Griz win, complete historic regular season
The Montana soccer team completed an unbeaten Big Sky Conference schedule and capped a historic regular season with a 1-0 victory over Portland State on Sunday afternoon on Senior Day at South Campus Stadium in Missoula.
Delaney Lou Schorr’s goal in the 51st minute and Ashlyn Dvorak’s 11th shutout of the season gave the Grizzlies a dominant 7-0-1 run through league, the 10th time in Big Sky history a team has gone unbeaten. Five of those have now come from Griz teams over the years.
The victory gave Montana a 13-2-3 regular season, the best in program history. In Big Sky history, only Weber State, at 17-3-0 in 1998, had a better regular-season winning percentage and only Sacramento State, at 11-1-6 in 2019, had fewer losses.
“Really remarkable performance all season long,” said coach Chris Citowicki, whose team hasn’t lost since Sept. 10 and will take a seven-match winning streak into the Big Sky tournament next month in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Montana’s next match won’t be until Friday, Nov. 3, when the Grizzlies play a semifinal game in Flagstaff, Ariz., at the Big Sky tournament.
The last five teams to go unbeaten in the league? None of them doubled up their regular-season title with a tournament championship. Indeed, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
“The playoffs are a different beast,” said Citowicki. “Your shoulders immediately tense when you start thinking of playoffs because you lose and you’re done.”
Of course, this is no ordinary team. It’s extraordinary, which it’s been proving since coming through with a road win at North Dakota way back in the season opener. They proved it against Power 5 opponents and against almost every other team that’s taken the field against the Grizzlies this fall.
“Even in preseason, we were put in games where there was a lot of pressure on us and we had to perform,” said Samuelson. “We did a really good job with it and are prepped for it now.
“Going into the tournament, if we’re all in the right mind space, we’ll perform the way we want to.”