2021 NorthWood Invitational / official start of the 2021 regular season

The first game of the Invitational features the 2-0 senior loaded Bremen Lions and the NorthWood Panthers. A hard fought battle on a toasty Saturday in front of a nice crowd (great student support) ends with new Head Coach Kyle Dijkstra recording his first official NW win. Dominic DeFreitas scores the lone winner (long distance shot which gets deflected and freezes the Bremen GK). The 1-0 win puts the Panthers in the Final at 5 pm versus the winner of the Western - #4 Mishawaka winner.

THE BLACK OUT STUDENT SECTION SHOWS UP EN MASSE!. In game 2 Western gets defeated 0-6 by Mishawaka who has the luxury of an easy win and is able to rest a lot of starters for the Final. Bremen beats Western in the consolation game and improves their record to 3-1. The 5 pm Final starts under cloudy skies but soon sees those same clouds disappear. The temperatures soar with heat radiating visibly off the turf. A great start for NW (goal in second minute by Dominic DeFreitas) turns into some decent possession soccer for the Panthers for about another 15 minutes but the ensuing 22 minutes after that are disastrous. A decent goal by the Knights is followed by a defensive miscue resulting in a goal and turns the lead quickly into the Panthers having to battle from behind. A shot/cross towards the NW goal is not dealt with adequately which gives Marian a second chance from inches from the goal line. The ball finds the back of the net, 1-3. A solid and quick moving Mishawaka Marian offense finds the ropes once more before the half for a 1-4 HT lead. The HT talk focuses on defensive organization and willingness to show some fight from within. Second half play is much better defensively with Aiden Greenlee doing a nice job at center back. Dominic moves up to midfield and Joey plays the 6. Joey ends up with a yellow caution when he tries to avoid jumping on top of a Marian player who falls in front of him. Apparently he was expected to dig a quick tunnel to avoid the guy, not jump over him. Besides this officiating blunder, overall officiating was pretty decent considering the crew of three did all four games on a tropical day at Wellfield Park. The Panthers return to action this coming Thursday when they open up NLC play at Northridge (5pm JV, 6:45 pm Varsity start). The sixth ranked Panthers are 1-1 on the young season. Practices are at the High School training field on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation for the Thhursday game on grass in Middlebury.

SAME GREAT STUDENT FAN SUPPORT IN THE RED OUT VERSION FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME