Cougs name Citowicki new women's soccer head coach

PULLMAN — Washington State athletics announced Chris Citowicki as its new head coach of the Cougars women’s soccer program.   

“We are extremely excited to have Chris leading our soccer program,” said Interim Director of Athletics Jon Haarlow. “He has a proven record of success and his dedication to developing student-athletes—not just as players, but as leaders, students, and members of our community—stood out immediately.”   

Citowicki becomes the eighth head coach in program history after spending the last eight seasons as the head coach at Montana. In 2025, the Griz swept the Big Sky Conference regular season and tournament championships, advancing to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time under Citowicki.  

“I have been a fan of the Washington State program for a long time,” said Citowicki. “To have the opportunity to step into that setting and represent WSU and Coug nation is a huge honor. The family and I cannot wait to move to Pullman and get started.”  

Citowicki arrived in Montana in May 2018 as the fourth head coach in program history, according to University of Montana athletics. He followed Betsy Duerksen (1994-2003), Neil Sedgwick (2004-10) and Mark Plakorus (2011-17) in leading a program that has won 10 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 seven Big Sky championships and three NCAA tournaments in his first seven seasons, winning regular-season titles in 2019, ’20, ’23 and ’24, and tournament championships in 2018, ’20 and ’21.  

He enters the 2025 season with a record at Montana of 68-35-27. He is the second-winningest coach in program history behind Duerksen, the program’s founder. His teams have gone 39-8-12 in Big Sky play, 46-11-13 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.  

Montana had one of its best seasons in program history in 2023, going 13-3-3 and ending the season with a rating percentage index of 96. The Griz repeated as Big Sky regular-season champions in 2024, going 6-0-2 in league to become the first program in Big Sky history to go unbeaten in back-to-back seasons.  

In his final season at UM, Citowicki and the Griz went 11-4-5. Their season concluded with a competitive 2-0 loss to the University of Washington Huskies.   

The Cougars have participated in 14 NCAA Tournaments, most recently in 2021, and reached the 2019 College Cup semifinals. Washington State is set to face a renewed Pac-12 Conference slate in 2026 after finishing 7-7-5 and seventh in the West Coast Conference in 2025.  

Prior to arriving at Montana, Citowicki spent the 2017 season as the associate head coach at North Dakota. The Fighting Hawks had their most successful season as an NCAA Division I member, finishing 6-8-4, a four-win improvement from the previous year.  

Citowicki served as the head coach at Division-III St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. He led the Wildcats for six seasons from 2011 to 2016. 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 (MIAC) tournament for the first time in program history.  

Citowicki was a graduate assistant at Division II Bemidji State for the 2006 and '07 seasons, then coached at Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Faribault, Minn. He was an assistant coach at Division-III Augsburg in 2010 before being hired by St. Catherine.  

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 and 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.    

“He brings an infectious passion and energy that will resonate throughout our program. I have no doubt Chris will continue to elevate Cougar Soccer for many years to come,” Haarlow said.  

    Cougars Women’s Soccer Head Coach Chris Citowicki watches from the sideline during a University of Montana soccer match. Citowicki is the eighth head coach in Cougars program history.