Peter Sanger, a senior on the 2010 Milwaukee men's soccer team, will be blogging all season long on the UWM website. Today is his third blog entry.
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Giving up your social life, pushing through that last set of sprints, fighting through injuries and overall body pain ... it’s all worth it when you win. And since I’ve been at UWM, I’ve never enjoyed a win quite like our dominant 4-2 win over Marquette last Wednesday.
It was a perfect night to play; it was as if the rain gods knew we had an important game to play as the stormy weather we had been experiencing transformed into a beautiful evening. Just warming up you could feel the heightened atmosphere from our other exhibition games so far. Not only was this our regular season opener, but also it was against our cross-town rivals; fighting for the bragging rights of Milwaukee.
We started the game well and it felt like it was only a matter of time until we scored. We just kept throwing attack after attack at Marquette as they resorted to booting hopeful long balls to their center forwards. Finally a fine passing combination from Robert Jarosz and Cody Banks slotted Andrew Wiedabach through into the box. He brushed off the center back and made no mistake with a clinical left-footed finish at the keepers near post. Our players exploded, it felt as if there was no way we could lose. Even though we made a silly mistake at the end of the first half, allowing Marquette an equalizer, it never felt as if the game was out of our hands. We survived a bit of a scare with a Marquette shot off the post, but a moment of brilliance from Ross Van Osdol put us back on top. After receiving the ball just inside of midfield, he surveyed his options and saw nobody was on him, took a touch and let fly from about 30 yards out, putting it in off the upright.
The Marquette fans who had finally come to life following their tying goal in the first half were stunned silent. Two late goals from Edison Crespo were just the icing on the cake as he showed composure beyond his years to land us the Milwaukee Cup. As the final whistle blew, I can’t even describe the emotions that went through me. I just wanted to soak it all in. I’ve been here, putting so much work in with the other seniors since our freshman year, yet we had never won like this. I was overjoyed, yet on the verge of tears at the same time. In front of my city, it finally went like it was supposed to; Milwaukee was the best team in town.
Waking up on Thursday morning was pretty brutal. Class started for the semester and it really hit me by surprise. For so long, all we had been doing was soccer-related and now the school year began. We had a light practice, mostly focused on getting our bodies recovered. We knew we had to start looking forward to the weekend.
Friday morning we all gathered at Engelmann at 5:30 a.m. to catch an early flight out to New Hampshire. We lucked out as Hurricane Earl decided to hold off until after we landed in Boston. An hour drive to New Hampshire awaited us and all I could think about was getting into our hotel beds when we finally arrived at our Hampton Inn. Following a much-needed nap, we drove a couple minutes to the University of New Hampshire to get in a light practice on their game field. What awaited us there was quite a surprise; a very odd turf field. It was really spongy, short, and had faint dark blue lines for soccer.
Saturday, during the day, we went as a team to go mini-golfing. It was a great time and a good way to get loose and relaxed before our first game vs. University of New Hampshire. All of my memories of mini-golf as a kid involved a lot of fighting and ended in tears with my family. I grew up in a pretty competitive family where we fought to the death over everything, whether it was the first one into the car or who could drink their milk the fastest. Saturday night was our first game and it was definitely a battle. UNH was a very physical team, similar to Marquette, but probably better at it. They put us under pressure every time we had the ball and it took us awhile to get going. Eventually we fashioned some pretty good chances, but in the end we tied 0-0.
Sunday was a recovery day and we went pretty light at training. We also took a trip to the beach, which was a fun change of pace and went out to eat for a good dinner. Monday morning we woke up early and took on Vermont in our final game of the tournament. It was another hard-fought battle and we went down early due to some mental errors. However, Weedy got us back into it with an awesome goal and we had the run of play for most of the first half. Eventually we went to overtime and lost on another set piece. It was definitely disappointing, but during the season you have to move on and start getting ready for the next game. So that’s what we’ll do, we’ll get back to Milwaukee and start gearing up for IPFW a week from this Wednesday. Until next time,
Joga Bonito
