Colson Montgomery initially wasn’t crazy about returning to the Arizona Fall League for a second straight year.

But the Chicago White Sox prospect knew it was what he needed.

“I kind of took that as a challenge, and I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to go prove and show the guy that I am and everybody knows that I am and that I can be,’” Montgomery said during a videoconference call Wednesday. “I had to put my ego and pride away for a little bit and just know this was the best thing for me. For the long-term career, too, and figuring everything out.”

The shortstop went on a tear during the stint in the Arizona Fall League with a 1.167 OPS.

The Sox hope it’s a sign of things to come for the 2021 first-round draft pick who was added to the club’s 40-man roster Tuesday along with right-handed pitcher Juan Carela.

“I’m happy and excited that I ended on a good note and back to what I need to be and better,” Montgomery said. “But also, I have a whole bunch of hunger and frustration and — not disappointment and embarrassment in myself — but that fire in me that I always want to do good and the fact that I didn’t perform the way I wanted to for most of the year, it kind of drives me crazy.

“It’s fueling the fire in my offseason work of, hey, I not really have to prove myself again, but have to get back to where I was and get back to being the guy everybody knows that I am. And that comes into the happy and exciting that I did get back to that at the end of the year and the Fall League.”

Montgomery, 22, is ranked No. 37 on MLB.com’s top-100 prospects list.

The site also rates the shortstop as the No. 3 prospect in the Sox organization behind pitchers Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith.Montgomery had an up-and-down 2024 season with Triple-A Charlotte. He reached career highs in games (130), hits (104), doubles (21), home runs (18), RBIs (63), runs (66) and walks (69), but his .214 batting average, .329 on-base percentage and .710 OPS were the lowest of his career. He also had a career-high 164 strikeouts.

Montgomery saw some positives in September with the Knights, slashing .264/.357/.458 with four home runs and 13 RBIs in 19 games. He then carried it over in the Arizona Fall League, slashing .313/.511/.656 with two doubles, three home runs and 11 RBIs in 11 games for the Glendale Desert Dogs.

“I feel like throughout the year I was kind of fighting it, just being like, ‘Oh, no, I’m not in a slump,’ “ Montgomery said. “But once I kind of accepted it, I was like ‘All right, what do I do now? What do I gotta do to get better? What do I gotta do to be the best guy I can be for the team?

“And once that clicked with me, it was just smooth sailing after that.”

Sox general manager Chris Getz said of the AFL performance: “It looked like the Colson that we were accustomed to watching.”

The Sox selected Montgomery with the No. 22 pick in 2021 out of Southridge High School in Indiana. He has a .253/.376/.414 slash line with 59 doubles, 37 home runs and 154 RBIs in 316 career games during four minor-league seasons.

He aims to be in position to help the Sox in 2025. Although Montgomery wasn’t on the major-league roster this season, he “100 percent” felt what the club was going through while it set a modern MLB record with 121 losses.

“I feel like I feel what they felt because we’re a group,” Montgomery said. “We’re a collective group as an organization. I felt like everybody felt the same thing. Obviously the guys up there probably felt a little more upset and disappointed about it. But we all felt disappointed and upset.

“At the end of the day, it just shows that we care too. We want to do good, we want this organization to succeed. I wish I could have been up there to maybe help. But there’s a reason why I wasn’t up there. I just feel like when the time’s right, it’s gonna happen. I always say, ‘It’s God’s timing.’”