This Week At UWMPanthers.com

Here's what to look for at uwmpanthers.com this week:

The volleyball and men's soccer weekly releases will be posted over on uwmpanthers.com today, while women's soccer will follow Tuesday following the release of the NSCAA rankings.

Despite that, new episodes of all three coaches shows will be available on our podcasts page here by the end of the afternoon on Monday. You can also find video quotes for the women's soccer and volleyball matches from last weekend attached to the game stories.

Player blogs should also be updated Monday with the first "VolleyBlog" from Sam Trawitzke and the third installments of "GL's Journal" (men's soccer) and "The Women's Soccer Player Blog," which will come from Nicole Munnelly for the second time.

Here is a quick look at this week for the fall sports:

- The women's soccer team won the Milwaukee Cup over the weekend with a 6-0 win over Michigan and a 1-0 win over Rice. Senior Kate Megna was named tournament MVP. The Panthers are playing in the Inn at St. Mary's Classic, hosted by No. 2 Notre Dame. They actually host Marquette Thursday at Engelmann Field, before heading to South Bend, Ind., Sunday to play the Irish.

- For volleyball, the 2009 season got off to a tough-luck start with 3-0 losses at No. 13 Iowa State last weekend. This week, the Panthers will be looking for their first win of the season at the Magnolia Classic, hosted by Ole' Miss. They play Akron, Ole' Miss, Alcorn State and UAB.

- The men's soccer team gets its season underway Tuesday, playing at Marquette at Valley Fields, starting at 7 p.m.

- Cross country also gets underway this weekend, running at the UIC Home Opener on Saturday. A season preview for will be posted on either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week.

Remember: For up-to-date information on Milwaukee Panther Athletics, visit uwmpanthers.com. To supplement your coverage, be sure to follow the Panthers on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

A Little Volleyball Fun In The Pool

The UWM volleyball team has put in plenty of hard work in getting ready for a 2009 season full of high expectations. But they've had their fun as well. One day last week the Panthers took a brief break from practice and headed to the pool. And, once there, a handful of Panthers put together quite the synchronized swimming routine. Assistant coach Evan Berg was quick with his camera phone and caught the routine on video. Maybe it's not quite Olympic quality, but the Panthers are in the early lead for the Horizon League Synchronized Swimming Championship.

Panthers Step Into The Inferno

A pair of former Panthers have joined the coaching ranks in Milwaukee, doing so at Alverno College.

Sarah Teegarden, an All-American with the women's soccer team, joined the Inferno soccer staff this week. She was hired by head coach Brittany Oliviera-Nikolic, who was a volunteer assistant on the Panthers' staff last season.

Teegarden played for UWM from 2005-08, earning all-league first team honors all four years. She capped her career by leading Milwaukee to a school-record 18 wins and No. 16 national ranking last season. She was rewarded with All-America Third Team honors from the NSCAA.

Alverno also tabbed Erin Felber as its inaugural head tennis coach. Felber played for the Panthers from 2001-05 and had been coaching at her prep alma mater, Nicolet High School, before her current appointment. Her task will be building the program from the ground up.

Here are the official releases for Sarah, Erin and, for good measure, Brittany... though admittedly, Brittany was hired April 21 and I didn't do a blog post.

Alverno is a Division III school located on the south side of Milwaukee. The Inferno play in the Northern Athletics Conference and sponsor six sports. One more tie between UWM and AC is in Panther Hall of Famer Heather Czappa, who is an assistant athletic director and the senior women's administrator.

Women's Soccer Player Blog

The player blog for the Milwaukee women's soccer team is back in 2009. This season, we have given Kate Megna a break and will have players contributing to the blog on a rotating basis. First up is freshman Nicole Munnelly. Nicole will contribute for the first couple weeks of the season, starting with this post.

Nicole is one of three international players on Milwaukee's roster, hailing from Dublin, Ireland. She talks about getting acquainted to the States and going through the preseason in a new country.

Tough Schedule Confirmed

Every time I take another look at the non-league schedule UWM volleyball coach Susie Johnson has put together, it gets even tougher.

At first glance, fans would probably notice two matches against Iowa State and contests against Ole Miss and Ohio State, maybe just because those are BCS schools. And indeed, led by the Cyclones (who are 13th in the nation in the preseason AVCA poll and reached the Elite Eight last season), that group is indeed daunting on its own.

But then as I began to compile information for the opponent section of this year's media guide (now available online at the main site), it became apparent that a number of other Panther opponents were bringing back a large portion of their team from a season ago. In fact, seven of nine UWM non-league opponents have at least three of their starters back from a season ago, with five of them having at least four starters back.

Side note ... This doesn't include Alcorn State, for which I am still seeking information. As you might note in the opponent section of the guide, the info I did find is more than a little thin, and for the first time I can remember I had to say a schedule was "not available" ... ugh!

At the Panther Invite alone, Western Michigan has all of their starters back after going to the Sweet 16 last year. Somehow, WMU didn't crack the preseason top 25, though the Broncos are 30th when you consider where they sit in the "Others Receiving Votes" category. And, Ohio State has all but one of its starters back and looks poised for a major rise up the Big Ten standings.

But don't sleep on the trip to Mississippi, where Ole Miss is on its homecourt and UAB brings a couple of starters back from a team that went to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year. Throw in a single game at Northern Illinois - a place UWM pulled out a five-setter two years ago - and there's not an easy stretch on the slate.

It all starts in a week at Iowa State ...

10 Reasons To Watch UWM Women's Soccer

The Milwaukee Examiner (www.examiner.com) posted a couple pieces over the weekend leading up to the Milwaukee women's soccer exhibition opener Tuesday night against Illinois State. They counted down "Ten Reasons to Get Excited for UWM Women's Soccer." Here is a link to reasons 6-10 and reasons 1-5.

In light of that, here are the uwmpanthers.com 10 reasons to be excited for the season:

10) Soccer is the World's Sport: Six billion people in this world and the majority of them love soccer. Are they wrong? Nope.

9) 8 Starters Return: The Panthers lost just three starters from last season, bringing back a number of players with starting experience. Granted, two of those starters were Erin Kane and Sarah Teegarden. BUT, a lot of players return from a very good team. That's something to be excited about.

8) More International Flavor: In addition to sophomore Canadian Keara Thompson, Milwaukee has added two more international players in another Calgarian (person from Calgary? Calgarite?) Demi Price and Nicole Munnelly, a lass from the emerald isle Ireland.

7) A Whole Lotta Goals: People who think soccer is boring because of low-scoring games (you know who you are), can find solace at Engelmann Field. UWM scored a school-record 65 goals last season and return the scorers of 56 of those goals in 2009.

6) Home is Where the Heart is...: and the Panthers protect their heart. Milwaukee was 11-0 at home last season and has a 22-game home unbeaten streak entering the season. That streak is tied for the 16th-longest streak in NCAA Division I history.

5) Marquette has to come to Engelmann: UWM hosts its cross-town rival Marquette Sept. 3. The last time the two teams met at Engelmann Field, it was an exciting 0-0 draw (yes, 0-0 draws CAN be exciting... generally not, but sometimes) played in front of a school-record 867 people. The game was also televised live in Milwaukee. The Panthers are 2-0-1 in the last three meetings with the Golden Eagles.

4) National Rankings: The Panthers finished a season ranked for the first time in school history in 2008. No. 24 UWM looks like a strong choice to be ranked in the preseason polls, putting a national spotlight on Engelmann Field

3) Apple: Normally we wouldn't highlight one player, but Sarah Hagen scored 24 goals last season... as a freshman. She's back and likes scoring goals. Oh, and, while the other team is watching her, a lot of other players will be finding the back of the net.

2) Big Ten+1: Milwaukee plays eight Big Ten teams in 2009. EIGHT. Granted, that includes an exhibition match with Michigan State, but UWM plays just eight Horizon League teams by comparison. Come November, when you see the Panthers' record, you'll know they earned it.

No word on Milwaukee's chances for a birth into the Big Ten Tournament.

1) Shooting For 10: The Panthers have won nine-straight Horizon League regular season championships. North Carolina doesn't have a streak that long. IN FACT, only Penn State currently has a longer streak of regular season crowns in the nation (10).

There you have it, 10 reasons you should be at Engelmann Field this season, or at least watching uwmpanthers.com with bated breath every Friday and Sunday after Panther games.

We'll have a good amount of content this week for women's soccer at the main site. I'll have a release Tuesday, the season preview later in the week and recaps of Tuesday and Sunday's exhibition games. The first weekly release will be out next Monday, previewing the season-opening games with Northwestern (Aug. 21) and Wisconsin (Aug. 24).

LeCrone To Appear On Dennis Krause Show

Horizon League Commissioner Jon LeCrone was in Milwaukee earlier this week and made a stop at the Time Warner Cable studios while in town.

LeCrone taped an edition of the "Dennis Krause Show," which will air a number of times next week.

The air dates are as follows:

Mon. Aug. 10 - 5 pm and 10 pm

Tues. Aug. 11 - 7:30 am, 4 pm and 10:30 pm

Wed. Aug. 12 - 6 pm, 9 pm and 11 pm

Thurs. Aug. 13 - 4 pm and 10 pm

Fri. Aug. 14 - 11:30 am, 5 pm and 11 pm

Sat. Aug. 15 - 9:30 am and 10:30 pm

Sun. Aug. 16 - 8:30 am, 3:30 pm and 11:30 pm

Chambliss Gets Assistant Post At UWP

Former UWM staffer Sharif Chambliss has returned to the state of Wisconsin as an assistant men's basketball coach at UW-Platteville.

Chambliss served as a student-athlete tutor and mentor for two seasons at UWM, working closely with the men's basketball program. He then spent this past season as an assistant coach at Francis Marion (SC).

You can read about the hiring in the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald here or on UWP's official website here.

UWM Student-Athletes Join Horizon League SAAC At Riley's Children's Hospital

UWM student-athletes Natalie Chery (volleyball) and Emily Budde (track and field) were part of a contingent of Horizon League student-athletes who visited Riley's Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.

Chery and Budde are UWM's representatives on the Horizon League's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee

You can read more about the visit here.

Waldhart To Swim In U.S. Open Aug. 5

Jeremy Waldhart of the UWM men's swimming team will look to make a splash at the 2009 U.S. Open Swimming Championships held this week near Seattle, Wash.

Waldhart qualified for both the 400 IM and the 200 backstroke at the USA Swimming championship with his times he recorded at the Horizon League Championships in February. He set school records in each event this past season, touching the wall in 3:58.20 in the IM and 1:47.68 in the backstroke.

The U.S. Open, which runs from the 4th through the 8th, is an opportunity to qualify for the 2009 Youth Team World Cup competition.

Waldhart swims in both events on Wednesday, Aug. 5. He joins over 800 swimmers at the event, including a field of Olympians Margaret Hoelzer, Kate Ziegler and Elaine Breeden.

Click HERE for the link to the USA Swimming website and HERE for the meet psyche sheet.