End of Season Announcements

Kyle will send out a Remind with the information on uniform turn in and helping to get the equipment out of the Locker Room Wednesday. Attendance is mandatory.

#20 NorthWood - # 16 West Noble 1-2 (1-0/1-2 after ET) - Sectional Championship

In what turns out to be the final team huddle of the season, the Panthers take the field on a cool and blustery Saturday afternoon in the 2023 Sectional Final. The Panthers go ahead on a 6" goal from Dominic DeFreitas. This score stand until a defensive miscue with 10 minutes left in the game. The ensuing free kick is deflected and therefore out of reach for Trace Roja. This then sends the game into Extra Time (2x 7 minutes). Another defensive mistake gets the Chargers their second goal in de the first half of extra time. Despite a barrage of attacks by the Panthers, the ball doesn't roll our way. The season ends despite great play in the play offs in which we were the better team in both games. A large and engaged crowd saw an entertaining game. The season comes to an end and the Panthers finish with a 9-8-1 record. A great effort was put in by all and the Seniors played their hearts out! Unfortunately this is where it ends for them. Thank you Seniors for four years of hard work!!!!

A large crowd sees the Panthers lose to West Noble in a Sectional Finals thriller.

Game Day 18 Sectional Championship Saturday 10/7/23 @ 2 pm - # 20 NorthWood - # 16 West Noble

NorthWood tries to make it back to back Sectionals as they play in their first home Final ever. This is the second Sectionals hosted by NorthWood; the last one -4 years ago- was won by West Noble. The Chargers have a 11-4-3 record, the Panthers are 9-7-1. The teams have 5 common opponents, both of them going 3-1-1. West Noble is 53-12 in the Goals Scored and Given Up categories and obviously has a very good defense.The Panthers have scored 49 but given up 33. But none of it matters because it now all comes down to how this Final will be played by either team. Sol has been ruled out for the rest of the season sustaining an ACL and Meniscal tear in the last play of Monday's practice while Goalkeeper Trace Roja is expected back tomorrow. The weather will feel much different from the last game; it will be 51 and cloudy but it will feel colder with NW winds expected to be around 17 mph at kick off.

#20 NorthWood - Garrett 3-0 (2-0)

After # 16 West Noble finishes off Lakeland (8-0), it is time for the other remaining ranked team to take care of business. The warm up still seems a little lackluster but the hope is that the energy will change come kick off time.

The pre game talk contains references to our injured and sick team mates Trace and Sol and that we want to give them a chance to play Saturday.

It is one of the best nights weatherwise for soccer this season and as Billy Joel would say or sing rather, the regular crowd shuffles in. By kick off time the stands and apron are filling up nicely.

The Panthers start with energy and conviction although the first ten minutes are a little jittery from both sides. Understandable obviously with what is at stake. NorthWood's Head Coach Kyle Dijkstra has to make quite a few changes with the starting keeper trace Roja being under the weather and Solomon having to sit off with a knee injury. Maddox Brown takes the spot between the woodwork just as he did in the first game of the season. Hopefully this won't be our last. Michele Calderone and Jager Bute fill the spots on the field vacated by Sol and Maddox. After things settle down a bit, NW begins to threaten more. Aware of the fact that the Garrett keeper is one of the best we will see all season, scoring will be a challenge. A ball that seems to go out of play over the end line gets crossed by Dom from the right straight to Carlos who taps it over for what seemed to be a chance for an early lead. Three minutes later, the Railroaders get their first chance but their effort is saved by Maddox.The 23rd minute sees a lot of action in front of the Garrett goal; Grant shoots a high ball that requires a tip from the GK and Dom's shot in the same minute has the man in pink make another save to prevent the first goal of the game. NW keeps threatening and in the 24th produces a very nice goal that involves half of the field players. Wes Bell finds Dom who crosses for a switch with authority to Grant who controls it with one touch and finds Carlos who redirects it to Jager. Jager makes a move and takes a shot that finds the back of the net for the 1-0 lead.Only 5 minutes later, the Panthers threaten once again when a ball on the left flank has Carlos aggressively attacking at speed. As he tries to pass the defender, the defender seems to get the ball, kicks it but it ricochets off of Carlos' head. He goes into the box and places the ball at the goal. It rebounds off the GK back to Carlos who shoots the dust off the ropes for a 2-0 lead. The Railroaders coaching staff call for a handball (referring to the ball that hit Carlos' head) but after the referee confers with the AR, it is determined to be a goal. The people who had the worst angle (or no angle) on that play were the Garrett coaches. Therefore any protests after that (and there were plenty of them) were mostly unbelievable. The complaining might have helped when Dom shoots the ball so hard into the goal with no chance for the Railroaders stopper to even get close but the goal is disallowed for offside. Probably a result of all the complaining from the visitors bench. The half time talk focuses on keeping composure and closing out the game. Garrett, a team not known for scoring a lot, will be done, is the thinking, if we put in one more. In the 51st, Garrett gets a great opportunity and their forward takes a hard well placed shot in the right corner but an amazing dive and save by Maddox keeps the ball out of the net. The final nail in the proverbial coffin comes in the 54th when Jager scores after a throw in from the right side for his second (brace) and the Panthers' third and final goal of the night. By the time there are 15 minutes left on the clock, both teams get to put all the bench players in to get some minutes on the field at Sectionals. A very hard working energetic NW team that saw Michele start and Sebastian get a lot of minutes (with lots of energy and threatening offensive soccer) get the well deserved victory and if we continue this type of performance, Saturday will be an interesting match up with West Noble at 2 pm. NorthWood moves to 9-7-1 on the season and tries to get back to back setional Championships Saturday! The overall team performance was the best it has been all season and we could name all players individually for their performance because the passing was without a fault as crisp and accurate as we have seen all season and the urgency was clear to everyone off the pitch!! A job well done !

Maddox Brown, back up keeper, starting for the second time this season, gets a clean sheet!!

Game Day 17 Garret - #20 NorthWood

NorthWood will don the away kit since the draw placed us there. The Panthers are 8-7-1 and the Railroaders are 7-8-1. The Panthers have scored 46 goals on the season and allowed 33 where Garrett has scored 22 (6 by #15 Leech) and given up only 18 in 16 games. NorthWood looks to be without keeper Trace Roja and Solomon Yegon tonight and therefore battle a bit of adversity. It looks to be one of the last nice warm fall nights for the foreseeable future so we are hoping for a nice crowd tonight. Lakeland (with only two wins all season) will take on West noble in the early game. First game at 5 pm, NW kicks off at 7 pm.

NorthWood Sectional Update

#16 West Noble beats Wawasee 2-0 and Lakeland upsets Angola 2-0 which sets up the 5 pm Wednesday Semi Final West Noble - Lakeland. #20 NorthWood faces Garrett at 7 pm tomorrow.

Final ISCA Poll of the season

NorthWood drops to #20 in the final poll of the season. The Panthers were as high as #15 this season but have been ranked all year for the first time in school history. West Noble is the only other ranked team in our Sectional at #16.