Montana’s UK duo relishing new opportunity
8/6/2026 6:31:00 PM | Soccer
It was a true burn-the-boats moment, fitting for a player who arrived in the U.S. from England, crossing the ocean with the intention of making a name for herself in this new land before one day returning home to continue playing professionally.
She arrived via plane in Missoula this spring for an official visit, this forward with the goal-scorer's mentality, who did so at Arizona State as a freshman in 2024, who spent this past semester training at Grand Canyon, then landed in Montana in May with bags fully packed.
She wasn't here for a visit, for a meet-and-greet, to test the waters. Megan Wilson-Sofield was coming to stay, sight unseen. There would be no retreat.
"When I picked her up, she comes out of the airport carrying three massive suitcases," said first-year Griz coach Stuart Gore, who went into the NCAA's spring portal window intent on finding a player of Wilson-Sofield's skill set (read: I put the ball in the goal and do it frequently).
"I said, You're only here for a day. She said, Yeah, I'm going to commit. Can I leave my suitcases somewhere?" When she returned to Phoenix, her luggage remained behind, the signal of her commitment that she was ready to be all in, ready to be a Grizzly.
"I knew as soon as we had a phone call," Wilson-Sofield said of her decision to move from the desert to the mountains. "It felt a bit like home because it was an English coach. The style of play, what he wants to build for this team, that's what I want out of it as well."
She grew up in Chorley, less than 30 miles away from Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, almost near enough to feel the roar of the venerable stadium on game days, a club long led by a coach, Alex Ferguson, who not only won matches but championed youth development.
It was into that system that Wilson-Sofield stepped and became the player she is, winning both Women's Super League Academy League and Academy Cup titles for Manchester United's U21 team.
Her new coach is from Dunstable, north of London. They just understand each other that way. It's different. You wouldn't get it, though maybe this will help.
"It means living, breathing soccer, probably passed down from your parents," Gore said. "It's no different than if you grew up loving Griz football. If your dad watches Griz football, you grow up watching Griz football. It's basically the European version of that."
Gore didn't stop with one spring commit from the United Kingdom. He also added Ellen Hampton, a center back from Banbridge, Northern Ireland, who spent last season starting every match for Arkansas State in the strong Sun Belt Conference, where Gore had previously coached while at Troy.
Hampton played more than 81 minutes per match last season in her first year of college soccer. "Playing in that conference week to week is unforgiving and she still played nearly every minute as a freshman. That showed me this is a really good player," said Gore.
Hampton followed her family into the sport, earned a spot on Linfield FC, one of the Northern Ireland Football League's Big 3, and has represented her home country on the international stage, most recently playing in the UEFA Women's U-19 Championship in November and December.
She, too, wants to play collegiately in the U.S., earn a degree, then return home to continue playing.
"They both asked the same thing (during recruiting). How are you going to make me a better player? A lot of players don't focus on that," said Gore. "I think they trusted my outlook for them and the progression of making them better players. They both want to play after college."
They give this new-look Montana team a goal-scorer up front and a goal-denier on the back line, and nobody would be more surprised at how this has all turned out for Hampton than her mother, who put her daughter into soccer early on and didn't think much would come of it.
Her mom, Kathryn, played hockey. Her dad played soccer, her two older brothers did as well. "I just kind of grew up with it. They were a big influence on me starting," said Hampton. "I joined a club for a bit of fun. My mom used to laugh. She said I wasn't very good when I first started.
"I grew into it because I loved it and enjoyed it. I eventually got better."
She'd been to the U.S. for soccer previously, when her team at Linfield FC traveled to Minnesota for the USA Cup, the largest youth tournament in North America that draws more than 1,000 teams from around the world.
"Spent 10 days, best soccer trip I've ever been on. I don't know if it was the girls on the team or the place. It was great. I loved it," she said.
The U.S. was a country that offered something different, college athletics, a commingling of school and sport. Their choice back home was mostly college or club. "There isn't the option to go to university and continue on playing," said Gore. "You have to forfeit one or the other."
Hampton didn't hold any thought of playing college soccer in the U.S. until the day of a big rivalry match, after which an agent, who had been watching, reached out to gauge her interest level. She said it was high. A highlight tape was made, SUBMIT was hit on the recruiting site.
Soon, she had a list of interested schools, which she put in piles of no and maybe, having to do so without visiting a single campus. "The connection with the coach was important. I really wanted to get on with the coach," Hampton said.
"And the style of play. I asked for video footage to see if how they played suits me."
Wilson-Sofield was a year ahead, playing at Arizona State in 2024, scoring goals for the Sun Devils. Hampton arrived a year later, landing in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and starting every match for the Red Wolves last fall.
"I knew a few girls who came over but didn't know much about it," said Wilson-Sofield. "As soon as I came over here, I loved the lifestyle and the way of life.
As for the soccer part, "In Europe, it's more tactical, more possession-based. That's what Stu wants to build here, a possession-based team, so I thought it was the right fit."
Wilson-Sofield is that rare player who can not only score goals but welcomes the pressure of being the player her teammates look to when it's time to finish, when the ball is in the box and everyone is wondering who will make the play. She will.
"The hardest thing to find in our game is somebody who keeps the ball out of the net and somebody who puts the ball in the net," said Gore. "That's why in professional soccer they are the two most expensive positions you have to pay for.
"Not every forward is a goal-scoring forward. Some have a ruthlessness in front of goal. They love it, love the pressure of it. All the weight is on me. That's a mentality you can't teach somebody, to deal with that pressure."
It took less than the length of Montana's first practice last month for Gore and first-year assistant coach Amanda Attanasi, who coaches the team's forwards, to witness something, then exchange knowing glances with each other, both realizing what they just saw.
"Some of the goals Megan scored straight off the bat, I looked at Amanda and we smiled. Okay, that's what a special player can do," Gore said. "With not playing last year, she's chomping at the bit to get on the field and get going."
If Gore started the Sun Belt-to-Big Sky exodus in February, Hampton followed his path in May.
She, too, was drawn in by Gore's preferred style of play, his promise to push her and make her a better player so that her final game at Montana is not the final match of her lifetime playing career. "Plus, this place is beautiful," she added.
She got an up-close look at Montana the first time she floated the Clark Fork River, two holes slowly deflating her tube and sinking her deeper and deeper into the water as she drifted downstream. "But it was fun."
Without classes on the team's daily schedule, at least for now, it's all soccer, all the time. "It's more of a professional setting, which I like. Eat breakfast, have a team meeting, get in a lift, go to practice, then have that on repeat. You get to have that every day," Hampton said.
It's not just a new era for the program, with Gore the fifth coach in program history. It's a season unlike nearly any other. The only thing close to resembling the dynamics – 25 players, 17 of them newcomers – would be Betsy Duerksen's very first team in 1994, when it was new faces all around.
"In some ways it's a lot easier because you're in the same position as a lot of your teammates," said Wilson-Sofield. "It's harder trying to build a team because everyone is so new and everyone is getting used to how each of us plays, but that's what preseason is for.
"I think we've come a long way since the first training session already."
She arrived via plane in Missoula this spring for an official visit, this forward with the goal-scorer's mentality, who did so at Arizona State as a freshman in 2024, who spent this past semester training at Grand Canyon, then landed in Montana in May with bags fully packed.
She wasn't here for a visit, for a meet-and-greet, to test the waters. Megan Wilson-Sofield was coming to stay, sight unseen. There would be no retreat.
"When I picked her up, she comes out of the airport carrying three massive suitcases," said first-year Griz coach Stuart Gore, who went into the NCAA's spring portal window intent on finding a player of Wilson-Sofield's skill set (read: I put the ball in the goal and do it frequently).
"I said, You're only here for a day. She said, Yeah, I'm going to commit. Can I leave my suitcases somewhere?" When she returned to Phoenix, her luggage remained behind, the signal of her commitment that she was ready to be all in, ready to be a Grizzly.
"I knew as soon as we had a phone call," Wilson-Sofield said of her decision to move from the desert to the mountains. "It felt a bit like home because it was an English coach. The style of play, what he wants to build for this team, that's what I want out of it as well."
She grew up in Chorley, less than 30 miles away from Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, almost near enough to feel the roar of the venerable stadium on game days, a club long led by a coach, Alex Ferguson, who not only won matches but championed youth development.
It was into that system that Wilson-Sofield stepped and became the player she is, winning both Women's Super League Academy League and Academy Cup titles for Manchester United's U21 team.
Her new coach is from Dunstable, north of London. They just understand each other that way. It's different. You wouldn't get it, though maybe this will help.
"It means living, breathing soccer, probably passed down from your parents," Gore said. "It's no different than if you grew up loving Griz football. If your dad watches Griz football, you grow up watching Griz football. It's basically the European version of that."
Gore didn't stop with one spring commit from the United Kingdom. He also added Ellen Hampton, a center back from Banbridge, Northern Ireland, who spent last season starting every match for Arkansas State in the strong Sun Belt Conference, where Gore had previously coached while at Troy.
Hampton played more than 81 minutes per match last season in her first year of college soccer. "Playing in that conference week to week is unforgiving and she still played nearly every minute as a freshman. That showed me this is a really good player," said Gore.
Hampton followed her family into the sport, earned a spot on Linfield FC, one of the Northern Ireland Football League's Big 3, and has represented her home country on the international stage, most recently playing in the UEFA Women's U-19 Championship in November and December.
She, too, wants to play collegiately in the U.S., earn a degree, then return home to continue playing.
"They both asked the same thing (during recruiting). How are you going to make me a better player? A lot of players don't focus on that," said Gore. "I think they trusted my outlook for them and the progression of making them better players. They both want to play after college."
They give this new-look Montana team a goal-scorer up front and a goal-denier on the back line, and nobody would be more surprised at how this has all turned out for Hampton than her mother, who put her daughter into soccer early on and didn't think much would come of it.
Her mom, Kathryn, played hockey. Her dad played soccer, her two older brothers did as well. "I just kind of grew up with it. They were a big influence on me starting," said Hampton. "I joined a club for a bit of fun. My mom used to laugh. She said I wasn't very good when I first started.
"I grew into it because I loved it and enjoyed it. I eventually got better."
She'd been to the U.S. for soccer previously, when her team at Linfield FC traveled to Minnesota for the USA Cup, the largest youth tournament in North America that draws more than 1,000 teams from around the world.
"Spent 10 days, best soccer trip I've ever been on. I don't know if it was the girls on the team or the place. It was great. I loved it," she said.
The U.S. was a country that offered something different, college athletics, a commingling of school and sport. Their choice back home was mostly college or club. "There isn't the option to go to university and continue on playing," said Gore. "You have to forfeit one or the other."
Hampton didn't hold any thought of playing college soccer in the U.S. until the day of a big rivalry match, after which an agent, who had been watching, reached out to gauge her interest level. She said it was high. A highlight tape was made, SUBMIT was hit on the recruiting site.
Soon, she had a list of interested schools, which she put in piles of no and maybe, having to do so without visiting a single campus. "The connection with the coach was important. I really wanted to get on with the coach," Hampton said.
"And the style of play. I asked for video footage to see if how they played suits me."
Wilson-Sofield was a year ahead, playing at Arizona State in 2024, scoring goals for the Sun Devils. Hampton arrived a year later, landing in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and starting every match for the Red Wolves last fall.
"I knew a few girls who came over but didn't know much about it," said Wilson-Sofield. "As soon as I came over here, I loved the lifestyle and the way of life.
As for the soccer part, "In Europe, it's more tactical, more possession-based. That's what Stu wants to build here, a possession-based team, so I thought it was the right fit."
Wilson-Sofield is that rare player who can not only score goals but welcomes the pressure of being the player her teammates look to when it's time to finish, when the ball is in the box and everyone is wondering who will make the play. She will.
"The hardest thing to find in our game is somebody who keeps the ball out of the net and somebody who puts the ball in the net," said Gore. "That's why in professional soccer they are the two most expensive positions you have to pay for.
"Not every forward is a goal-scoring forward. Some have a ruthlessness in front of goal. They love it, love the pressure of it. All the weight is on me. That's a mentality you can't teach somebody, to deal with that pressure."
It took less than the length of Montana's first practice last month for Gore and first-year assistant coach Amanda Attanasi, who coaches the team's forwards, to witness something, then exchange knowing glances with each other, both realizing what they just saw.
"Some of the goals Megan scored straight off the bat, I looked at Amanda and we smiled. Okay, that's what a special player can do," Gore said. "With not playing last year, she's chomping at the bit to get on the field and get going."
If Gore started the Sun Belt-to-Big Sky exodus in February, Hampton followed his path in May.
She, too, was drawn in by Gore's preferred style of play, his promise to push her and make her a better player so that her final game at Montana is not the final match of her lifetime playing career. "Plus, this place is beautiful," she added.
She got an up-close look at Montana the first time she floated the Clark Fork River, two holes slowly deflating her tube and sinking her deeper and deeper into the water as she drifted downstream. "But it was fun."
Without classes on the team's daily schedule, at least for now, it's all soccer, all the time. "It's more of a professional setting, which I like. Eat breakfast, have a team meeting, get in a lift, go to practice, then have that on repeat. You get to have that every day," Hampton said.
It's not just a new era for the program, with Gore the fifth coach in program history. It's a season unlike nearly any other. The only thing close to resembling the dynamics – 25 players, 17 of them newcomers – would be Betsy Duerksen's very first team in 1994, when it was new faces all around.
"In some ways it's a lot easier because you're in the same position as a lot of your teammates," said Wilson-Sofield. "It's harder trying to build a team because everyone is so new and everyone is getting used to how each of us plays, but that's what preseason is for.
"I think we've come a long way since the first training session already."
Players Mentioned
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