Milwaukee Men's Soccer Spring Season Recap

The Panthers recently completed a successful spring season with a 2-2-2 schedule, a record that improved to 4-2-0 after two victories decided on penalty kicks and a team title in the Wisconsin Spring Cup. That event was hosted by Marquette and UWM competed against the Golden Eagles, Wisconsin and Green Bay. Last fall, senior Nicholas Gerard-Larson kept everyone up to date on the men's team with "GL's Journal", a weekly blog that he wrote over the course of the season. For the 2010 campaign, Peter Sanger will be taking over that role. Today's post is his introduction and assessment of the spring slate.

Welcome Panther Soccer fans to my first installment of "Sanger's Scoop". I'll be taking over the blog responsibilities for the men's soccer team from Nick Gerard-Larson for this upcoming fall soccer season. For a quick introduction, I'll be headed into my fourth and final season for the Panthers and usually ply my trade on the outside of midfield for our team. I'm hoping to provide the fans with an inside view of how things are going on the team and to keep you in the loop on all of our activities...

Going into this spring there were a lot of unknowns. Not only was there the question of who would be coaching the team, but also who would still be here playing for it. The lack of a coach at the beginning might have been a blessing in disguise, however. It separated the committed from those just along for the ride, as only the dedicated show up to optional workout and training sessions. The spring season, although considered non-competitive, is probably the toughest part of college soccer. Being in Wisconsin, the beginning of the semester is dominated by weight lifting, running around an indoor track and playing small-sided games in the gym.

By the time we come back from spring break, we're all chomping at the bit to get outside and stretch our legs on a real field. By this time we had confirmed our new head coach, Chris Whalley, hailing from England and more recently Lees-McRae College where he led the Bobcats to a national title game in the NCAA Division II Tournament. There was still one catch though; he had to wait on a new visa before he could officially come join us. Coach-less, we were lucky enough for former alumni, Kyle Zenoni, to step in and fill the role of interim coach. Kyle immediately proved he was a perfect fit; providing the organization and motivation for us to improve ahead of next fall. We began our daily training regimen on the turf of Bradley Tech High School, with Kyle watching for who was looking sharp ahead of nearing spring matches. After each practice, Kyle would call Coach Whalley and tell him how everything went, giving him an idea of how we were progressing before he could come join us officially.

The matches' portion of the spring season really saw us come into our own. The negativity and team dissension had been replaced with a renewed vigor and team belief. Despite dropping the first game to Northern Illinois, anybody watching could tell a new brand of soccer was being brought to UWM. Quick ball movement, a heavy dose of dangerous wing play accompanied with disciplined defending were present throughout all of our games in the spring leading to consecutive wins over UW-Parkside and Lewis College. Then two ties turned wins via shootout in the Wisconsin Spring Cup over in-state rivals Marquette and UW-Madison only increased the momentum. A 4-3 loss to Madison (Coach Whalley's first game on the bench), on an indoor field with 8 players per side brought an end to our match schedule for the fall. Scoring 10 goals in six spring contests versus 12 goals all of last fall provided the proof that we had become a new team. However, scoring more goals wasn't the biggest accomplishment of the spring; the winning mentality instilled should prove to be invaluable in the fall '10 season.

My last spring season at UWM has undoubtedly provided me with the most self and team belief going into a fall season since I've been here. Growing up as a local kid, one thing I always dreamed of was donning the black and gold out on Engelmann Field as a part of arguably Wisconsin's strongest and most successful soccer program. To be brutally honest, the glory I expected really hasn't materialized yet, but next year is a fresh start and I'm looking forward to being the start of something special here at UWM. So whether you can make it to one game or all of them, I can guarantee you it will be worth the price of admission. I'm looking forward to letting you all in on the inside scoop next fall, so make sure to continue checking the website as the summer progresses. Any questions until then, just ask! pjsanger@uwm.edu

-Peter #10

Off The Court With Men's Basketball

The spring semester officially wrapped up with finals last week, so all is quiet on the UWM campus. That's a good time to catch up on a few off-the-court men's basketball items.

You can read about the latest on-the-court news - two more recruits - on our main site here.

First, above this post is a picture of the Panthers with Tony Dungy, who was in town in late April. As a group, the Panthers attended a speech by Dungy at the Italian Community Center. The Super Bowl-winning coach spoke about leadership and life's lessons.

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This past weekend, coach Rob Jeter was part of an excursion to Minneapolis to promote the Milwaukee Fatherhood Excursion. Much of this article is about Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's participation, but you can also learn more about the program. No truth to the rumor Jeter was solicited by Ken Macha to throw a few innings out of the Brewers' bullpen.

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Summer camp season is nearly here. The Panther men are offering various camps June 12-29. One of those camps is a high school team shootout June 26, with the event serving a dual purpose. The shootout will also be an opportunity for local officials to hone their skills as part of Referee Boot Camp.

For more information on participating in any of the basketball camps, call the UWM camp office at 414-229-2238.

But, if you are an official, you'll need to make your camp reservations through Referee Boot Camp or by phone at 414-614-3109.

More Hagen Buzz...

I posted here late on Saturday with a link to Sarah Hagen on ESPN Radio from that morning.

Today, I have for you a story from WFRV in Green Bay. They came out to the Panthers' spring doubleheader on Sunday to talk to Sarah, Makenzie Gillaspie and head coach Michael Moynihan.



Sarah will return to the U.S. U23 National Team Camp, April 18-25, in Corvallis, Ore.

Sarah Hagen on ESPN Radio

Sarah was on ESPN Milwaukee this morning on Soccer Saturday. She talked about playing with the U23 national team and coming up on the school record for career goals.

Check out the archived audio here.

Sarah and the Panther women are 2-0 in their spring season so far with a 7-0 win over Loyola and 3-0 win against the Ontario Regional U17 Team. They return to action Sunday at Marquette, playing Nebraska and the Golden Eagles at Valley Fields.

Final Men's Basketball RPI

With the 2009-10 men's basketball season now completed across Division I, the NCAA released its final ratings percentage index of the season.

UWM wound up 129th, one of four league teams in the top 130 of Division I. If you are really into math, 129 puts you right about in the top 37 percent of DI schools this year. In all, 347 were officially a part of the RPI this season.

Most notable, I think, is the long of "major" teams that wound up below UWM on the final list. Here is a full list ...

Michigan - 134
UCLA - 139
Oregon - 141
Providence - 148
Nebraska - 151
Auburn - 152
Arkansas - 155
Stanford - 160
Rutgers - 162
Utah - 165
Washington St. - 170
Penn St. - 194
Iowa - 208
DePaul - 217
Indiana - 222

Track Championships Video

Ryan Mleziva of the men's track and field team put together a video of highlights and pictures from the 2010 Horizon League Indoor Championships, Feb. 27-28, in Ann Arbor, Mich. We added the video to the uwmathletics channel on YouTube. Check it out below:

The Panthers swept the men's and women's titles at the event.

A Few Men's Basketball Things

In the midst of working on a bunch of season wrapup stuff that will appear on the main site over the next few weeks, I did want to drop in a few additional men's basketball notes here on the blog.

First, in case you missed it, here is Rob Jeter's take on Butler as it heads to the Final Four.

Next, I've been doing a bunch of record updating and one of the things of note this year would be the freshmen-year records, which we've been working on putting together. Actually, we're in the midst of getting year-specific records together for freshmen-seniors, both for season marks and single-game marks. I'll put all of those supplemental records on the main site when they are complete.

But, on the freshmen front, Ja'Rob McCallum's 241 points are now fourth on the post-1990 freshmen list, and his 42.3 percent shooting clip from three-point range tops that list. He is also fifth in three-pointers made (44). Lonnie Boga is now first and McCallum second on the games played list, with Lonnie having played in all 34 games and Ja'Rob in 31.

Finally, a quick look at the schedule for next year - based on signed contracts - has Marquette, Western Michigan, Bowling Green and Northern Iowa all coming to Milwaukee. UNI and UWM will actually be starting a four-year series. You'll recall the two Panther squads played a home-and-home in 06-07 and 07-08, with UWM playing in the first-ever game in UNI's new arena. The two schools took a couple of years off with the full intention of restarting the series when schedules allowed, and now that series will resume for the next four years. The two coaching staffs have an excellent relationship that actually dates back to when Greg McDermott was still at UNI.