Panthers Travel To Marquette To Finish Regular SeasonComplete Release in PDF Format
Oct. 27, 2003
Long And Winding Road Leads To Title Five games on the road. Three one-goal victories. An overtime winner in the finale. Such was the year for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's soccer team in 2003. However, despite playing over 70% of their games on the road the Panthers clinched their third straight Horizon League regular season title with a pair of victories this past weekend. The road-weary Panthers defeated instate rival UW-Green Bay 2-0 on Wednesday before clinching the league title with a 3-2 overtime win over Loyola in Chicago on Friday. Innercity Battle For Regular Season Finale The UWM men's soccer team will finish the 2003 regular season campaign "on the road" as they head downtown to face crosstown rival Marquette University on Wednesday (Oct. 29). While the UWM-MU contests have been heated in the past, the Panthers have virtually owned the all-time series. Milwaukee leads the series 22-6-2, which includes wins in each of the last two seasons. On the road, UWM is 10-3-1 in the series history. Panthers Earn Hosting Rights For Third Time No, the postseason Horizon League men's soccer tournament has not officially moved to Milwaukee. However, thanks to UWM's clinching of the regular season title, Engelmann Field will play host to the league tourney for the third consecutive season. UWM is 6-1 all-time in Horizon League tournament games at Engelmann and 7-1 all-time in the postseason, including last years First Round NCAA Tournament win. The tournament will begin with a quarterfinal game on Nov. 8 with the semifinals and finals slated for Nov. 14 and 16. Cracking The Top 25 Once Again With two victories in a row, 12-wins on the seasons, and an undefeated Horizon League season, it appears only natural that the Panthers receive some national recognition. Well, that exact thing happened when the soccer website collegesoccernews.com released its Top 30 poll on Monday. UWM checked in at No. 25 in the country, its highest ranking since the third week of the season. Milwaukee reached as high as No. 11 in collegesoccernews.com this year. Zenoni Burns Northern Rivals From the looks of it, Milwaukee sophomore Kyle Zenoni seems to take it up a notch versus UW-Green Bay. The midfielder notched the game-winning goal in a 5-0 blanking of the Phoenix last season, and then hung another game-winner versus UWGB, this time scoring the first goal in UWM's 2-0 shutout on Wednesday. For the season Zenoni has six points on two goals and two assists. For his career, Zenoni has scored five goals, four of which have been game winners.
There Is No "I" In Trent Trent Furtsch doesn't worry about scoring goals. He will leave that job to his teammates. However, the leftfooted defender hasn't exactly been non-existent on the offenisive end. Furtsch, who entered the season with no goals and six assists in 44 career games, continued his helpful ways on Friday as he assisted on both of UWM's goals in regulation. While the Shorewood-native is still goalless in his career, he does currently lead the team in assists this season with five, giving him 11 in his two-plus year career. Player Of The Week Nominee---Kirk Thode While the UWM men's soccer team had a pair of senior stalwarts in goal last season, not many people knew of the third string-guy. Now, everyone in the Horizon League is taking notice of the Panther's new man in net, Kirk Thode. A junior, Thode posted his sixth shutout of the season this week while playing 135 scoreless minutes between the pipes. The junior stopped five shots during the week while improving his league best goals against average to 0.83. Scoring Title Down To The Wire With just one regular season game left to play, the 2003 UWM men's soccer scoring title is certainly still up for grabs. Thanks to a balanced offensive attack, four different Panthers have a chance to lead the team in scoring this season. Forward Bobby Lish currently leads the way with 18 points on seven goals and four assists, with Antou Jallow (14 and 6) and Tighe Dombrowski (13 and six) breathing down his neck. Senior forward Kyle Lance has an outside shot at the lead thanks to his balance of four goals and four assists for 12 points. Panthers Double-Up On Opponents The math is simple. 36 goals scored. 18 goals allowed. Anytime your team can post a 2:1 goals scored to goals allowed ratio you have to like your chances. Milwaukee has acheived just that this season as it leads the Horizon League in goals scored, goal allowed, goal differential, and goal-ratio. Panthers Expected To Top The Horizon
Following back-to-back Horizon League regular season championships, it should come as no surprise that the UWM men's soccer team was picked to win the 2003 title in unanimous fashion. The Panthers received all of the possible first-place votes for 49 total points. UIC was picked for second with 36 points while Butler was slotted for third with 35 points.
School 2002 Record Points
1 Milwaukee (7) 19-2-1 49
2 UIC 10-8-2 36
3 Butler 9-10-3 35
4 Wright State 8-10-1 30
5 Cleveland State (1) 10-11-0 29
6 Detroit 11-6-3 24
7 Loyola 3-16-0 13
8 UW-Green Bay 3-14-0 8
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