At 5-foot-6, he doesn’t look like a prototypical offensive weapon. But watch No. 30 patrol the outer flanks of a soccer pitch, and you’ll notice his agility and unique ability to dodge opposing defenders with seamless ease.
Two years removed from the game by his own choice, Kyle Montgomery has returned and picked up right where he left off in 2008. The biological sciences senior forward leads Cal Poly in scoring with three tallies on the season, and he hopes to lead the Mustangs to a Big West Conference title in 2011. Montgomery hasn’t stepped on an NCAA pitch since the final game of his sophomore season, a year in which he was named to the All-Big West Conference second team for the second consecutive year and registered a record-high 10 assists.
The senior from Seattle used his two-year hiatus from soccer to focus on his academic endeavors, namely his pursuit of attending medical school.
“I was at a sort of crossroads with education and soccer,” Montgomery said. “It was a time point where I had a strange epiphany where I decided that I wanted to do medical school. I wasn’t sure if I was 100 percent committed to soccer at that point, and I’m the kind of person that if I want to do something, I’m going to do it to my full capacity.”
In his mind, Montgomery’s decision to leave the team was final; he had no intention of returning to the pitch following the 2008 season. The time spent away from the sport he loved offered more opportunities for Montgomery to focus on school and to distance himself from the pressures of being a student-athlete.
“I was always studying in the library or at home, or waking up at 6:30 a.m. for practice, or traveling,” Montgomery said. “And when I left, I had a lot more free time. There were a lot of things I could do that I didn’t have time to do before.”
But with one year of NCAA eligibility left, Montgomery adopted a new attitude toward playing for the Mustangs during the winter of 2010. The forward decided to lace up his cleats for his senior season, a decision that thrilled his teammates and head coach Paul Holocher.
“He’s matured, he’s had a couple of years where he got to focus on himself as a student and I think he realized how much he loved playing on the team,” Holocher said. “He’s got a very good outlook for the (rest of the) season and how he wants to approach the experience. He’s been a great addition (this year).”
Montgomery was highly recruited out of Blanchet High School, receiving scholarship offers from schools such as the University of Washington, University of New Mexico, UC Davis and the University of Michigan. He ultimately picked Cal Poly due to its up-and-coming soccer program, and San Luis Obispo’s storied weather.
During his freshman campaign, Montgomery scored six goals and racked up 15 total points, good enough to be second on the team that year. In 2007, he received his first All-Big West Conference second team selection and was asked to train with Seattle Sounders FC of Major League Soccer following the season.
Holocher said the Mustangs missed his production on offense and his unique ability to create scoring chances out of seemingly nothing during his two-year hiatus.
“He’s a player who can change a game in a heartbeat,” Holocher said. “He brings a level of attacking quality that very few players in the country have. He’s a player that can produce goals, not just always having to score them but can create them on penalty kicks and assists, and you always want a guy like that on your team.”
Fellow senior and right back Cameron Walters also acknowledged Montgomery’s spark plug-like performance on the pitch.
“On the field, Kyle is a creative player, he’s really smart,” Walters said. “When he gets isolated one-on-one, he can pretty much beat anybody, and he’s just a threat. As you saw against Santa Barbara, he can have a guy marking him, and he’s still dangerous. He got an assist and a PK (in that game).”
That game against UC Santa Barbara is Montgomery’s most memorable moment as a Cal Poly student-athlete, he said.
In the match he earned an assist by drilling a pinpoint corner kick in the 79th minute to the near post, which Walters slammed home on a header, to even the score at one apiece. In the final minute of play, Montgomery drew a penalty inside the box from a Gaucho defender that earned the Mustangs a penalty kick, which Patrick Sigler converted less than a minute from full time.
“There aren’t many games that can match (the UCSB game),” Montgomery said. “Everything, from the atmosphere to warming up in front of five to 6,000 fans is pretty exciting in and of itself. And the way it ended was a story book ending. I couldn’t have asked for a better last game against Santa Barbara at home. It was the highlight of my college soccer career for sure.”
At 5-foot-6, Montgomery is one of the smallest players in the Big West, but what he lacks in stature he makes up for in offensive production.
“He’s a very cerebral player; he reads the game very well,” Holocher said. “He’s got a high level of soccer IQ.”