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2021 spring season Griz soccer thread

alabamagrizzly

Well-known member
Soccer season is finally here and there’s some pretty big expectations for the Griz, unless you’re a Griz fan, then it’s business as usual. Last year’s regular season champs(undefeated in league play) return every starter on a team that didn’t lose any girls to graduation, plus a pretty big addition from outside the program.

This year’s schedule is very interesting for obvious reasons. The con has been split into two divisions, the Northwest(Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington, Portland St, and Sacramento St) and the Southeast(Northern Colorado, Idaho St, Weber St, Southern Utah, and Northern Arizona). Each member of the division will play a two game series(one game fri and one sun) against every division member. Each team will have two series’s at home and two on the road, resulting in an eight game con schedule. The top two in both divisions will advance to the con tourney, making every regular season game very important. Here’s the Griz’s schedule.

Mar 7th v MSU Billings
Mar 12th/14th @ Idaho
Mar 26th/28th v PSU
Apr 2nd/4th @ Sac St
Apr 9th/11th v EWU
Apr 15th/17th BSC Semi/Fin @ Ogden, Ut

Hosting PSU and EWU is nice but road games against IU and SacS(last years only other undefeated team) will be tuff. Although Sac did graduate the cons offensive MVP and their Co-Defensive MVP(four girls named Co-D MVP), they do return the cons top goalkeeper. Luckily though this years Griz team is staaacked. The Griz lost no one to graduation and added an offensive threat the likes of this con may have never been seen before(Coach Citowicki’s words) in Sr transfer Mimi Eiden from UND. She scored 8 goals last year which was 3rd in the Summit League(leader had 12) which would have been good for 2nd in the Big Sky(1st had 9). What’s amazing is she did it on 22 sog and 38 shots overall. By comparison Montana’s best offensive threat, Sr and 2nd team All Con Alexa Coyle(Brock’s little sister) scored four(10th in con tied with follow Griz, midfielder Rita Lang) goals on 58 shots, 26 which were on goal. Those two paired together up front could be a dangerous combo, hopefully improving on last years team finish of 7th in the con in goals scored.

In the midfield there’s a wealth of experience in 1st team All Con selection Sr Avery Adams, the aforementioned 3rd team selection Jr Rita Lang, and Jr Zoe Tanstrum. Jr Raye Burton is finally 100% healthy after a knee injury the previous year and should be one of the better players on the team.

The last line of defense for a team that was 2nd in the con in goals allowed is Sr stalwart goalkeeper Claire Howard. In 62 career games where she’s averaged 93 minutes a game, she’s allowed 56 goals. Last year the 2nd team All Con selection allowed 0.78 goals a game while saving 82% of the opponents shots on goal. With 26 career shutouts(a school record), she’s four shy of breaking the con record of 29. But all Griz soccer fans know, the defense doesn’t start with her. Co-Defensive Player of the year and 2nd team All Con selection Jr Cairtlin Rogers(don’t ask how that adds up), leads a usually stout line of Montana defenders. 1st team selection Sr Taylor Hansen and 3rd team selection So Allie Larson will do a fine job of making sure that Howard doesn’t have to block too many shots. Defense is usually our bread and butter and this year will be no different, especially if we expect to win another con championship and a trip to the NCAA’s.

Go Griz!
 
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