Rumble Week has arrived in Missoula

The Montana soccer team, coming off a 3-0 victory over Southern Utah in its season opener on Thursday, will host the third edition of the Rumble in the Rockies this week at South Campus Stadium in Missoula. This year's event is presented by Community Medical Center.

The Grizzlies (1-0-0) will welcome Seattle (1-0-0), Baylor (0-0-1) and Denver (1-0-1) to town, with two matches scheduled for Thursday, two for Sunday.

Schedule:

Thursday, 3 p.m. – Baylor vs. Denver
Thursday, 6 p.m. – Seattle vs. Montana
Sunday, 10:30 a.m. – Seattle vs. Denver
Sunday, 1:30 p.m. – Baylor vs. Montana

Montana hosted the first Rumble in the Rockies in 2022, with Creighton, Pittsburgh and Gonzaga traveling to Missoula. Last year it was Colorado College, Oregon State and Iowa. The Grizzlies are 2-1-1 in Rumble in the Rockies matches.

The Grizzlies won their third consecutive season opener on Thursday, defeating Southern Utah 3-0. Maddie Ditta and Chloe Seelhoff scored in the first half, with Seelhoff adding her second goal in the second half.

The win extended Montana's unbeaten streak at South Campus Stadium to 17 matches (15-0-2) and gave the Grizzlies their sixth consecutive shutout dating back to last season.

Coverage: All four matches will be streamed on ESPN+ with Ace Sauerwein doing the heavy lifting of calling all 360 minutes of action.

Griz ranked after Week 1: Montana debuted at No. 5 in this week's United Soccer Coaches West Region poll behind Santa Clara, Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount and UC Irvine.

The Grizzlies were ranked all 11 weeks last season, reaching as high as No. 2 and for six weeks were ranked in the top four.

Seelhoff named Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week: Senior Chloe Seelhoff, who scored twice on Thursday against Southern Utah, was named the Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Week on Tuesday.

Seelhoff scored in the 33rd minute against the Thunderbirds to make it 2-0. She scored the match's final goal in the 65th minute, completing the 3-0 victory. Seelhoff also twice hit the crossbar and was unable to finish off a penalty kick for what would have been the program's 18th hat trick all-time.

Seelhoff also scored twice last season against Boise State. She becomes only the eighth player in program history to have multiple multiple-goal matches in their careers.

It was the second career Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week honor for Seelhoff, who earned second-team All-Big Sky honors last season after scoring six goals and adding an assist.

Home dominance continues: Montana extended its unbeaten streak at South Campus Stadium to 17 matches with Thursday's 3-0 shutout of Southern Utah.

The Grizzlies went 9-0-2 at home last season and ended the 2023 season going 5-0-0 over their final five matches.

Fourteen of those 17 matches during the streak have come by shutout.

Shutout streak rolls on: By shutting out Southern Utah on Thursday, Montana has now blanked its last six opponents dating back to last season.

The Grizzlies have not allowed a goal in more than 626 minutes, dating back to Eastern Washington's first-half goal in the teams' 1-1 draw at South Campus Stadium last Oct. 13.

Since the start of the 2023 season, Montana has posted 26 shutouts in 39 matches with 19 goals allowed. Only Ohio State, Washington State, Fresno State and Wyoming have scored multiple goals against the Grizzlies during that time.

Flynn remains unbeaten: Bayliss Flynn, last year's Big Sky Conference Goalkeeper of the Year, got the start on Thursday and made one save on one shot faced in her 45 minutes of action.

The goalkeeper of record when Montana took the lead, Flynn got the win to improve to 10-0-5 as a Grizzly.

Ashlyn Dvorak, the 2023 first-team All-Big Sky goalkeeper, played the second half on Thursday. She made one save while facing five shots.

Montana notes:

* In her Grizzly debut, junior center back Makena Smith, who played one year at Purdue, one at Miami (Ohio), played all 90 minutes against Southern Utah.

* Sophomores Taylie Nowels and Emma Widmor both made their first collegiate starts on Thursday, as did freshman Maycen Slater, who played 50 minutes.

* Making their Grizzly debuts off the bench were freshmen Liv Thorne-Thomsen, Mia Draper and Malli Rude.

* Montana went 22 deep against SUU, with 17 players going at least 35 minutes.

* Montana's three goals on Thursday were the most for the Grizzlies in a fall season opener since winning 4-3 in double overtime at Boise State to open the 2011 season.

* Maddie Ditta opened the scoring on Thursday in the 26th minute, giving her nine career goals, all of them game-winners. It came off an assist from Mia Parkhurst, her third career assist.

* Seelhoff's first goal on Thursday came off a well-placed lead pass from Reagan Brisendine, giving the sophomore the assist and her first point as a Grizzly.

* Seelhoff's second goal was set up by Ashlyn Sandow, who recorded her second career assist.

* Thursday's win kept Montana unbeaten all-time against former and future Big Sky opponent Southern Utah. The Grizzlies are 7-0-4 against the Thunderbirds.

At a glance (Seattle):

* The Redhawks opened their season with a 1-0 home win over Eastern Washington on Thursday, against the team picked second in the Big Sky behind Montana.

* Senior Alana Lamb scored in the 51st minute, her third career goal. Junior goalkeeper Kassidy Kirgan made one save for her 14th career shutout.

* Kirgan, the 2023 WAC Freshman of the Year, is a 2023 graduate of Missoula's Sentinel High School.

* Coach Julie Woodward is beginning her 29th year at her alma mater. She has a career record of 357-163-65. She has taken the Redhawks to five NCAA tournaments, three more when the program was Division II.

* Woodward, then Julie Holmes, was an assistant coach at Montana under Betsy Duerksen for the first three years of the Grizzly program (1994-96) before getting called back to Seattle, where she's coached since 1997.

* The Redhawks have won fewer than 10 matches only four times under Woodward.

* Seattle went 10-3-6 last season and finished third in the WAC behind Utah Valley and Grand Canyon with a 4-1-2 league record.

* Now in the more competitive West Coast Conference, Seattle was picked ninth out of 12 teams in the WCC preseason poll.

Montana-Seattle series history: The Grizzlies and Redhawks have met just one time previously, at the end of the 2011 regular season, a 2-1 Seattle victory in overtime.

Montana went up 1-0 on a Maddie Simmel goal in the 60th minute. Seattle scored the equalizer less than two minutes later, then scored the game-winner less than three minutes into overtime.

At a glance (Baylor):

* The Bears, who played both LSU and SMU in home exhibition matches, opened the season with a 1-1 draw at Texas A&M on Thursday.

* After going down 1-0 in the fourth minute, Baylor hung in until the Bears scored the equalizer in the 82nd minute.

* Baylor's goal was scored by junior transfer Lauren Omholt, who was on the Big Ten All-Freshman team in 2023 at Purdue.

* Starting in goal was senior Azul Alvarez, who started 20 of the team's 21 matches in 2024. She spent her first two seasons at TCU.

* Baylor has 11 players who began their careers at other schools.

* Coach Michelle Lenard is in her fourth season at Baylor, hired by the Bears after going 201-77-25 over 14 seasons at Dallas Baptist. She is 21-26-11 at Baylor.

* Baylor went 8-8-5 last season and tied for 10th in the 16-team Big 12 with a 2-5-4 league record. The Bears ended their season the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament.

* Baylor was picked 10th in this year's preseason poll.

* Senior forward Tyler Isgrig, who played her freshman year at TCU, was named preseason All-Big 12. She had six goals, nine assists as a sophomore, seven goals, eight assists last fall.

Montana-Baylor series history: The Grizzlies and Bears have met just once previously, Baylor winning 4-1 over Montana in Waco, Texas, in 1998.

Amy Schlatter scored in the 73rd minute to make it 2-1 before Baylor pulled away with goals in the 78th and 87th minutes. Natalie Hiller and Amy Bemis combined to make 14 saves for Montana.

At a glance (Denver):

* The Pioneers are off to a 1-0-1 start after winning 2-1 at Air Force on Thursday and playing to a 0-0 draw at Colorado College on Sunday.

* Redshirt senior Samantha Dreiling, second-team All-Summit League last year, scored both of DU's goals against Air Force, giving her six for her career.

* Redshirt junior goalkeeper Alina Santos played every minute in goal the first two matches of the season.

* Denver is coached by Julianne Sitch, whose claim to fame is having led the University of Chicago men's team to the NCAA Division III national championship in 2022. She is 21-8-10 in her third year at Denver.

* Denver went 11-6-2 a year ago, finishing second in the Summit League behind North Dakota State at 5-1-2.

* The Pioneers have finished first or second in the Summit League the last seven seasons but only won the Summit League tournament two of those seasons, in 2018 and the spring of '21.

* Denver was picked third in this year's preseason poll behind North Dakota State and South Dakota State.

Upcoming: Montana will play its first road match of the season, on Thursday, Aug. 28, at Boise State. The Grizzlies will then return home to host Nevada on Sunday, Aug. 31, and MSU Billings on Sunday, Sept. 7.

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Players Mentioned

Reagan Brisendine

Maddie Ditta

Mia Draper

Ashlyn Dvorak

Bayliss Flynn

Taylie Nowels

Mia Parkhurst

Malli Rude

Ashlyn Sandow

Chloe Seelhoff

Maycen Slater

Makena Smith

Liv Thorne-Thomsen

Emma Widmor

University of Montana Athletics