Postseason Time!

Kelsey Holbert, a captain on the 2015 Milwaukee women's soccer team, returns as the team's blog author for this season. She will be blogging all year long on the UWM website.

Today is her sixth entry of the campaign as she chronicles the adventures of the team during her senior season.

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Hi all!

My off-the-field workload has increased as the season has progressed, so again, I have a lot to write about. I’ll try not to be as sappy as last time!

Since I last wrote…

-We played NKU, our only draw of the regular season, 0-0. Though it wasn’t the win we wanted, a tie was good enough to secure us the first place spot in conference, and hosting rights for this week’s Horizon League tournament. It was awesome to have senior night end on such a positive note. (Literally, since we were able to sing our favorite Panther song at the end of the game.) I was again reminded what great teammates, friends, supporters, coaches and fans I am so fortunate to have. Paige and I were overwhelmed with such nice notes, words, gifts, treats, and hugs.

-We dressed up for Halloween. I, naturally, dressed up as the Team Grandma, which got an appropriately few small laughs. There were some awesome costumes, including bags of Jelly Bellys, two Sumo wrestlers, Santa Claus, superheroes, a hot dog, a kitty cat, a snowflake, a hunter and her prey, a banana, a lumberjack, a lion, a silent alien, a ghost ... And then there was Callie. Serious negative points to Callie for not dressing up. Extremely lame. She’s lucky she’s pretty good at scoring goals.

-We won another conference game! We travelled to UIC last Friday and were able to come away with a 1-0 win while getting to fine-tune some things we have been working on in practice. It was all of our first time playing at UIC’s home field. It was pretty neat to play there with the Chicago skyline in the background. For many of us….yes, those who say we’re from Chicago, because no one’s heard of places like Western Springs… home is not too far from there, so lots of Panther parents and fans were there. All in all, a great way to end the regular season.

-We got a good couple of days of practice ahead of our Thursday night game and awaited to see who we would be playing. We now know we will face Wright State at 7PM tonight, with Oakland and Northern Kentucky with the earlier game. We hope to see many Panther fans there (strongly advised for students to come.. free Sal’s pizza!!!)

At the end of the season, all kinds of emotions come up. Excitement and happiness for post-season, sadness that the end of the season is near no matter what happens, nerves for obvious reasons. And, it’s safe to say we’ve been experiencing all of these emotions this week. We will bottling up all the excitement and having some fun. And with a win tonight, doing the same again on Saturday. I’ll be writing again then. :)

Good luck to the men’s team this weekend as they play NKU for their last game of the season. Congratulations to the seniors in each of the fall sports finishing up their careers in the next few weeks. It’s been fun being a Panther with all of you. Let’s bring in a few championships before then!!

Kels

My Senior Reflection

Kelsey Holbert, a captain on the 2015 Milwaukee women's soccer team, returns as the team's blog author for this season. She will be blogging all year long on the UWM website.

Today is her fifth entry of the campaign as she chronicles the adventures of the team during her senior season.

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Hello Panther fans!

I apologize this blog took me longer to write than normal. I know you have all been at the edge of your seats…. ;) Truthfully, this was a hard one to write! Senior Day has arrived and just two regular season games remain. After playing soccer for nearly 18 years, and being at UWM for 5 seasons of Panther Soccer, the nearing end of my career scares me! I need to stress that I’m writing this post because it is Senior Day, NOT because I think our season is ending soon. We have a lot more soccer left in us. I just thought that Senior Day would be a good time to reflect on some of my favorite things about being a UWM Panther Women’s Soccer player.

1. The People— I’ve been coached by nine different head and assistant coaches in my time here and have gotten to play with nearly 70 different girls. I’ve had awesome role models, made some of my very best friends, and have enjoyed being a teammate to so many wonderful people. I will surely miss getting to see these people every day, but know I have made some life-long friends in the process.

2. The Travel— We’ve gotten to see some really cool schools and places (and a whole lot of cornfields) by bus, van, and plane. Getting the opportunity to travel that much in college is not one many people get. I probably won’t miss the bus rides, but some of my favorite memories have been on the road. I will miss those!

3. Being on a Team— Working for a shared goal for such a long period of time, with so many people (coaches, players, trainer, strength and conditioning staff, administrative staff, event staff, awesome parents/families/fans, and our university) is a pretty neat thing. I feel lucky to have been a part of the wonderful tradition that is UWM Women’s Soccer and am excited to see the great winning tradition that has been established here continue for years and years to come.

4. Spring Conditioning— Just kidding. Won’t miss that.

5. Fun— Soccer is so fun!! I love competing, I love playing soccer, and I love getting to play on a perfect field, at a school I love, with teammates I really care about, and coaches who I respect. What more could you ask for?! There is always a lot of pressure at the end of the year to perform, but this year, I am just going to try to keep having fun.

And, it is definitely easier to have fun when we are winning! We won last Saturday against Detroit on a second-half own goal, and again on Wednesday night against Valparaiso on another Anna Smalley game-winner, this time in the 2nd minute. We welcome Northern Kentucky University to Engelmann Stadium tonight, for our first match-up with them. Like I said, we know we have a lot of soccer left in us, but we also know that we have a lot of work to do if we are going to finish our season the way we want to.

Okay— sappy senior reflection over!! Listening to new Adele on repeat for 24 hours maybe got me emotional! :) Now, we’ve got some games to win! Thanks for reading, have a happy weekend, and Go Panthers!

The View From the Top

Kelsey Holbert, a captain on the 2015 Milwaukee women's soccer team, returns as the team's blog author for this season. She will be blogging all year long on the UWM website.

Today is her fourth entry of the campaign as she chronicles the adventures of the team during her senior season.

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Well, our remaining conference games can be counted on one hand, and I am officially sad and nostalgic!! This is certainly no new feeling, since I thought that last season would be my last. But, it is starting to feel very, very real. Perhaps more often than I have let on, there have been numerous times over the last fifteen or so months when I questioned if I was going to get this final season to play. It has certainly not been a smooth road for me, but it is also one that I am feeling so lucky to have gotten to travel. Not many people get the second chance that I have gotten, and every day I get to be on the field, I am extremely grateful.

This nostalgia and gratefulness comes after what we hope was our last overnight road trip of the year. Not because we want the season to be over, but since the Horizon League regular-season champion gets to host the league tournament. So, many thanks to those long bus rides to the Ohio and Michigan schools — a real motivator for us to continue to win our conference games!!

Now that’s not to say that the bus trips aren’t fun… I had to meet the team in Cleveland because of a school conflict, but I heard all about the trip, which included some chick flicks, two rounds of singing happy birthday to Troy (not his birthday), dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and the odds game… ask Cassidy about that one ;). We also watched the Disney movie, Life-Size on the bus ride home, which was surely a coach favorite.

In all seriousness, it was great to be back with the team Friday night. We had the whole day Saturday in preparation for our game, so we walked at the field and explored the city of Cleveland a little bit. Then we had Jimmy John’s for lunch, obviously making us Freaky Fast by game time.

Saturday night we came away with a 1-0 win against Cleveland State. Callie O’Donnell scored the game-winner, cooly commenting after the game that she didn’t know how she could possibly have missed that goal, with a great ball coming from the width by Aubrey Krahn right to Callie’s feet in the box. Keep tallying assists, Aub, and maybe we won’t have Chipotle before games anymore!! (For some unknown reason, Aubrey doesn’t like Chipotle. The rest of us are working on it….) With Callie’s goal, she earned the Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week. Paige and our backline kept the clean sheet the rest of the game, earning Paige another Horizon League Defensive Player of the Week award. Congrats to those Panthers!

Olivia remains my favorite roommate on the road (the only one I have had). Special points this week for good gossip and getting a perfect score on her accounting homework. Be sure to congratulate her when you see her on campus, Panthers!!

We were happy to get another win on the road, but will be using the rest of this week to make some adjustments and improvements ahead of a tough back half of the season. Three of those will come at home and the final match of the regular season will be at UIC.

Thank you for reading! As Life-Size’s Eve says, shine bright, shine far, be a star!

Kelsey

Keeping it Rolling

Kelsey Holbert, a captain on the 2015 Milwaukee women's soccer team, returns as the team's blog author for this season. She will be blogging all year long on the UWM website.

Today is her third entry of the campaign as she chronicles the adventures of the team during her senior season.

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Hello Hello!

After a couple of cold, windy & wet practices and games, the summer warmth seems long gone, so happy fall everyone! Our season has picked up as well, with a long stretch of a game pretty much every 3/4 days since September 11. We’ve won our last three, which is always much more fun to write about than any losses, so here we go!

Wright State

Since I last wrote, we went to Wright State for a Saturday afternoon game. As mentioned, we stopped in my hometown on Friday on the way to the game and had a nice lunch and some time to play with my dog, Tillie. We were also fortunate to hear a musical performance by our very own, Lauren Rice and Lolo Onwuemeka. (I’ve also learned that very few of the girls on the team even read this blog, (not sure why??!), but I think that allows me to comment freely!) Lauren is very talented on the piano, and Lolo was, well, passionate, with the vocals. After another long bus trip, we made it there, and were able to come away with a 1-0 win on Saturday. Anna Smalley scored on a Maria Stephans set piece early in the game and we held on from there. Jen Eberhardy scored a goal (?) which would have given us a nice 2-0 lead in the first half. But, it wasn’t counted, so Yenni Cuatro remains on the hunt for her first goal on the season. I’m sure she’ll be first to let you all know when she finds one! :)

The night before the Green Bay game, some of the girls and all of the coaches hosted a youth clinic, which was a blast. Even better was the girls who showed up the next day at our game wearing their “Sydney buns” just like Sydney Senn sported the night before. They were like magnets to her. Hats off to Syd for being so good with the kids! It was great to have their support— maybe some future Panthers in that bunch!

Green Bay

It was another beautiful night at Engelmann, and we broke out the long sleeves for the first night of the season, after nearly a month of Anna Smalley’s begging. We had another quick start and Sydney Senn scored a great goal on a goal kick that was miscleared from Green Bay’s backline. (The Sydney bun girls cheered loudly!!) Just a few minutes later, Anna Smalley cleaned up one of my shots that the keeper had hit off the cross bar for our second goal. We let in a goal before finishing the game 3-1 with another goal by Smalley. After tying Madison and Marquette 1-1, (and Madison and Marquette tying each other 1-1 in an exhibition game earlier this season,) we were happy to get out of all those ties with a win against another Wisconsin team.

Youngstown

Finally, this weekend we had a 'Pink Out' for the game against Youngstown State. Not only do we love the Pink Out for the pictures, pink jerseys, and cute headbands we get to wear, but also because it is a special day for many people on the team: to honor loved ones they have lost, celebrate the survivors in their lives, and support those who continue to fight. This year, it was a special day capped off with a great team effort and win. Four Panthers scored, Anna Smalley again with the first goal, Callie O’Donnell to give us a 2-0 lead, Mariah Downs with a great first career goal and Maria with a cheeky set-piece goal for the icing on the cake. That puts us off to a 4-0 start in conference. While we are happy with where we sit in conference right now, we know we have a lot of work to do to finish the rest of the season the way we’d like to. Our games are much more spread out now, so we’ll have time for training and preparation, which we know will need to be well spent.

Until next time, go Panthers!!

Kelsey

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

Kelsey Holbert, a captain on the 2015 Milwaukee women's soccer team, returns as the team's blog author for this season. She will be blogging all year long on the UWM website.

Today is her second entry of the campaign as she chronicles the adventures of the team during her senior season.

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Hello again Panther fans! We’ve had a big week on the field and another big weekend coming up. So I’ll get right to it!

Oakland—What a game! Our first overnight road trip in what has felt like a long time began with a very long bus ride to Oakland, Michigan. We finally made it there and settled in to the hotel. The Haitian Women’s National soccer team actually stayed at the same hotel, following their game in Detroit, which was part of the USWNT’s Victory Tour. Though we probably would have been more excited to see Alex Morgan or Carli Lloyd on our way to breakfast, it was still really cool to see the team. The beds were also stellar, and with a 7PM game, we were well-rested and ready to go.

We did not come out as strong as we had hoped against a solid Oakland team, but as they say, all is well that ends well. Maria Stephans, (your reigning Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week!!) stole the show capitalizing on a PK in regulation and the winner in overtime. We walked off the field very happy with a 1-0 start to conference. The men’s team was able to watch the game as they were in Oakland for their game the next day. Since they also took home a win in overtime, we’d like to think we set a pretty good example for them. In all seriousness, it was really fun to have some UWM support all the way in Oakland.

Loyola—I’d first like to personally apologize for the bigheads of my face you may have seen at the game on Sunday. If you weren’t at the game, but were somewhere in the state of Wisconsin, you likely would still be able to see them. It was my 23rd (I told you I am old!) birthday on Sunday, so my dear friend Morgan wanted to make it special/SUPER embarrassing…whichever way you want to look at it. After not speaking to her for about 24 hours, trust me, it won’t happen again!

Though we let in an early goal, we felt we started the game very strong. We scored two nice goals in the run of play and showed some offensive threat. Unfortunately, turnovers and missed clearances cost us three goals, and we dropped the game 3-2. We didn’t have much time to dwell on this game, as our second Wisconsin rival came to Engelmann Stadium on Wednesday night.

Marquette—The Marquette—UWM rivalry is special. It is rare to have two very competitive teams, on both the men’s and women’s side of the game, just a few miles away from each other. It’s really special to be able to represent your school in this kind of rivalry, knowing that your teammates and so many other Panthers share the same competitiveness and passion. After another double-overtime game, we settled for a tie with Marquette. Callie O’Donnell scored a great goal for her fifth of the season. At the end of the day, it was a beautiful night, both teams competed extremely hard, we had some great stretches of soccer, and our 5th-largest crowd in program history was there to cheer us on. Of course, we wanted that win, but we also hope that games like these will prepare us for high-stakes games down the road.

We travel to Wright State this weekend for our second conference game and will be making an annual stop in my hometown for some food on the road! Pictures of my dog to follow :)

Go Panthers and Happy Weekend! Kelsey

Better Late Than Never

Kelsey Holbert, a captain on the 2015 Milwaukee women's soccer team, returns as the team's blog author for this season. She will be blogging all year long on the UWM website.

Today is her first entry of the campaign as she chronicles the adventures of the team during her senior season.

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Greetings Panther Fans! Kelsey Holbert here, back this year without my blogger-in-crime, Morgan LaPlant, from last season’s world famous 'Blog It Like Beckham'. OK, maybe not world famous, but definitely pretty fun. For any new readers, thanks for stopping in! I hope to give you some inside scoop on this year’s Milwaukee Women’s Soccer team. Or squaaaaaaad, as some of our players might say.

For those of you who read last year, thank you and welcome back! Expect a little bit more soccer talk and perhaps a little bit less fun—that was always Morgan’s specialty. To introduce myself, I am a fifth-year senior midfielder. I medically redshirted my senior season after a foot and ankle injury in the second game of the season. It was a long year filled with far too much crutching and not enough soccer for my liking. And while I admittedly feel a bit (okay, very) old, I am extremely excited to be back on the field this year with my Panthers!

In this blog and otherwise, we certainly miss our wonderful 2014 senior class. We wish them the best of luck in each of their next chapters, which have taken them all over, but are all very exciting. Don’t forget about us, ladies!

That said, we have been very encouraged so far and are excited for what the rest of the 2015 season has to offer. With the majority of the team (21 players) being freshmen or sophomores, our young roster undoubtedly has big shoes to fill. So far, many girls have stepped up and contributed to a successful first six games of the season. We welcome 12 new players to the team, as well as three coaches for their first fall with UWM. With such big changes, the transition has been remarkably smooth and we continue to grow as a group.

We started the season with an exciting 1-0 home opener against Western Illinois. Our only two losses came on our first road trip, where we lost to Illinois State (3-1 after scoring first) and then to a solid Butler team (1-0 on a PK). However, a crucial come-back win on the road against Northern Illinois got us back on track and opened a good week for us.

We then faced our first Wisconsin foe, the Wisconsin Badgers. We saw (and were really jealous of!) what an impressive crowd the men’s team attracted for their first home rivalry, against Marquette. We were overwhelmed to see another amazing turnout for our match. The environment at Engelmann on a crisp fall night with that many fans and a very solid opponent… it just does not get better than that. It was an absolute blast, and though we would have hoped to be more of an offensive threat, we walked off the field with some well-earned Panther Pride.

We wrapped up the week with a win over Chicago State, in which many Panthers saw good minutes and a second half surge of scoring brought us a nice win. We look forward to a good week of training in advance of a big road trip to Oakland University for our first conference match.

Since I covered so many weeks into a short post— I thought some superlatives might highlight some tidbits from the season so far:

Best Dancers: LoLo Onwuemeka and Lauren Rice
Most Interesting Warm-up CD: Chicago State
My Best Roommate: Olivia Wright
Best (Longest) Snap Stories: Sydney Senn
Least Favorite Weight Room Exercise: Pull-Ups
Best Ride to Practice: The Scooter Girls
Best Food So Far: Chipotle, obviously
Best Bus Sleeping Face: Jen Eberhardy

That’s all for now, but more superlatives, soccer talk, and fun to come! We know there is a lot of great soccer coming out of both the men’s and women’s teams this year. I look forward to writing about our season and reading about the men’s through (Dustin’s Blog)!

Thanks Panther fans. Have a lovely week!

Kelsey

Tips, Tricks, and No's

Hello folks!

We can’t believe it is almost November already! Our time with you is almost up. We have a few more posts for you before we must part and we’ll try our best to make them interesting. This week, we decided to give you a special something called “Kels & Mo’s Tips, Tricks, and No’s” from our old and wise selves. A “How to Be A Panther for Dummies”, if you will.

Before we get to that, let’s catch you up on the past week vs. Valparaiso. As many of you know, we played the undefeated Crusaders last Thursday night. We left Milwaukee mid afternoon for a short bus ride down to Indiana and were ready for a great game. Come 7 o’clock, the game was underway. The first half was very even, both teams had some good chances but Valpo was the team to take the lead in the 16th minute. We didn’t let that get in our way too much and controlled the game from then on. Second half was all Panthers. For 45 minutes we had been on the attack, Vienna Behnke even tied it up but the goal was called back by the referee due to obstruction in the box… Not clear on that, but we’ll leave that for another day or another blog. Our second half was very encouraging to see. We played with more energy than we have perhaps the entire season but were unable to find an equalizer.

This season has been an unusual scene for Panther Soccer, but we have held our heads high and have continued to make the season one to remember. There really is no shortage of fun and laughs when the team is together. Recently a few of us tried our nerves at a haunted corn maze and it was pretty entertaining. Long story short, we are scaredy-cats x100.

Ok, now for the main event! We have been around Panther Women’s Soccer for quite some time now (call us seasoned veterans) and contrary to popular belief, we have learned more than just how to kick a soccer ball these past four years. We have some tips, some tricks and some definite no no’s to the Panther Soccer lifestyle that we’d love to pass on to you all, future Panthers or not. Here they are:  

Tips:

1. Get to know everyone on the team; there are some pretty cool people you can meet. Even if it takes some of them a couple of months to speak (Morgan), we promise it’s worth the wait. Look at us now!
2. Double check your shoe bag at least three times before leaving on a roadtrip. Or maybe cuatro if your name is Jenni!
3. Always bring a pillow on the bus. (-Morgan)
4. Always bring a blanket on the bus. (-Morgan)
5. Always bring more homework than you think you’ll need on the bus. You can get so much done!! (-Kelsey)
6. Be supportive of your teammates and don’t forget to smile. It’s not so bad!!
7. Always get food after practice, and take some for later. (Or for your whole block if you are Swittel!)
8. Get to know your fellow Panther athletes. On that note, good luck to Cross Country this weekend in the Horizon League Championships, to Swimming & Diving vs. Wright State, and to Volleyball vs. Green Bay!
9. Invest in a good pair of gloves, you will thank yourself when it snows during practice.
10. On that note, practice will NEVER get cancelled due to weather. Start walking.
11. When you’re not at soccer, do homework. When you’re not doing homework, nap. (Note: does not apply to all.)
12. Buy new pairs of jeans before you rip them in the spring season. Save yourself the tears!!! (That is both tears in your jeans and tears in your eyes.) Pun intended.
13. Drive to practice in the winter. It is always worth it.
14. Enjoy every moment you have as a Panther because it goes by faster than you could ever imagine.

Tricks:

1. Act like you are tying your shoes/getting a drink of water when the team has to move the goals (jk, don’t do this, help the team…)
2. Claim as many lockers as possible.
3. Stay till the end of team dinners and you just might get to take the rest home.
4. When waking up at 5:30… no wait, there are no tricks. It does not get easier.
5. Sleep in the locker room. If you have any questions, please refer to Tailer Roscoe.  She is a seasoned pro. 

No’s:

1. Never skip laundry.
2. Never touch Vienna’s hair. Seriously, don’t.
3. Never forget a meal.
4. Never be late!! Early is on-time.
5. Don’t go more than two days without a shower. (I would say one, but that’s just me???? –Kelsey)
6. Don’t bother Olivia Wright in the morning (grumpy-pants).
7. Don’t leave snack-packs in the locker room for more than a week.  
8. Don’t forget to return recovery socks. (Sorry, Dave)

That’s all we’ll share. Can’t give away ALL of our secrets to being such great Panthers!!! Just kidding, but that’s all we got for now. Later this week we have our annual Halloween practice and we take our last road trip to Detroit where we take on the Titans 3 PM EST Friday. Should be a great end to the season. Stay tuned! 

PEACE, LOVE & PANTHERS

KELS & MO

Tweet us your photos of you dressing up as us for Halloween!!!! We hear #6 and #25 jerseys are selling off the shelves. #Celebrities #PanthersDoHalloween