is important."

Four of the five matches at November's Big Sky tournament went to shootout to determine the team that would advance, with Sacramento State outlasting Idaho 7-6 in penalty kicks in the championship match. The margin in the postseason continues to be so, so thin.

"When it comes to playoffs, it's soccer. Sometimes it doesn't fall your way," said Citowicki, whose team had a season-ending RPI of 110 in 2024 after finishing 96 in 2023, both the best in the Big Sky by a wide margin.

He knows which season he'd rather have. "I wouldn't trade the shootout win and the tournament trophy for what we accomplished in the regular season because that builds the foundation for things to hopefully come down the road."

By which he means his team getting stronger and stronger until he finally has everything he wants: Big Sky dominance in both the regular season and postseason, regional relevance, national respect. "I think we're moving in the right direction," he said. "I'm pretty happy with it."

Last season had a chance to be that breakout for Montana but then the injuries started piling up, most of them season-ending. Mia Parkhurst was first, then Delaney Lou Schorr and Ashlyn Dvorak, then Reeve Borseth in the regular-season finale. That does not include Skyleigh Thompson's limp to the finish line.

That group made up five of Montana's starting 11 in its season opener, a 1-0 home win over Colorado College.

If Montana was flying at the start of the season, the Grizzlies, while continuing to win, were getting by with more and more athletic and physio tape holding things together, the program's depth put to the test like no other season under Citowicki.

It led to some wonderful stories, of Bayliss Flynn replacing Dvorak in goal and going 9-0-5 and leading the nation in save percentage, of Chloe Seelhoff stepping up and scoring six goals, of freshman Ashlyn Sandow getting major minutes at outside back and helping Montana to a program-record 14 shutouts.

But, still: "When we beat Oregon State, I thought, this is the team," said Citowicki, who gets a chance to do it all over again, the cycle of college athletics, this his 14th season as a collegiate head coach.

Citowicki took the Big Sky by storm after he was hired in 2018, taking the Grizzlies to the NCAA tournament in three of his first four seasons in Missoula, winning the regular-season title in the one year he didn't.

But now, for all its regular-season success, Montana hasn't played in the Big Sky championship match since 2021, falling in the semifinals the last three seasons without a goal scored in its last three postseason matches. That fact is what drove the team's offseason work, through the winter and spring.

Because the Grizzlies have outscored their opponents 62-19 the last two seasons but don't have a postseason thing to show for it. And Citowicki is nothing if not always tinkering, evaluating where his team's strengths and weaknesses are and focusing in on the latter each offseason.

The defense will always be there under Citowicki, Montana's nine and 10 goals allowed the last two years, 19 in 38 matches, the best two seasons in Big Sky history.

Rather, it will be the offense that Citowicki knows needs to evolve if Montana is going to separate itself from the Big Sky not just in the regular season but the postseason as well. He wants to have things wrapped up after 90 minutes, not risk going to overtime or even worse, a shootout.

"We spent the whole winter and spring getting in the box more often, creating more opportunities. We have to. If it takes us 10 shots to get one goal, then we need to take 20 shots in a game. How do you do that? You work on it," he said.

"We've continued to redefine ourselves and make ourselves better, though the defensive identity will never change. We'll see if that can translate into games."

Under Citowicki, Montana has been defined offensively by a primary goal-scorer, from Alexa Coyle to Taylor Stoeger to Delaney Lou Schorr to Skyleigh Thompson.

Last season had the potential to be the most balanced scoring yet, with Schorr and Thompson back, plus the addition of Jen Estes and Seelhoff as first-year transfers, not to mention Maddie Ditta and Kayla Rendon Bushmaker.

But as each injury hit the Grizzlies, Montana became that much easier to scout and defend on its offensive end. "If you have one or two players and they don't fire on playoff game day, then you have a problem," said Citowicki. "That's been the problem.

"Scoring needs to be by committee, five players who score five goals each. Have we got the people who can do it? I think so."

Seelhoff, second-team All-Big Sky after scoring six goals last season in her first year as a Grizzly, is back, as is Ditta, on the short list for preseason Big Sky MVP, who scored four goals as a junior, giving the midfielder eight for her career, all of which have been game-winners.

The midfield, with Ditta and Carly Whalen, who was honorable mention All-Big Sky as a freshman, will be solid, which leads to the defense, the backstop that helped Montana lead all of Division I in save percentage in 2023, in shutout percentage in 2024.

It should be a brick wall once again, though the faces of those bricks will be the most interesting development to pay attention to as July moves to August and two exhibition matches and into the regular-season opener against Southern Utah.

Start with the goalkeepers. Dvorak, first-team All-Big Sky in 2023 when she went 13-3-3 with 11 shutouts and a 0.47 goals-against average, is back and healthy, as is Flynn, who was last year's Big Sky Goalkeeper of the Year and didn't lose once in 14 starts after replacing Dvorak six matches in.

Joining the position group for Goalkeeper U is freshman Jill Miliffe of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The question has to be asked: Who's going to be the starter on Aug. 14? "That's the question," said Citowicki, whose teams have produced 69 shutouts in his first seven seasons covering 130 matches.

"The first-team All-Big Sky goalkeeper the last two years is in the group. So, who's going to do it? You let them play and see who rises to the top. That's the way it has to be."

The most notable loss on the defensive end of the field will be center back Charley Boone, first-team All-Big Sky the last two seasons and coming off USL W Defender of the Year honors after playing for Minnesota Aurora FC this summer.

Ava Samuelson, arguably one of the top five players in program history, is gone, and Borseth is on the way back to full health after getting injured in October in the regular-season finale at Weber State. The back line has questions, but also the talent, as well.

Parkhurst returns, fifth-year senior Ally Henrikson gives Citowicki a player who can excel at just about any position on the field and Makena Smith, a six-foot center back who played at Purdue and Miami (Ohio) before transferring to Montana, joins the back line.

Montana will be hard-pressed to repeat its 13- and 12-win seasons of 2023 and '24, not because of any sort of drop-off in talent but because of a nonconference schedule that will challenge the Grizzlies early and often, and unlike any other in Citowicki's tenure.

Montana will play eight nonconference matches against Division I opponents, plus one against MSU Billings. Of those eight teams, six of them – Seattle (100), Baylor (70), Boise State (53), UC Davis (99), Gonzaga (69) and Washington State (102) – had better season-ending RPIs than Montana (110).

Montana will get Seattle and Baylor at this year's edition of the Rumble in the Rockies, play tough road matches at Boise State and UC Davis, and get Gonzaga and Washington State at home over a four-day stretch in mid-September prior to the start of conference.

The Grizzlies have defeated Gonzaga just once since 2002 and have not topped Washington State since 2004. Both will travel to Missoula, where Montana went 9-0-2 last season and is 15-2-3 the last two autumns at South Campus Stadium.

"I look at the programs we want to model ourselves after, and they schedule tough nonconference games," said Citowicki.

"Our schedule is to the point where if we do well and make it to the NCAA tournament, we will be supremely confident we can beat somebody. We should be comfortable in that setting, where our players say, we can do this.

"We might not win 13 games but we'll go further. And if we do manage to come out of it with a big record, then holy buckets. Either way it will make us better."

November awaits, the final destination of a months-long journey, one that is certain to be memorable once again.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Charley Boone

Reeve Borseth

Maddie Ditta

Ashlyn Dvorak

Jen Estes

Bayliss Flynn

Ally Henrikson

Jill Miliffe

Mia Parkhurst

Kayla Rendon Bushmaker

Ava Samuelson

Ashlyn Sandow

Delaney Lou Schorr

Chloe Seelhoff

Makena Smith

Skyleigh Thompson

Carly Whalen

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