"Panther Most Likely"

Howdy Panther fans! Writing to you from the bus headed home from a nice win at Loyola, Wendy’s Frosty in hand. (Those of you on the 2011 team will know that means it was a respectable win!) After giving up an early goal on a penalty kick, we were happy to respond with two first half goals by our dynamic forward duo of Kriss-Cat Dorre and Kelly Panther (Lewers). We won 2-1. The rest of our match was not nearly as exciting as our past week of soccer, so let's get to those games.

Thursday evening we took on cross-town rival Marquette. For anyone that came out and watched... thanks for coming in the cold!! Little too early to be breaking out the Under Armour and gloves in our opinion, but we digress. Also…. we apologize for giving you so many minor (or major) heart attacks.

We came to play in the first half, taking a 3-0 lead and came in to the locker room at half buzzing. (LINK to highlights) If you were not at the game, you’ll want to check these goals out. [Please note that Morgan nutmegged her player just before playing that great ball to Vienna on our fourth goal was unfortunately left out of Marquette’s highlight tape….] After a crazy string of four second half Marquette goals, started by another penalty kick, we were tied 4-4 with roughly five minutes left in the game.

Two minutes left: after a great ball from Caity Bestwina, Vienna Behnke dribbled down the endline, picked her head up and found Sydney Senn who calmly placed our fifth and (thank goodness) final goal of the match to give us a 5-4 win! Something about beating Marquette will just always feel good.

We used Friday to watch some video, rest our bodies, (and Kelsey’s voice/heart), before we left bright and early on Saturday for another flight to the south for a Sunday game against Auburn. Milwaukee’s 45 degree weather was nearly doubled when we got to Auburn. (Not really pleased about that either, but be careful what you wish for, we suppose.)

It was a quick little get away, and hard to believe we were only gone for just over 24 hours. We had a great first half with some promising chances, but unfortunately we just couldn’t get a result. We finished 2-0 with their second goal coming very late in the game, a good effort from our side. Also, still confused about that whole War Eagle/Tiger thing.

This week, Kelsey and I would like to bring you a new segment to help you get to know your Panthers just a bit more than what you see of them on the field. We’ll try to do these periodically throughout the season cause, well, ya know, as fun as we are, we figure you might like to learn about the other 27 Panthers, too.

This week’s segment is titled: “Panther Most Likely”. We asked all 29 girls a number of questions to see which panther would be most likely to do a certain thing. The team seemed to have some fun with this, as did we, here are the results:

Panther Most Likely

Most likely to be a celebrity -Tatum Smith

She’s Californian, it’s in her blood.

Most likely to win the lottery- Amy Kauffung

One word…share:)

Most likely to be President-Kelsey Holbert

If this holds true, you better let me ride shotty in Air Force One, Kels!

Most likely to live in the wilderness -Anny & Vienna

Least likely definitely Kelsey… proudly.

  

Most likely to hold a world record – Anny West

Possible records: most board games played in a row, largest rollerblading gang, most water bottles misplaced, worst laundry-doer EVER

  

Most likely to own a restaurant-Rachael

Free food for all Panthers, Rach?

Most likely to be a soccer coach-Maria

We can picture the jumpsuit, whistle and clipboard now

Most likely to be a comedian –Morgan

Again, braggy…

Most likely to join the armed forces –Paige

I think we can all trust Paige “The Brick Wall” Lincicum to protect and serve us all.

Most likely to start a business –Kelly Manski

(Will you hire us????)

Most likely to live to 100-Ashley

She’s already started stockpiling her favorite gum, might as well live long enough to use it up.  

Most likely to have 10 kids – Krissy

They would be the coolest kids to ever walk to planet.

  

Most likely to sleep through an earthquake- Swittel & Jen & Emma

Three lucky Panthers tied for this award!!! Congrats, guys. YAY SLEEP.

Most likely to have a best selling book- Tailer Roscoe

This one’s possible people, we even got a sneak peek on the bus ride home.

We hope these responses provided as much humor to you as they did to us. Check back with in with us in about ten years and we’ll see if any of them hold true. Next week we catch up with assistant coaches Jon Gulrajani and Dave Madsen. Everything you’ll want to know and more!

Peace & Love,

Kels & Mo

Hashtags: #Rise&Roar….. it’s gonna happen people c’mon.

Catching up...

Hello Panther Fans!

We first hope that you will accept our apology for not updating you on the ins and outs of Panther Women’s Soccer last week. We know you (and Tim Prahl) were all patiently waiting at your computers wondering how you must go on without us but, worry no more…we are back! In our defense, school started up last week and after a weekend of travel, we had lots to catch up on. Including sleep, now that our 6:30 AM practices have begun. We also got the unfortunate news that I, Kelsey, have two injuries, both more serious, that have caused me to miss our last four games. For anyone who knows how much I love this team and playing soccer, you can imagine how disappointed I am. On the bright side, I am now certain I can not bend it like Beckham with a large boot and crutches, so I will be blogging it with everything I’ve got. All jokes aside, I am still so excited to see what we can do this year, and I will be looking to help the team in any way that I can while I'm out.

South Carolina: When we were greeted at the airport with free hotdogs, popcorn and sno cones by a University of South Carolina football tailgate (literally, this is not a joke) we knew it was going to be a good trip. Then we stepped outside.

It was a great trip, but it was HOT and it was BUGGY. A lethal combination, really. When you weren’t wiping the sweat, you were swatting the bugs. We googled hot and Columbia, South Carolina came up. Even hot would say that it was hot. Like a sweating when you’re not doing anything at all kind of hot. (Yeah, call me out, Morgan??!) I’m almost not sure what’s worse… the great Wisconsin winter or the heat box known as South Carolina. (With training comes complaining, ya know?)

We played the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina while we were in Columbia. It was a great facility, a top-notch field, and we thought we took some good steps forward from our opening weekend. We beat the College of Charleston 4-2 on Friday and saw two great goals from senior Kelly Lewers. (If you haven’t seen it, check out the UWM website for a feature of our two favorite people- Kelly and Juicy J!! Just kidding, but really, check out Kel, men’s soccer’s Laurie Bell and volleyball’s Kayla Price. Great people.) We also saw sophomore defender Kelly Manski and freshman forward Sydney Senn’s first collegiate goals—so proud of them both. After a nice day off complete with some true southern barbecue and an intense movie When the Game Stands Tall we were all ready for the next days match up. It was a quick turn around and before we knew it, we were warming up ready to take on The University of South Carolina. The now ranked #9 South Carolina gave us a good match and they came away with a 2-0 win. We were encouraged by our play against a nationally recognized team, but weren’t satisfied with the result. We created good scoring chances and know that we have more in us.

Our very own Morgan LaPlant and Rachael Van Keulen earned well-deserved All-Tournament Team Honors. If you see a blindingly pink Under Armour sweatshirt on either of the two of them, you’ll know why.

Let us not forget…in the last minute of the game, literally out of nowhere came an absolute monsoon. Not the best weather for loading the vans and getting to the airport, or for doing anything really. On the bright side, it definitely masked all of our sweat and maybe even counted as a shower for some of us (Amy), so that was definitely a plus.

Many thanks to Jon for organizing such a well planned and smooth trip- even driving us to Charlotte, NC instead of flying there, after the rain delay would have caused us to miss our connecting flight. We think Jon had such a good itinerary that Boston University, who was also there for the tournament, copied it. We were at the same hotel, same restaurants for dinner, same movies, same airports, etc. Little obvious, you know? Two Panther paws way up to all of the parents who made the trip out, it was great to have such a loud crowd at an away game. And a special thank you to all the parents that contributed to the post-game treat bags! They were excellent and actually my (Morgan) second favorite thing after a game, falling behind sleep of course.

Fast forward to Friday night, under the lights, beautiful night at Engelmann Stadium for a game against Boston College. Another tough opponent at a top-notch field with a great crowd- what more could you ask for? After going in to the locker room tied 0-0, we ended up losing 2-0 and were again disappointed with that result. We could not dwell on that result too long, as we played again on Sunday vs. undefeated DePaul. After training Saturday, some post-practice Noodles and Co. and the afternoon to rest, we came into Sunday feeling prepared and excited—and it showed. We took a 2-0 lead after 17 minutes, with two absolutely stellar goals from Morgan. (Isn’t she so braggy?!). Just kidding, Kelsey writing, and they really were great. The first was assisted by Maria Stephans and the second assisted by Kelly Lewers and Krissy Dorre. Morgan did a great job getting in to the box as these players were able to get serves across in to the box. Right place, right time. x2. We were pleased with this start, but extremely frustrated with a 3-2 result after two first and one second half goals from DePaul.

We know we are capable of more, and we know we will get to a place we want to be. In the meantime, we will be working hard each day! Follow us along this week as we take on the Marquette Golden Eagles for our cross-town game of the 2014 season and travel to Auburn University for a cross-country game on Sunday. Not cross-country running though, we’d be really bad at that.

Pretty confused why our hashtags were never trending in South Carolina, probably a Twitter malfunction, but we’ll try again this week.

#PantherPawsUp #MKEPantherPack #Rise&Roar

We promise to write again soon!

Yours,
Kelsey and Morgan