Whitko - NorthWood 0-10 (0-6)

FIRST HALF Both full squads occupy the middle of the field for a lineup announcement to be followed by a national anthem and a half.It is time for the season to start; Whitko's Blue Crew fails to show up, the ballman and ball lady are ready and the Whitko captains have carefully placed the ARMbands on their LEGS. The 2013 Stat Booster Bowl starts out with a bang when 20 (!!!!) seconds into the game, the leather already hits the ropes for the first time off the foot of Carter Beebe after a Bennett Parker assist.Unfortunately only a small crowd is witness to the quick start of the 2013 season. The game, being played on the Whitko football field which is nestled between the town's cemetery and the High School, actually is in pretty good shape for a soccer match. The main adjustment for the players is that they have to play the yellow side and end lines. Despite the fact that NW plays mostly on the Wildcats' half of the field, no more goals fall until the 18th minute when a goal kick doesn't get too far out of the box and Carter Beebe is able to steal the ball away from the Whitko central defender. He easily puts the ball away for a 0-2 lead. It is clear then that Whitko does not really have any weapons to outscore us at that point.A minute later, Brandon Barahona starts his barrage on the woodwork. First it splatters off the crossbar and a few moments later it hits the post. In the 23rd, Beebe takes a shot at goal, the GK makes a save but the ball comes loose. Brayton Taylor is in the right spot to finish the attack with a goal, 0-3. Ten minutes later, Bennett Parker pushes a ball smoothly into the box to Dennyz Barahona who has no trouble connecting for a 0-4 lead. In the 36th, Brandon Barahona shoots a ball at the Whitko "00/Superman" keeper. The ball comes off his chest in front of Bennett who puts the ball into the net, 0-5. Two minutes before the half, Dennyz crosses a ball into the mix that eventually lands near Toni Lopez who places the ball over the line for the last goal of the first half. Cody Cripe was not extremely busy in the goal but had to make a save and did a fine job in goal. HALF TIME Minor adjustments are made that mainly focus on passing the ball to feet, speeding up the thinking and decision making process and keeping our shape offensively. SECOND HALF Tito Lynn takes the spot between the pipes for half number 2. His first challenge comes 4 minutes into the half when only Whitko's second shot of the game sails towards the Panthers' goal. With no pressure on him from the 40 yard line, Brandon Barahona decides to dribble to near the 28 yard line and takes a shot that flies past Superman -who is a little too far off his line-; the ball goes into the upper right 90 for the 0-7 lead. Brayton Taylor adds an assist to his goal when he places a nice pass into Toni Lopez' feet who places the ball behind the Whitko keeper, 0-8. The game now starts to turn into the Brayton Taylor show. A 72nd minute corner turns into a half inswinger that gets mishandled by the Whitko keeper, who slaps it in the goal for a Taylor goal (his 2nd), 0-9. In the 74th both Bennett and Brayton hit the crossbar, Beebe Carter almost puts in his third near post but it goes over and the last action of the day comes from Brayton, who slices thru the Wilcat defense like a hot knife thru butter and finds himself one on one with the goalie and decides to put it in with seconds to spare in the game for the final score 0-10. NOTES Easy win Tuesday but the story will be much different for the first home game Thursday when Elkhart Central pays us a visit. JV start at 5 pm, to be followed by the Varsity at 6:45 pm. Today's practice will commence early (2:45 ) and we should be done by 4:45.

Gameday 1

The Varsity will leave the AC around 3:30 pm to travel to South Whitley to play the Whitko Wildcats. It will be first game of the season for both teams. NorthWood will be able to field a healthy squad today.

Argos Tourtnament draw

The Argos Invitational will take place on Saturday 9/14/13. At 1 pm Argos will face John Glenn. At 3 pm we will play versus the Indianapolis Herron Achaeans (Ancient Greek lovers will enjoy this game). The losers of the first two games will meet in a 6 pm contest and the Championship game will commence at 8 pm.

Gameday 1 information

Tuesday August 20th, 2013 the Varsity will travel to South Whitley to play the Whitko Men's soccer team. This game will be played at a different location then the inaugural game versus the Wildcats in 2011. This year's game will be played at Whitko High School at 1 Big Blue Avenue, South Whitley IN. You can scan the QR code to your smartphone for directions. South Whitley is about 42 miles from NorthWood and should take less then an hour. The game starts at 5 pm. See you there!

2013 NorthWood Men's Soccer Alumni Game

27 former players and the current coaching staff "played" a game that excluded a lot of midfield transition and included a lot of long ball attacking. It was great to see a lot of the players -even some who showed up and watched the game- from just about every year we have been coaching (17 years!).

2013 Car Wash

The 2013 Car Wash was a success. Nearly 100 cars were giving a bath and some even looked better after the boys got done with it.

Reminders for week 2

The deadline for ordering team wear on the bsnsports.com website(go to my team shop and enter the code)is today, Monday August 12. Please order today if you haven't done so. The site will close after today. Deliveries will be made to the High School in 4-6 weeks. Coach Duerksen will let the players know when the items are in.Also, this coming Thursday, August 15, the alumni game will take place at the game field at 6 pm. This game will be followed by the red-black intra squad scrimmage. You can come and watch the players in the scrimmage and if you want, take pictures with them after the game. The red-black game will start around 7 pm. This game gives a lot of players their first opportunity to play on our own home field. For the coaching staff it is an opportunity to evaluate the players and try out the lights and scoreboard at the home pitch. The first Varsity game of the season is Tuesday August 20th vs. Whitko. This is an away game and is slated to kick off at 5 pm. The first home game of the season is against Elkhart Central on August 22nd. The JV game will start at 5 pm, the Varsity at 6:45 pm.

Week 2

Week 1 of the 2013-2014 was busy to say the least. Starting two a days, splitting teams, getting team pictures done, distributing warm ups and uniforms were just a few of the activities that took place. And then there were of course the actual practices. Thirty players will make up the Varsity and JV rosters. Most of the players and a parent attended the mandatory athletic meeting last Wednesday. On Saturday the annual car wash took place at LJ Wagner's. Nearly one hundred vehicles got liquid attention from the players and coaches. Speaking of coaches, Seth Douwsma (former NW and Indiana Wesleyan player) is the newly hired JV head coach and Kyle Dijkstra helped out as Goalkeeper coach. Welcome aboard to both of them. Kyle will be goimng to IU Bloomington so he will help out this week but after that we will probably only see him sporadically. Today marks day 1 of week #2 and all practices are now from 3:30-5:30 pm Monday thru Friday. Typically, the practices will be at the High School. The only exception is the day before a home game; on those days, the Varsity will reluctantly practice at the game field. The coaching staff wants to thank LJ Wagner's for allowing us to use their parking lot and water for the car wash. We would also like to think all the parentsw who donated soap, sponges, towels etc. for the car wash. We also appreciate Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Eschelman and Mrs. Taylor for volunteering to be our Captain's Club representatives this season. We also want to thank the returning letterman for helping us out Friday to get the game field ready. The dugouts are clean and back in place. With only 6 days of practices remaining, the first game will be here before you know it.

TWINS

This Week in NorthWood Soccer............voluntary conditioning with the seniors (Mon/Tue/Thu 9-10 at the track). Get the physicals taking care of. Those need to be in at the athletic office before the first practice. Practices (two-a-days) start Monday August 5th; 9a-11a & 1p-3p. All practices will take place at the practice field on the north side of the High School.

2013 Mandatory Athletic Meeting

The mandatory meeting for all athletes is Wednesday August 7th at 7 pm in the Auditorium.

2013 Soccer Showcase McCordsville

On the menu for the tournament for this year's rendition of the Soccer Showcase were Fishers, Blackford and Northwestern. NORTHWOOD - FISHERS The first game of the tournament has a nervous and apprehensive start. It is obvious a lot of the guys have not played together. Some players are trying to get used to new positions.Cody makes two incredible saves in the beginning stages of the game. Fifteen players are on the tourney team; Cody Cripe (GK), David Eschelman, Brayton Taylor, Brandon Barahona, Bennet Parker, Dennyz Barahona, Derrick Parker, Carter Beebe, Carter Dyksen, Connor Miller, Dillon Weldy, Matt Pippinger, Ethan Craven, Antonio Lopez and Isaac Bowers. Fishers scores in the 23rd for a 1-0 lead that would hold until the half. Our second half is better defensively despite giving up another two goals (45' and 53')for the final 0-3 loss. The tournament serves its purpose because it gives the coaches an insight on what we need to work on, what we need to change and we get a chance to see what the players are capable off. NORTHWOOD-BLACKFORD Again, it takes us a while to get started but once we do, we decisively take control of the match. Beebe scores number one in the 20th (1-0), Brandon in the 26th (2-0) and freshman Antonio in the 28th (3-0). The games at the Showcase are 35 minute halves. Two minutes into the second half it is again Beebe who finishes and puts NorthWood ahead 4-0. In the 50th minute, Ethan Craven gets the ball in the middle of the Blackford half, and takes a long distance shot that ends up high in the goal for the final score, 5-0. It would end up being the NorthWood goal of the Soccer Showcase. NORTHWOOD-NORTHWESTERN A sluggish and non-inspired NorthWood gives up a goal in the 15th (0-1). In the 32nd, Dyksen defends a ball well inside the box but a Northwestern midfielder trips over Carter's feet after the ball was cleared. The referee (well, he wore a shirt that made him look like one)pointed to the white dot on the 12. The PK goes in the left corner (no chance for Cody). Coach Duerksen tells the team that if they execute the adjustments suggested by him, the team will walk off the field with a 3-2 win. Almost prophetic......... Only 5 minutes into the second half it is Beebe who revenges a couple of first time misses with a nice goal to cut the lead in half (1-2). And he duplicates his performance with a very pretty goal three minutes later (great first touch and cut and solid finish). With the game level at 2, NorthWood presses to try and take over the lead. They do so in the 67th when the Northwestern GK kicks a ball just outside the box to Brayton who instantly kicks the ball back at the goal. The keeper, who is too far out and not prepared to stop a shot that quickly, lets it roll into the goal for the first NorthWood lead of the game (3-2). An unfortunate trip from behind in the box by NorthWood gives Northwestern its second PK of the day. This one goes in the right corner for the final score; 3-3. All in all a succesful weekend of soccer. Defensively we showed improvement but did give up 6 goals in 3 matches. Indeed enough to work on but also enough to work with. We saw improvement from game to game and for the ten years that NortWood has participated in the showcase, we never have left the tourney with a losing record.

2013 Summer Soccer information

The 2013 Youth Soccer Camp will be held June 24th-June 27th (Mon-Thu) at the game field at the Nappanee Elementary School. The camp runs from 9:30-11 am each day and is for K-7 Boys & Girls. All NW High School boys soccer players are expected to help out. The High School Soccer Showcase will be held July 26- July 28. This year, the tournament will not be held in Anderson, IN but in McCordsville at McCordsville Sports Park (home of Sporting Indiana). All information can be found on their new website "thehsshowcase.com) Tonight's open gym at the AC will be from 7-8:30ish

Open Gym at the NorthWood Athletic Center

Or OG@AC is tonight at 7:30. We will wrap it up around 9 or so. Hope to see everyone there!

Open Gym @ AC time change

Baseball work outs will start tonight which means we will push back our starting time to 7:30. Tonight we will go from 7:30 - 8:30 due to the ND-ALABAMA football game, starting next week we will go from 7:30 -9 pm.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Soccer's Open Gym will reconvene Monday January 7th, 2013

Indiana Tech Recruit Work Out

Kyle spent Sunday afternoon working out with the Men's soccer team at Indiana Tech in Ft. Wayne. Kyle was one of four GK's working out with the Indiana Tech team.

TWINS (time change Open Gym)

Tonight's open gym will be from 7-8:30ish. Camp information for those who will attend the Wright State University soccer camp this saturday in Dayton, OH will be handed out tonight.

TIME CHANGE OPEN GYM

Due to basketball try outs, the Open Gym for Soccer has been moved back to 7:30 and we will be done around 9 pm.

TWINS

Not only do we have Open Gym at the AC tonight (7-8:30ish) but tomorrow night is Fall Awards night. The Fall Awards start at 6:30 in the Auditorium and after the MVP's have been announced, we will go to an area with just the boy's team and parents for the rest of the awards. So we hope to see everyone there! Also, the indoor team starts play at the Elkhart Sports Center this weekend, the tentative playing time is 2 pm on Sunday but the actual time will be posted here after we get offcial word from the Sports Center.