University of Montana Grizzlies Soccer Camps

Head Coach
Chris Citowicki

The 2024 season is Chris Citowicki’s seventh year as head coach of the Montana soccer program. He was hired in May 2018 after previously working as the associate head coach at North Dakota.

He is just the fourth coach in the history of the program, which started in 1994.

He follows Betsy Duerksen (1994-2003), Neil Sedgwick (2004-10) and Mark Plakorus (2011-17) in leading a program that has won nine Big Sky Conference regular-season championships and seven tournament titles in its history, and has been to six NCAA tournaments.

Citowicki, the 2023 Big Sky Coach of the Year, has led the Grizzlies to six Big Sky championships and three NCAA tournaments in his first six seasons, winning regular-season titles in 2019, ’20 and ’23, and tournament championships in 2018, ’20 and ’21.

He enters the 2024 season with a record at Montana of 56-33-22. His teams have gone 33-8-10 in Big Sky play, 40-11-10 against league teams overall including the postseason.

He guided his first team, in 2018, to the Big Sky tournament championship as the No. 5 seed. The Grizzlies won three matches in five days, all by shutout, all over higher-seeded teams to send Montana to its first NCAA tournament since 2011.

In 2019 Montana went 6-0-3 in league to win the regular-season title, its first since 2014.

In 2020, a season played in the spring of 2021, the Grizzlies won the Big Sky Northwest Division title with a 7-1-0 record and doubled up with a tournament championship as well.

Montana lost 1-0 to South Carolina in the first round of the NCAA tournament. It was only the second one-goal differential for the Big Sky champion in the national tournament since 2006.

In 2021, Montana went 13-6-1, its most regular-season wins since 2000, won the Big Sky tournament and advanced to its sixth NCAA tournament, half of which have come under Citowicki as coach.

Montana had one of its best seasons in program history in 2023, going 13-3-3 and ending the season with an RPI of 96, its best year-end RPI for a fall season since 2000.

The Grizzlies defeated Oklahoma, played to draws with Ohio State and Oregon State and won the Big Sky with an unbeaten 7-0-1 record. Montana’s home match against Ohio State draw a program-record crowd to South Campus Stadium of 1,973.

Montana scored 33 goals in 19 matches, its most since 2000, and set a Big Sky record by allowing only nine. The Grizzlies led the nation in team save percentage (.903), tied for third in goals-against average (0.47) and was among the national leaders with 11 shutouts.

Taryn Miller was named All-West Region by the United Soccer Coaches in 2018, Taylor Hansen in 2019. In 2020, Hansen and Claire Howard earned first-team honors, the first time in program history the Grizzlies had multiple first-team selections.

Montana’s successful 2023 season led to four players earning All-West Region honors. Skyleigh Thompson was first team, Ashlyn Dvorak, Ava Samuelson and Delaney Lou Schorr third team.

Miller was named a United Soccer Coaches Scholar All-West Region selection in 2018. Howard and Avery Adams were recognized in 2019, Howard, Adams and Alexa Coyle in 2020.

Thompson and Schorr were named Scholar All-West Region in 2023, with Thompson also earning second-team Scholar All-American honors, a first for Montana since 2000.

Caitlin Rogers was voted the Big Sky co-Defensive MVP in 2019. Howard was voted the Big Sky Goalkeeper of the Year in 2020 after she set the league record for career shutouts, Camellia Xu earned the same honor in 2021 after recording a program-record 11 shutouts.

Montana received four individual honors in 2023. Thompson was the Offensive MVP, Dvorak the Freshman of the Year, Schorr the Golden Boot winner and Abby Gearhart the Newcomer of the Year.

Montana had one first-team All-Big Sky selection in 2018 and ’22, two in 2019 and four in both 2020 and ’21, the first time the program had four in consecutive seasons since 1998-99.

The Grizzlies had five first-team selections in 2023, the most since 2004.

Hansen played for the San Diego Wave of the National Women’s Soccer League in 2022. A number of Citowicki’s former players have gone on to play professionally overseas or represent their native country in international competition.

Citowicki spent the 2017 season as the associate head coach at North Dakota in the Fighting Hawks’ final year as a member of the Big Sky.

North Dakota had its most successful season as an NCAA Division I member, finishing 6-8-4, a four-win improvement from the previous year.

Prior to working at North Dakota, Citowicki was the head coach at Division III St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn. He led the Wildcats for six seasons (2011-16).

The Wildcats went 1-17 in Citowicki’s first year and improved to 9-8 the following fall, the biggest turnaround that season in Division III.

In 2016, in Citowicki’s final season, the Wildcats went 11-6-2 and advanced to the semifinals of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament for the first time in program history.

With that foundation in place, St. Kate’s won the MIAC in 2017, during Citowicki’s one season at North Dakota, and advanced to the NCAA Division III national tournament.

He had a six-year record at St. Catherine of 47-57-4.

Citowicki was a graduate assistant at Division II Bemidji State for the 2006 and ’07 seasons, and an assistant coach at Division III Augsburg in 2010 before being hired by St. Kate’s.

He spent eight years working in the Minnesota Olympic Development Program and coached five years for the Minnesota Thunder Academy, an ECNL club.

Citowicki earned an undergraduate degree in sports administration from Lock Haven in 2006, a master’s degree in sport studies from Bemidji State in 2008.

He and his wife, Aryn, have a daughter, Vivia, and a son, Sebastian.