MISSOULA — The Big Sky Conference announced its spring league schedule for women's soccer on Thursday morning.
The Montana Grizzlies will play a nine-match schedule beginning March 12 at Portland State. Following that, UM will play at Sacramento State on March 14.
Montana will play its first home league matches the following week, beginning with Northern Colorado on March 21. After that, the Griz have home matchups slated for March 26 and 28 against Eastern Washington and Idaho, respectively.
UM will hit the road again on April 2 and 4 against Idaho State and Weber State followed by home games against Southern Utah and Northern Arizona on April 9 and 11 to end the Big Sky portion of the schedule.
Teams are allowed to book non-conference games in February and early March.
“You could sense the difference in practice as soon as I told the team there was a schedule and showed them what it was,” UM soccer coach Chris Citowicki said in a media release. "People are hungry to see this team play, and this team is hungry to play. I can’t wait to play in front of people again.”
The Big Sky is also forgoing a league tournament this year. The regular-season champion will advance to the NCAA Tournament.
Montana, which won the regular-season title last season and the Big Sky tournament two years ago, was voted as the preseason favorite to win the league this upcoming season.
Soccer, along with other typical Big Sky fall sports, were postponed from their initial start times back in August.
