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