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One thing Floyd Mayweather and the Panther soccer team has in common is that we’re both undefeated. The second is we’re both big Justin Bieber fans. No, that second one is definitely a joke. On Saturday night, members of our team huddled together in hotel rooms to watch Mayweather defeat Canelo Alvarez in his boxing fight. On the days either side, we recorded wins of our own.
The boxing took points to decide the outcome; Friday’s game against DePaul took overtime. Throughout the ninety minutes we threw punch after punch (not literally) but only landed one. We went ahead through Robbie Boyd, with one of two goals the new Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week scored this weekend. After that, we missed chance after chance, myself guiltier than anyone, and failed put the contest out of sight. DePaul equalized in the final stages of normal time – we weren’t quite saved by the bell - and it took a hundredth minute goal from centre back Andrew Stone to finally land the knockout blow.
On Saturday we went on the road and headed for Indianapolis. Last year we didn’t win a single game when we stayed in a hotel the night before. Soccer players can be a superstitious bunch and our trip’s beginning did nothing to ease our suspicions of some voodoo away from Engelmann. The bus driver, on his first day of the job, didn’t even know how to put his vehicle in reverse. And by hour four of the journey, his eyes were looking very heavy. But who could blame him – we were in Indiana!
We arrived at the hotel safely and were assigned our rooms. Two hours later, pockets of players crowded around laptop computers and watched the big fight. I’m not sure what it was about watching the largely uneventful 36 minutes of ring-dancing, but it set us up for a convincing performance the next day.
We won 3-0 against IUPUI with goals from Boyd, Bell and a fine individual effort from Weiner. It has been a while since he scored, but Riley was saving himself for a good one. He carried the ball through the midfield, weaved, jinked, twisted and turned before striking the ball left-footed into the goal. By the time he was done with them, the two defenders he beat were left looking like they’d been through twelve rounds with Mr. Mayweather himself.
Come to Engelmann tonight to watch your Midwestern Middleweights against Western Illinois as we attempt to keep up the best start to a Panther soccer season since 1996.
