Oct. 27, 2009

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's soccer team has just one game on the schedule the final week of October, but it looms large for postseason play for the Panthers. Milwaukee will travel north to Green Bay Friday, taking on the Phoenix in a 7 p.m. match set to be televised by Time Warner Cable.

Complete Release in PDF Format

UWM and UWGB will battle for the Chancellor's Cup, the traveling trophy that goes to the winner of the regular season match-up between the two state institutions. The Panthers leads the series, 23-12-3, and have won eight of the last 10 meetings, including a thrilling 1-0 win up at Green Bay two years ago. In 2008, the Phoenix earned the cup back with a 2-0 win. The match will have live stats available on the Milwaukee website and will also be televised on a tape-delayed basis by TWC Sports 32.

SCOUTING THE OPPONENT:
GREEN BAY: The Phoenix is 11-2-2 overall (the best for the program in 17 years) and 4-2-0 in Horizon League play, which has them currently sitting in first place. This is quite an impressive turnaround from a season ago when the team went 6-7-5 overall.

This year's Green Bay squad is more of an offensive-minded group as the Phoenix is ranked third in the nation in scoring offense (2.53 goals per game) and fifth in winning percentage. Green Bay also ranks eighth in the current NSCAA Great Lakes regional poll, with conference rival Butler on the list at No. 4.

Junior JC Banks (Milwaukee, Wis.) ranks sixth in the nation in points per game (1.87 ppg) and 10th in goals per game (0.73 gpg) while David Prochazka (Gothenburg, Sweden) ranks seventh in assists per game (0.62 apg).

THE WEEK THAT WAS
The Panthers suffered through a tough week, falling to Northern Illinois in the battle for the LeWang Trophy Tuesday before dropping a 1-0 heartbreaker on an own goal to Valparaiso at home Saturday night.

STANDING ON STANDINGS
This year, for the first time, only the top six teams in the Horizon League standings will advance to the league championship, making each league contest that much more important.

The Panthers are currently in sixth place but hold their destiny in their own hands. A win over Green Bay clinches a spot in the league tournament. A tie or a loss will cloud things, as Wright State (the only team that can catch UWM) plays its final game against Butler Nov. 7. A Milwaukee loss or tie and WSU win would give the Raiders the final spot, while a UWM loss and Wright State tie would give both teams eight points. If that situation occurs, the final spot would be determined by where Butler finishes in the final standings, as the first tiebreaker (head-to-head) takes care of nothing, as the Panthers and Raiders played to a 2-2 draw earlier this season. The next tiebreaker is record vs. league teams (top to bottom).

AGENT Cody Banks HAS IT ALL COVERED
Freshman Cody Banks had his hand in both scores for UWM against Loyola Oct. 10, assisting the first and netting the second. The last multi-goal game for Milwaukee (as a team) where one player had a hand in every goal was almost four seasons ago, when Neil Dombrowski scored all four goals in a 4-1 victory over Loyola.

OFFENSE COMING TOGETHER
The Panthers ended up scoring just one goal, but were a threat offensively all weekend long against Cleveland State and Detroit Oct. 2 and 4. They took 47 shots in the two games (24 against CSU and 23 against UDM), forcing opposing keepers to make 18 saves. That two-game shot total marks the most for UWM since recording 55 in games against IPFW (27 shots) and Lipscomb (28 shots) at the Panther Invitational in early September of the 2006 season.

FREE SOCCER
Milwaukee has been playing some tight games of late, leading to overtime against Wright State Sept. 27, Cleveland State Oct. 2 and Detroit Oct. 4. That marked just the third time in program history that the team has played three-straight OT matches. The last time it happened was in 1999, when games against Eastern Michigan, Marquette and Marshall went past regulation. The only other time it occurred was in 1992. UWM has never played in four-consecutive overtime matches in program history.

NEW ROLE = RESULTS
Junior Greg Rosenthal is taking a bigger role in offense this season and the results are already noticeable. Coming into the season, the team captain has taken 20 shots in 37 career games (an average of just over 0.5 a game) and scored one goal. In 2009, he currently is tied for first on the team with six points on two goals and two assists and has recorded 24 shots through 15 matches.

QUICK HITTER
When sophomore Ross Van Osdol opened the game against Cal State Northridge Sept. 13 with an early goal, it marked one of the fastest to start a game in recent seasons. The only two that have been scored earlier than his 92-second tally in the past six years are Travis Phillips' goal against Yale in 2007 (just 55 seconds in) and Dale Weiler's strike against Cleveland State in 2004 (90 seconds).

WHO SAYS PK'S ARE EASY?
The penalty kick save for freshman John Shakon against Butler Sept. 25 was the first of his career and came in his second opportunity to make a stop in the situation (Cal State Northridge converted earlier this season). It was the first for a UWM keeper since Ryan Germann had one against Butler Oct. 5, 2007. After stopping three of five from the end of 2006 through the 2007 seasons, opponents had converted four-straight before Shakon's stop on the Bulldogs.

THE YOUNG GUNS
Eric Frazier, Evan Bartzis and Ross Van Osdol made nice impressions in their first season, accounting for 11 of UWM's 17 goals on the year. If you look at the stats, five of Milwaukee's top six point producers in 2008 were freshmen or sophomores. Frazier had a team-high 16 points (6G/4A) while Bartzis was tied for second with six points (3G) with senior Adam Skalecki (2G/2A). Van Osdol (2G/1A) and then-sophomores Peter Sanger (2G/1A) and Robert Refai (1G/3A) tied for fourth with five points each.

TOP OF THE CHARTS
Speaking of Eric Frazier, one look at the scoring chart shows the production he helped bring to the offense last season. He led the team with 16 points in 19 games, a point total that ranked tied for seventh in the Horizon League (his six goals were seventh and four assists tied for10th). The 16 points were more than any Panther player recorded in 2007 and his four assists also topped the three helpers the 2007 team leader finished with.

His goal, assist and point totals were the highest for a UWM freshman since Antou Jallow scored 16 points in eight goals in 2001. His six goals were also the most for any UWM player since Neil Dombrowski had nine in 2005.

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 2009 campaign was 197-75-22, an impressive .710 winning percentage. With seven games on the home slate this fall, looks like UWM should be celebrating victory No. 200 on its storied home field at some point this season.
++No. 198: 1-0 (OT) vs. Detroit on 10/4/09++
++No. 199: 2-1 vs. Loyola on 10/10/09++

SENIOR LEADERSHIP
For the first time in recent memory, a large class of seniors will not be on the field for Milwaukee this fall. Just two seniors dot the roster in 2009, with Nicholas Gerard-Larson and Nkuti Ndely looking to close out their careers on a high note. UWM will definitely be a young squad this season. In addition to the two seniors, the roster features just five juniors. In total, 22 of the 29 student-athletes on the roster are sophomores (13) or freshman (9).

LEANING ON EXPERIENCE
This year's sophomore class definitely took advantage of the opportunity a year ago. One of the benefits that last season brought was the great amount of experience that the underclassmen were able to take in. Freshman accounted for 80 starts in the field last year, including three players that had 15 or more starts on the campaign. Overall, UWM returns 12 players that had six or more starts in 2008, including six that had 10 or more: sophomore Tony Maxey (18 starts), junior Greg Rosenthal (17), senior Nicholas Gerard-Larson (17), sophomore Eric Frazier (16), junior Peter Sanger (16) and sophomore Aaron Gibbons (10).

MORE WITH COACH COLEMAN
This season there will be a new weekly feature with UWM's head coach. Look for a weekly audio podcast of the "Jon Coleman Show", as we sit down weekly with Jon to revisit the week that was and talk about the upcoming schedule. The first episode was available Aug. 31 and will be followed with a new episode every Monday during the course of the 2009 campaign. The show is available as a link off the main UWM website page or directly at www.uwmpanthers.cstv.com/genrel/podcasts.

TIME WARNER TELEVISION SCHEDULE FOR 2009
The Panthers will have three of their games televised this fall on Time Warner Sports 32, beginning with the season opener against Marquette to be aired live. In addition to that contest, the Milwaukee games at Green Bay Oct. 30 and home against Wisconsin Nov. 5 will also be aired on TWC Sports 32. Matt Menzl and Sean Reti are scheduled to do all games. Replay dates and times of future games will be announced at a later date.

ON TAP
The Panthers close out the regular season with a final home match, welcoming the Wisconsin Badgers to Engelmann Field Nov. 5 for a 7 p.m. start.