Exhibition at Lewis (Romeoville, Ill.)
Man of the Match: In a 1-0 victory, it's pretty easy to give it to the guy who scores the goal, especially when the UWM defense limited Lewis to very few real chances. Cody Banks had the first couple of shots and then scored a beautiful long-range goal, firing over the keeper's head from nearly 40 yards away from the goal.
Statistics: Official statistics were not kept. I originally planned to run Stat Crew and GameTracker for the contest, but found out when we got there that we would be playing at their new facility - which really is not finished yet (see pictures below) and actually had no power supply at all. Since my computer battery was close to dead, I had no way to keep the stats either. By my hand-count, UWM led the shots category 10-to-6, including 5-to-3 in shots on goal. The Panthers also had three of the game's four corner kicks. Starter John Shakon made one save, Josh Rohde made one and Adam Hutchinson made a late team save at the goal line to preserve the 1-0 shutout.
Notes: The starting lineup featured John Shakon in goal and James Ashcroft, Aaron Gibbons, Ryan Whitehead and Zach Stevenson in the back line.
Midfield consisted of Alex Megna, Richard Johnson and Laurie Bell, with Cody Banks, Keegan Ziada and Robert Refai filling out the attacking positions. That makes 5 of the 11 starters as newcomers to the 2011 roster.
It seemed like everyone that was healthy played. Kevin Ferron and Kyle Neumann subbed on in the first half. Jamie Bladen, Adam Hutchinson and Ross Van Osdol came on at half and Pedro Mejia and Brandon Wolf were second-half substitutes.
Next: Season opener Friday against IPFW. See you there!
