State AA girls soccer: Bozeman Gallatin beats Missoula Sentinel for 1st title |

BOZEMAN — The tears of happiness came exactly one year after the tears of sadness, the ones that represented the pain of almost having everything.

Memories of a one-goal loss in the 2021 state championship fueled the Bozeman Gallatin girls soccer team all the way through the 2022 season. Back in the title game on Saturday, the Raptors did not waste the opportunity to make history.

The Eastern AA’s No. 1 seed, Gallatin claimed a 3-1 victory at Bozeman Sports Park against Missoula Sentinel to give the school in just its third year its first championship in the sport. The Raptors finished unbeaten at 15-0-2, with just two ties during the regular season.

“To come to a game and do what we wanted to do means everything to us,” Gallatin senior goalkeeper Averi Smith said. “Last year, we did, and it just didn’t work. That was the hard part, that we gave it everything and it just didn’t happen. This year we gave it everything, and it happened.”

Gallatin started as a program in 2020 and went 7-7-1 with a first-round playoff win before a quarterfinal exit. The next year, the Raptors reached the title game but fell 1-0 to Billings West on Oct. 29 in Billings and finished with a 12-2-4 mark. In the third year, they reached a height that would have been difficult to predict three years ago. But as the final whistle blew Saturday, a year after the West loss, reaching that level felt better than Gallatin’s players could have hoped for.

“We worked so hard, not only this season but the past two seasons as well. Seeing all the work pay off made it so worth it,” senior Olivia Collins said. “Making it to the state final last year and not winning it made winning this year that much better. It is super special. This showcased our hard work for the past three years.”

Collins led the state with 42 goals this season, netting her final two on Saturday against the Spartans (11-4-3). Her first came in the game’s 10th minute, as she dribbled through the Sentinel defense to find space. She found enough and pushed a shot past goalkeeper Kassidy Kirgan.

“We definitely did have momentum after that goal,” Collins said. “It gave us energy and confidence going forward.”

The Raptors added one right before halftime, as junior Natalie Sippos played a ball from the left side of the field back toward the middle. A Spartans defender got her head on the ball, but Gallatin senior Indigo Andresen got the second…