Panthers’ Late Goal Enough To Top Badgers In The Rain, 1-0

Latinovich scores late goal to lift Panthers

Milwaukee – Junior Vuk Latinovich found the back of the net in the 75^th minute to earn the Panthers a hard fought 1-0 victory over their in-state rival, Wisconsin, in a cold and wet night for fans at Engelmann Stadium, especially as the heavy rainfall came after halftime.

“There’s moments in the game where its gonna look good, and there’s moments where we just gotta roll up our sleeves and fight cause of the elements,” said head coach Kris Kelderman when talking about the weather. “It was just a good team performance from start to finish.”

It was a stalemate in the first half between the two teams. The best chances came from the Panthers as junior Jake Kelderman made a great tackle to stop the Wisconsin attack and quickly led to a shot by senior Evan Conway that deflected off the post and back into play in the 37^th minute. Freshman Abdu Regassa followed up with a shot that was just over the bar. The game was 0-0 at halftime.

The only goal of the game then came at 74:14. After a save by Milwaukee, they began a counterattack that found Regassa in the midfield. Regassa then flicked the ball onto Conway on the left side of the field, Conway then created some space for a cross to find Latinovich, who hit a left foot shot from the top of the six yard box to sneak the ball past the keeper at the far post. This was Latinovich’s third straight goal for the Panthers and their 12^th goal of the year overall.

“We’ve been creating chances, and we’ve been struggling to finish goals, and I thought it was a pretty solid performance from the beginning to finish, and Vuk stepped up and hit a big time goal,” said Kelderman.

Freshman Joshua Kidder almost added to Milwaukee’s lead just minutes after the goal as he dribbled into the box and had a shot blocked by Wisconsin’s defenders. The ball bounced right back to Kidder, who shot again, forcing a tough save by the keeper to keep the game at 1-0 in the 77^th minute. Wisconsin’s keeper finished with five saves on the night.

Panther Keeper, junior Freddy Lorenzen ended the game with a save of his own in the 90^th minute just seconds before the final horn. It was a quiet game for Lorenzen as he only saw two shots come in his direction, saving both. This was Lorenzen’s third clean sheet of the season.

“It’s important as a goalkeeper to be stable back there and to give the guys confidence,” said Lorenzen. “I don’t think I had a standout performance, I just did simple stuff well and I think I did a good job at that tonight.”

“It’s huge for us, I thought we’ve been playing fairly well in the last handful of games, and we’ve been struggling to get results,” said coach Kelderman.

For the game, Milwaukee doubled Wisconsin’s shots 16-8, which included a 6-2 advantage in shots on goal. Milwaukee had nine corner kicks compared to Wisconsin’s seven. These advantages carried the Panthers to their first win over Wisconsin since 2012, and a 5-5-0 overall record. Wisconsin fell to 2-7-1 on the season.

“Obviously we had a couple of unlucky results,” said Lorenzen, “good games, we played very well, but we couldn’t get the win, so this is huge.”

Regassa led the Panthers with four shots, with Latinovich adding three shots of his own.

Game Highlights

The Panthers will get back into Horizon League Play on Saturday, October 5^th as they welcome the IUPUI Jaguars to Engelmann Stadium for a 7 p.m. kickoff.