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After a three-game week, we sit in a good position in the Horizon League.
Last Saturday, we cruised to a 3-0 win against Wright State, with good goals from Robbie Boyd, Rami Younes and myself. The defense commanded their area, keeping a clean sheet and our keeper, Liam, even got himself an assist. The victory, on top of our fantastic previous form, earned us a ranking of 24th in the nation. This is a big step for the program and something we are all proud of.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t back up our ranking by retaining the Chancellor’s Cup. We suffered our first loss of the season against state rivals Green Bay on Tuesday. We outplayed and outshot our opponents, but fortune was not on our side.
We didn’t dwell on this though. As good teams do, we returned to winning ways quickly by beating Valparaiso in an ugly, hard-fought encounter. I don’t know if their campus has its own climate, but conditions always seem to be miserable when we play there. There were dark clouds and rain in the air throughout, making the turf wet and difficult to play on. The game was broadly unspectacular but Luke Goodnetter’s goal made up for it. And I think I had the best view of it in the stadium. The ball was cleared high into the air and Luke, about 30 yards out, told me to leave it for him. I stepped aside, presuming he’d control it and chip it back into the area for one of our strikers to contest.
No, no, no. Instead, he wound his supposedly weaker left foot back, held his position as the ball dropped then volleyed it sweetly into the top corner. So, so sweetly. He ran over to our incredulous bench wheeling his arm in celebration of the eventual game-winner. It was so good our media man, Chris Zills, is still campaigning for it to make the top ten plays on ESPN’s Sportscenter. If you haven’t seen it yet, go and watch it online. Now.
LINK TO VIDEO OF GOODNETTER'S GOAL
My Dad, Granddad and Uncle have now returned safely to England. In their week in Milwaukee, they got to see two wins, one loss and, to my Granddad’s disappointment, barely any cows. On one of our days off, I joined them on a one hour, 60-mile drive up the Lake Michigan coast to Sheboygan. By Englishmen’s standards this constituted a road trip. But even when covering the epic distance, we weren’t able to spot the farm animals that make Wisconsin famous.
“America’s dairyland they call it. I haven’t seen one bloody cow!” the oldest Bell repeated as we passed field after empty field. We tried to trick him and pointed to a herd of white and black of horses but even his 90-year-old eyes could tell the difference. We arrived in the pretty town and enjoyed the day paddle board surfing on the Lake and relaxing on the beach. Then, on our way home we spotted them. Huddled together, just peaking out of a barn were six unimpressive looking cows.
“They must be working bloody hard if it’s just the six of them in the state,” said my satisfied grandfather with a chuckle. The Bell’s aren’t farmers.
We’re now in conference crunch time and doing everything we can for success in our last 5 regular season games. We travel to UIC on Wednesday with a lot on the line. Wish us luck!
