The Montana women's soccer team won both of its matches in the Rumble in the Rockies at South Campus Stadium, including Sunday's 3-0 victory over former Pac-12 member Oregon State. Montana, who edged Colorado College on Friday, 1-0, used goals by Maddie Ditta, Bella O'Brien and Riley O'Brien to beat Oregon State in dominating fashion. Keeper Ashlyn Dvorak, a Billings native, made one save.
The Beavers, who are coming off a 4-8-7 season and are under the direction of an interim coach in Caroline Kelly, have joined the West Coast Conference. They are picked to finish eighth in the league. With 15 minutes still remaining on the countdown clock, fans of the Montana soccer program were looking up at a rapidly filling grandstand at South Campus Stadium and wondering, where am I supposed to sit? By the time they had all shoehorned in, all 1,190 of them, the second-highest attendance in program history, the Grizzlies delighted their followers.
"It's building," said seventh-year coach Chris Citowicki, whose first team, in 2018, played in front of an average of just more than 400 fans. "People are not being triggered by giveaways. People are showing up because it's a beautiful product.
You want to watch it." It took less than three minutes for Montana to open the scoring. The Grizzlies led 2-0 at the half and won going away, outshooting the Beavers 18-6 and holding a majority of the possession to defeat Oregon State for the first time since 1997.
"It's the best thing to start warm-ups and people are already filling the stands," said senior Ava Samuelson. "It really shows that Missoula is such a big soccer community and gives us so much support. The energy they bring goes into us.
We play so well because of our fans." Citowicki added, "Ava is right. The more people show up, the more you want to give.
It makes their hearts beat faster, the blood flow more. They just want to win so much more when so many people show up. It's a beautiful thing.
" Montana scored its first goal before people had had a chance to get comfortable after standing for the national anthem. Jen Estes's close-range shot from the left side of the box was saved by Oregon State goalkeeper Mya Sanchez. The rebound was tracked down by Ditta, who left-footed the ball into traffic in front and it pinballed into the right side of the goal.
It was Estes's first point as a Grizzly, Ditta's fifth career goal and a signal that Montana could now defend the next 87 minutes and slog its way to a 1-0 victory. The Grizzlies had the goal they needed. Now they could sit back and squeeze the Beavers into submission.
Wrong. That may have been the case for Citowicki's early teams, who didn't have the scoring prowess of his more recent squads. Now the mindset is, we're only getting started.
"The whole message the entire time was, we have to attack, we have to attack, we have to attack the whole game. Don't stop," Citowicki said. His Grizzlies didn't, going up 2-0 in the 35th minute when Bella O'Brien scored her fourth career goal on her 11th career shot.
Kayla Rendon Bushmaker touched the ball to O'Brien at the top of the box and the midfielder scored inside the right post not by force but by lofting a ball to a spot no goalkeeper outside the World Cup was going to touch. "Coming off the bench, if my number is called, I'm ready. We all play a role," said O'Brien.
"Huge credit to Kayla for laying the ball off to me. Great assist by her." It was a memorable moment for a senior with two starts in her career.
"Kudos to Bella. She is playing the best soccer of her career," said Citowicki. "Leader on the field during practices, leader in the locker room and working so hard to get minutes.
Now when she's getting them, she's maximizing them. It's exactly what you want everybody to do in this program." Montana led 2-0 at the break.
As the second half wore on, energy everywhere started to wane as the temperature cracked 90 degrees, that is until the O'Briens – Bella and Riley – brought the facility back to life in the 78th minute. Bella had her eyes on her second goal of the match, lofting a shot that hit off the crossbar and left the OSU goalkeeper on the ground. That left an opening for Riley to step up and head the ball into the net, her fourth career goal.
That made it four goals on the weekend by four different players, two starters and two players who had come in off the bench. Montana wins opener Citowicki used a heaping portion of substitutes to get different players involved in his team's opener Friday morning against Colorado College. The stalwart from start to finish of the 1-0 win, though, was the redshirt sophomore Dvorak.
"She has a presence that makes you feel relaxed when you're playing," Citowicki said of Dvorak. "You're always organized, everything's always under control when Ashlyn's in net." In her second season as the starter, Dvorak will be one of the leaders of a team that tops the preseason Big Sky Conference rankings.
The season-opening shutout is the 12th of the former Big Sky freshman of the year's career. Dvorak credited center backs Charlie Boone and Reeve Borseth for anchoring a back line that held the Tigers to just four shots on goal. "(The defense) made the job really easy," Dvorak said.
"There were a couple that I had to pull through and save that slipped through the back line, but overall they make my job super simple." The Grizzlies dominated possession throughout the game, allowing Citowicki to show more flexibility with his lineups. Including different players and shuffling his players around the field, Citowicki relied on Dvorak to keep the team settled and in form.
"As new players come in, freshmen come in, there are players that don't necessarily understand the team dynamic," Dvorak said, "so I try to guide them, especially." The role is a stark contrast from last season when Dvorak was making her first career start as a redshirt freshman. Though she also recorded a shutout in the first appearance of her time at Montana, a 1-0 win over North Dakota, she said she was significantly more nervous entering the campaign.
"I was trying to adjust to this level of play, the speed of play," Dvorak said of last season. "I'm very confident entering this season." The difference maker in Friday's game came early in the second half.
A play initiated from the back line worked the ball up the left side of the field, leading to a cross into the box that senior Delaney Lou Schorr converted into the lone goal of the game, the 14th of her career. "I kind of blacked out," said the forward , who hails from Colorado. "Kayla (Rendon Bushmaker) crossed the ball in, it was kind of jumpy, and I lofted it over the goalie as I knew the goalie was a little bit further out.
" The 2023 golden boot winner, Schorr returns to the attack for Montana alongside an experienced group of forwards. The Griz return all three leading goal scorers from last season, including senior Skyleigh Thompson, who led the team in goals and was named a Player to Watch by the United Soccer Coaches. "We already have a year under our belt," Schorr said of the forwards.
"We already have that connection, that unaware connection. I'm really excited to see where it goes." Montana's season ended in the conference tournament last year with a 1-0 first-round defeat at the hands of Northern Arizona.
The team has expectations of reaching far beyond the opening round this season, though the group refuses to get too far ahead of itself. "We always say, 'This is our work season,'" Schorr said. "We don't want to put all this pressure on ourselves.
We had a great year last season, but this year is starting from scratch." "We call this our work season, we just got to keep working." Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
