Griz, Redhawks play to 1-1 draw

Thursday, August 21

Missoula, Mont.

6 PM

Montana

1-0-1

Seattle

1-0-1

Seattle

Montana

Photo by: Ryan Brennecke / University of Montana

8/21/2025 10:33:00 PM | Soccer

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

The opening day of the third Rumble in the Rockies produced a pair of exciting draws as Denver and Baylor played to a 0-0 deadlock, and Montana and Seattle settled for a 1-1 tie.

It's fitting that this year's edition of the Rumble is presented by Community Medical Center. Thursday's matches were not for the faint of heart.

After a Denver defender drew a red card for pulling down a Baylor attacker by the jersey on a breakaway, the Pioneers survived 68 minutes of going 10 on 11 to get the draw.

The Bears (0-0-2) out-shot Denver (1-0-2) by a 23-5 margin, putting 10 of those on goal, but nine saves by Alina Santos and a clutch second-half team save off the end line kept the match scoreless.

In the second match, Seattle stunned a crowd of more than 1,000 at South Campus Stadium with an own goal in the fourth minute, Montana's first goal allowed in nearly 630 minutes dating back to last season.

The Redhawks (1-0-1) looked like the sharper team throughout the first half before the Grizzlies (1-0-1) fought back in the second.

Second-half spark plug Eliza Bentler drew a foul in the box in the 53rd minute and Miss Cool, Collected and Confident, Maddie Ditta, stepped up and converted the penalty kick to draw the teams even.

It wasn't a pretty, high-octane match – only five shots were put on goal – but there was beauty in the back-and-forth struggle as two very good teams got after each other.

"That's why they're on the schedule. You want these games now," said Griz coach Chris Citowicki, whose team extended its unbeaten streak at home to 18 matches on Thursday.

"This one I enjoyed because we found a way back into it, almost won the game, then they flipped the script, then we flipped the script. It was just this chess battle. The ability to grind and not give up the winning goal, just beautiful."

Montana hadn't allowed a goal since the first half against Eastern Washington last Oct. 13. The Redhawks broke that streak before Thursday's crowd had barely settled into their bleacher seats following the National Anthem.

Riley Arribas got the ball to the end line and drove a cross from the left side toward the front of goal. A Montana defender rose to head the ball out of harm's way but instead ricocheted it into the goal.

It was only the second time Montana had faced a deficit during its 18-match unbeaten streak at South Campus Stadium. The good news was there were still nearly 87 minutes of game time left.

"There was no sense of, oh no, now what? It was just, keep going, it'll be fine," said Citowicki.

But Montana needed to get to the locker room after spending most of the first half on its heels, taking only three shots in 45 minutes, none of those on goal.

What the Grizzlies were trying wasn't working.

"We started to wiggle our way back into it, but you could see they still had that control," said Citowicki. "If we want to take this square peg and jam it into this round hole, we might get our way back into the game, but if we wanted to try to win this thing, we had to change.

"You can always point at something. Where is our effort? Why is this player out of position? This time, the players were doing everything I wanted them to do. It was just a mismatch. What we were trying to run against them wasn't working. We needed halftime to find the solution."

Montana's senior leaders, Ditta and Chloe Seelhoff, both took shots early in the second half and the Grizzlies created their first corner kick of the match five minutes in, signaling this would be a different team.

With Montana attacking, Seattle's Alana Lamb took down Bentler in the box at 52:01, giving the Grizzlies a penalty kick. It was a surprisingly pressure-filled moment for an August match, Montana needing a breakthrough goal to pull even.

Ditta handled it in been-there, done-that fashion, stepping up to the ball, taking her time before kicking it into the lower-left corner, letting everyone know she was going to own the moment.

"That's what you expect out of Maddie. When the whistle blew, it was just silence," said Citowicki. "She took her step to the left, sized it up and then went into it.

"The confidence you have to have in that high-pressure moment in front of a crowd like that, to pause and say, it's my world, I'll take this when I'm ready, you don't find that in many people. What a clutch penalty kick. When it's not pretty, you need people doing amazing things."

Both teams had this-might-be-it moments as the second half ticked down but Ashlyn Dvorak, who played the final 45 minutes after Bayliss Flynn got the start, made two saves for Montana and Sentinel High grad Kassidy Kirgan had one of her own for Seattle.

It was a fair result. Neither team departed the field feeling terribly happy but both were satisfied.

"At the end of the day, they don't like tying and we don't like tying," said Citowicki. "But it's a good result for Missoula. Kassidy did well, we played well and everybody got to come out and see it together."

Seattle will face Denver on Sunday at 10:30 a.m., Montana will follow with a match against Baylor at 1:30 p.m.