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Milwaukee Soccer Team Opens 2008 Season Saturday At Drake

Will also play Missouri State Sunday in weekend tournament

Aug. 25, 2008

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will begin its 36th season of NCAA Division I soccer this weekend when it heads to Des Moines, Iowa, for the Drake University Invitational. The Panthers will open their season Saturday with a 7:30 p.m. contest under the lights against host Drake and will finish weekend play Sunday with a 5 p.m. start against Missouri State. Milwaukee is 17-13-5 all-time in season openers, including a 12-9-3 ledger in road openers. The Panthers have been a bit jinxed in their season opener the past few years, not having come out on top since the 2003 season in going 0-2-2 over the past four years. A season ago, they dropped a 2-1 decision to Western Michigan to start the slate.

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THE SKINNY ON THE IOWA TOURNAMENT
The Panthers will play one familiar opponent and another they have faced just once when they make the trip to Iowa this weekend. UWM and Drake have squared-off 12 times in the past, with the Panthers holding a commanding 9-2-1 edge in the all-time series. Milwaukee and Drake played as recently as last season at the Panther Invitational, with the Bulldogs escaping with a 2-1 victory when a final shot to tie with 10 seconds left in the game went off the cross bar. They have also opened the season against each other as recently as 2005, when the two sides played to a 3-3 draw. Missouri State came out on top in the only other previous meeting, claiming a 2-1 victory in September of the 2001 season. Both teams play in the Missouri Valley Conference, against which Milwaukee owns a 22-23-7 mark all-time.

Live stats for all games are scheduled to be available on Drake's website:
www.godrakebulldogs.com.

SCOUTING THE OPPONENT:
DRAKE: The Bulldogs were recently picked for fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference in the preseason poll and also had three players earn spots on the preseason all-league team. Junior forward Garrett Webb, junior midfielder Luke Gorczyca and junior midfielder Kevin Shrout, who also happen to be three of Drake's top four returning scorers, earned spots on the squad.

Webb led the Bulldogs with seven goals and five assists, en route to earning All-MVC first team honors. Gorczyca was second on the team with six goals and was named to the second team. Shrout earned honorable mention honors while ranking fourth on the team with five goals and three assists.

Eleventh-year head coach Sean Holmes brings back seven starters from his 2007 squad that went 9-6-4, moving him to 74-90-21 in his career. The team lost to Trumaan State in its exhibition opener, 3-1 on Aug. 16, before routing St. Ambrose, 5-0 Aug. 19, and tying IPFW, 1-1 Aug. 22, to close out the preseason.

MISSOURI STATE: The Bears return just three seniors and field a young team that is dominated by youth, including 13 freshmen on the roster. Head coach Jon Leamy went just 6-10-4 in the 2007 season and has seen his team picked to finish sixth in the 2008 Missouri Valley Conference race (while also receiving one first place vote).

Junior Kyle Windmueller was an honorable mention all-league selection a year ago, leading the team with 16 points on five goals and six assists.

HEALTHY MIX
The Panthers are looking forward to getting on the field in 2008, as they return six starters and 10 letterwinners from last year's squad. Add that to an impressive group of 16 newcomers and head coach Jon Coleman is looking forward to get the 2008 regular season started.

QUITE AN EXHIBITION
The Panthers got the 2008 season off on the right foot, marching through a two-game exhibition slate where they went back-to-back games without allowing a goal. The first came Aug. 18 with an impressive 1-0 victory over Bradley, a team that advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament after winning regular season and tournament titles in the Missouri Valley Conference a year ago and entered ranked No. 21 by the NSCAA's preseason poll. The Panthers then toppled UW-Whitewater, 3-0, Aug. 20 with an impressive overall performance, using all 20 players that were dressed and healthy for the game.

The four goals were scored by four different players, including two by newcomers. Sophomore Robert Refai led the way with eight shots in the two games, with junior Nicholas Gerard-Larson, sophomore Peter Sanger and freshman Nick Dundon recording four each. Dundon and senior Travis Phillips topped the team with three points (1G/1A).

In goal, seniors Grant Fernstrum and Ryan Germann split the time in half in each contest, with the defense playing so well in front of them that they were only called upon to make five total saves combined.

SENIORS READY TO BOOKEND CAREERS
Three of the four seniors on the 2008 squad will look to go out on a high note, and a return trip to the NCAA Tournament is what they have in mind. After going to the second round of the tournament in their freshman season, Travis Phillips, Grant Fernstrum and Adam Skalecki look to improve on their NCAA ledger with a return trip this fall. The fourth senior on the squad, Ryan Germann, was a transfer to Milwaukee after his freshman season at American University.

200 SOUNDS GOOD
The Panthers love to play at Engelmann Field and their record over the years proves just that. Their all-time ledger at the field entering the 2008 campaign is 195-69-20, an impressive .722 winning percentage. With nine games on the home slate this fall, looks like UWM will be celebrating victory No. 200 on its storied home field at some point this season.

SHINING IN LEAGUE PLAY
After a slow start to the 2007 season, the Panthers righted the ship in time for the start of Horizon League play. In their eight conference games, the team gave up just five goals (posting four clean sheets) for a team goals against average of 0.61.

They held edges in every statistical category: goals (9-5), assists (8-5), shots (95-85), shots on goal (41-31) and corner kicks (48-38). Five different players accounted for the five game-winning goals en route to a second-place showing in the standings.

QUICK ONE FOR PHILLIPS
Travis Phillips gave Milwaukee a 1-0 lead against Yale last season before most people had even found their seats. Phillips caught the Yale goalkeeper off guard with a 35-yard blast off a free kick from near midfield in the first minute of play. The tally at the 55-second mark was the sixth-quickest goal to start a match in program history.

Quickest Goal Scored To Start A Game
# Time ... Date ... Player
1. 0:19 ... 9/14/03...B.J. Blake
2. 0:23 ... 9/12/93...Jake Provan
3. 0:26 ... 8/29/03...Bobby Lish
4. 0:32 ... 9/17/80...Dave Dray
5. 0:49 ... 11/15/02...Evan Richardson
6. 0:55 ... 9/23/07...Travis Phillips

THE DRIVE FOR 400
The Panthers hit a significant milestone in their program history a year ago against Detroit Oct. 12: all-time victory No. 400. UWM had entered play in 2007 with an all-time mark of 397-222-53, a .635 winning percentage.

MILESTONE PROGRAM WINS:
1: Marquette, 4-1 (9/22/73)
50: Green Bay, 4-0 (10/7/78)
100: Northern Illinois, 4-3 (11/6/82)
150: Cleveland State, 2-1 (10/18/87)
200: Michigan State, 4-0 (10/13/91)
250: Cleveland State, 5-0 (10/15/95)
300: Loyola (MD), 2-0 (9/17/00)
350: Detroit, 3-0 (9/28/03)
400: Detroit, 1-0 (10/12/07)

HITTING THE BOOKS
UWM had three players honored for their work in the classroom by the league office last year. Steve Bode, Zeke Dombrowski and Ken Ogorzalek were all named to the Horizon Academic All-League Team in December. Dombrowski was also selected as the league Scholar Athlete of the Week in October.

After graduation, Ogorzalek went on to receive a prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation to pursue his graduate degree at the University of California-Berkeley in structural engineering. Nearly 40,000 students apply to the NSF fellowship program each year, less than 1,000 go on to earn the awards.

The Panther men were also once again named a recipient of the NCSAA/adidas Team Academic Award from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

SO CLOSE, SO FAR: PART II
If it feels like the Panthers have been in every match but haven't been able to catch a few necessary breaks the past few seasons, it could be considered a factual statement. After a 1-0 defeat in overtime against UIC in the semifinals of the Horizon League Tournament, the trend sounds familiar: 17 of the last 21 UWM losses dating back the past two years have been by one goal.

Further analysis of the schedule a year ago shows just what kind of competition head coach Jon Coleman had on the schedule. Overall, the combined W-L-T record of all opponents for the season was 169-149-79, a .525 win percentage. For comparison, UIC, which won the league tournament and made a deep run into the NCAA postseason, ended the year with an opponent W-L-T record of just 216-210-83, a .505 win percentage.

Seven of UWM's 2007 opponents were ranked at one point during the season and the W-L-T record of the teams that handed the Panthers their 12 losses was 122-72-48 (.604).

In 2006, the Panthers overall record consisted of nine losses, with eight of them one-goal setbacks. Three of them came at the hands of Top 25 teams: 1-0 to No. 2 SMU Aug. 27, 2-1 to No. 6 Washington in overtime Sept. 10 and 1-0 to No. 12 UIC Oct. 3.

OVERTIME JINX CONTINUES
In having its season come to a close with an overtime loss in 2007, UWM saw a streak get extended once again that they would like to put to rest: the team is now 0-7-11 in its past 18 overtime matches. It was 0-2-3 in 2007, 0-2-2 in 2006, 0-3-5 in 2005 and lost in extra time in the final match of the 2004 season (2-1 at UCSB in the NCAA Tournament). The Panthers last OT victory came Oct. 31, 2004, a 1-0 win over Cleveland State.

ONE-ZERO SOUND FAMILIAR?
UWM closed out the 2007 season by playing its ninth 1-0 game of the year against UIC in the league tournament. After starting 0-5 in such decisions, the Panthers did record victories in three of the final four, going 3-6 in those nine 1-0 affairs.

HOME COOKING
Despite a 2-3-2 mark at Engelmann in 2007, the Panthers still rank right up there with the best in the country when it comes to home-field advantage. In 2006, that was no different, as the Panthers posted back-to-back shutouts to open the home slate and finished 7-2-1. Since the start of the 2001 season, UWM has turned Engelmann Field into a place visiting teams do not want to see on their schedule. They have gone 52-8-3 on their home pitch in that time, including a 13-2 mark in postseason play and a perfect 2-0 mark in NCAA Tournament action.

BODE NAMED ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
Steve Bode wrapped up his illustrious career last season by being named the Pepsi/UWM Male Athlete of the Year. He also received the prestigious UWM Alumni Association Herman Kluge Award.

Bode was a three-time all-league selection, a team captain for three years and a starter for all four of his seasons in Milwaukee.

He started all 83 games he played in his career, missing just two of UWM's matches in that span due to injury. As a sophomore and a senior, he was named team most valuable player. He led the Panthers to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in each of his first two seasons on the field, winning one regular season Horizon League Championship and two Horizon League tournament titles in his career. He was also named to the league all-tournament team on two occasions and set career-highs with 11 points and five goals as a sophomore.

In the classroom, Bode earned all-region scholar-athlete honors three times from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America while posting a 3.676 cumulative grade-point average. He also collected third-team ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America recognition and was a three-year member of the Horizon League All-Academic Team. He also received the Horizon League Sportsmanship Award after the 2005 campaign.

After wrapping up his college career, Bode was drafted by the Chicago Fire of MLS and by the Milwaukee Wave.

PANTHERS IN THE PROS
In addition to Bode continuing his career in the world of professional soccer, former UWM player Tenzin Rampa was also drafted following his senior campaign by the Milwaukee Wave in the fifth round of the 2008 Major Indoor Soccer League College Draft.

PANTHERS IN THE POLLS
The Panthers were picked by league coaches to place fifth in the Horizon League regular season, according to the results of the preseason poll announced Aug. 18 by the league office. Milwaukee has advanced to the NCAA Tournament in five of the past seven seasons, reaching the second round in the last four it appeared (2002-05). It has compiled a league record of 39-7-4 in that time.

UIC, which advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament last season and is ranked as high as No. 16 in the national preseason polls, took the top spot for the second-straight year with 64 points and eight first place votes. Green Bay landed in second, compiling 52 points to edge out Loyola, which had 51.

Butler (43) came in just ahead of UWM (39), with Valparaiso (26), Wright State (20), Detroit (16) and Cleveland State (13) rounding out the poll.

1. UIC (8 first place votes) - 64 pts.
2. Green Bay (1) - 52
3. Loyola - 51
4. Butler - 43
5. Milwaukee - 39
6. Valparaiso - 26
7. Wright State - 20
8. Detroit - 16
9. Cleveland State - 13

ON TAP
The season continues with the annual trip to Madison for the Middleton Sports & Fitness Invitational, with UWM taking on Dayton Friday and nationally-ranked Santa Clara (as high as No. 5 preseason) Sunday. Friday is set for a 5 p.m. start and Sunday will be noon.