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Our two games this past week left us with another non-conference win, but saw our Horizon League standings take a hit after an overtime defeat at Cleveland State.
By beating Nebraska-Omaha we remained perfect at Engelmann Stadium, moving to 5-0 at home and proving what a difficult place Milwaukee is for opposition teams to come and play. Two early goals were enough to secure our win. Robbie Boyd earned an overdue first point for his great efforts this season by assisting Horvat’s game winner. And even though we couldn’t extend our lead in the second half, we defended well and saw out the game comfortably without conceding.
Our weekend game involved another long bus ride to Ohio – this time to take on Cleveland State. The game, like others we have had in the state, didn’t quite go as planned with a chaotic 5 minutes seeing us lose out, 2-1, in the early stages of overtime.
Encouragingly, the final moments of the game served to prove that Andrew Wiedabach cannot be stopped from getting his name on the score sheet for the Panthers despite being unable to play this season. The game’s commentator and the provisional statistics both credited the striker with my equalizing goal. That has subsequently been corrected, but we are all looking forward to having him scoring goals for us again for real in the future. Likewise, it will be good to have all the other guys who have had to sit this fall out because of transfer rules to come in and strengthen our squad next season.
Instead of dwelling on the match, I will talk in more detail about the accommodation aspect of the trip. The hotel we stayed in was right in the heart of Cleveland which is unusual for us, as we are normally situated in less busy regions of the cities we visit. This came as a pleasant change and provided an opportunity for many of the guys to view the city for the first time. Personally, I enjoyed our comfortable hotel, seeing the close by sports stadiums and experiencing the place as a whole but others in the team seemed to have some negative things to say about Cleveland. The comment “I can see why LeBron left” was commonly used. But seeing as though I’m not sure what ‘LeBron’ is I didn’t quite understand the reference and I remained impressed by the city nonetheless.
We will attempt to break our Ohio curse next weekend when we go on the road again to take on Wright State. Before that though we will look to beat Detroit on Wednesday, with a win guaranteeing us a place in the conference tournament. Come down to Engelmann to support us in our effort to go 6-0 at home!
