Cam Iwema out for the season

Starting Defender/Midfielder Cam Iwema sustained a torn ACL at the end of Tuesday's practice. We will miss this kilometer eater as he typically runs box to box as a midfielder. Unfortunately we will have to do without Cam the rest of the post season!

NW Boys Soccer information

Today's practie is on the turf field. We are also getting some media attention as you can see below. The Ink Free News (online) and the Goshen News (online and printed version) have recently reported on the Panthers!

Angola-NorthWood Dutch Touch POTG

The Dutch Touch Player of the Game - Joey Eshelman. Joey broke up attack after attack, worked tirelessly the entire game and was at the base of many attacks. His position (the #6) does not come with stats because of what is expected of the position but breaking down opposing defenses typically start with Joey in this spot! Congratulations Joey.

YOUR 2020 SECTIONAL CHAMPIONS

A big thank you from the NW boys soccer team goes to all who support us; the great NW student section who came out in an ALL WHITE OUT Night and the parents, siblings and friends and family!!!!

ANGOLA-NORTHWOOD 0-2 (0-1) NW wins Sectionals as records are being set in best season ever

Coach Duerksen talks about what it will take to win Sectionals tonight. A confident team takes the field at West Noble which seems to have become our home field for the last 6 days. Again dressed in away whites, the team is announced with the one customary mistake. Was it Eewamma on the first night, Durkskin on the second, on the third night it is Sebastian's turn when his name gets butchered into Gillen. One of the first points mentioned by coach Duerksen in the pregame talk focused on high pressure on Angola for the first 5 minutes of the game. The plan is to make them lose the ball to see if it will translate into some offensive opportunities for us. The execution is pretty good and in the 4th, a scramble in the Angola box sees the ball finding Cam who takes a great shot that barely misses the goal. The pressure results in an even better effort when Angola coughs up the ball in the middle third. Sebastian (NW's record all time assist leader) slips a very nicely weighted ball to Kayden on the left flank. Kayden who in very strong fashion keeps the defender behind him, takes the ball at the goal and shoots the ball past the goalkeeper for a 6th minute early lead. The Panthers keep the pressure up and in the 13th minute, a drop ball for Nick Lechlitner finds Andre who volleys the ball at the frame, on the re-direct, Sebastian slams the ball on the cross bar. Only 60 seconds later, the ball again ends up in the Hornets' box and Chan is the one who connects twice with the ball but the Angola keep stops it twice. For the next 15 minutes, Angola resorts to panic defending and does not seem to have a plan to work out of the back other then to find their fast #2 who always tries to connect with #9 (their leading goal scorer). In the 20" Kayden leaves two defenders behind and seems to repeat what he did 14 minutes earlier but his effort misses the goal to its right. Angola finally breaks thru when #2 combines with #9. It would be one of the rare times the #9 gets away from Nick (who seems to have a knack for denying #9's from any team from scoring) and takes a nice shot at the goal but Graber makes a nice dive to prevent the ball from crossing the line. Half time score is 0-1 even though it feels like we are in control, it is obviouly not a comfortable lead. And as Coach Duerksen says, it only takes a fluke goal to even things out. The second half has a different feel to it then the first one. Angola gets chippier and at times dirtier. They go into a lot of challenges without going for the ball but go for the man instead. Most of these fouls do not get called and as it has been throughout the entire tournament, the officiating is not horrible all the time but is just awful at times. Little consistency throughout the game. The first 20 minutes of the second half has Angola too much on the NW half. The Hornets are not the best team we have faced all year but they might be one of the scrappiest ones. They fight for every yard, go in hard and are not afraid to foul. With both teams getting some minor chances you start to rely on your big guns. A beatiful Sebastian assist to -who else- Andre ends up in the ropes when Andre NW's all time leading scorer) takes a very hard shot on frame. The keeper has no chance and can not even react to this blast, 0-2! Ten minutes later Andre gets fed another nice ball on the right side, his breakaway at the goal gets stopped by an Angola defender by fouling him from behind. This foul gets what it deserves; a red card! The Hornets are down to 10 men despite the effort from the bench to replace the send off player with a sub. The very annoying Angola bench who has been chattering all stinking night, finally shuts up for the last few minutes when they realize their chance of getting back into this match, is over. The Panthers rush the field as the final whistle is blown to celebrate their well deserved Sectional Championship in a record setting year. With the best season record so far, the most goals scored by a team and by a player, the most assists and Duerksen and Dijkstra's 200th win of their coaching career at NorthWood, this has been a great season so far. A team effort for sure and in the three games at West Noble, we have only given up one -lousy- goal to Lakeland of all teams. So our defense has been stinchy and stellar, our offense has scored when they needed to and we are on a nice little run with having won our last 4 and having lost only once (3-2 at Plymouth) in the last 11 games. We want to keep this going! NOTES - Thanks to Michianapromotions.com and froggy 102.7 for broadcasting the games online and on the radio. It is not as easy as you think, broadcasting games! Especially when you get confronted by Angola fans during the broadcast accusing you of things you didn't even do! But then again, not everyone can be a class act. We hope to see the broadcasting crew with Ron, Craig and Ryan on the sidelines in Mishawaka as well. Speaking of Mishawaka; we will play our next game at Mishawaka Marian against Hammond Clark. Hammond Clark's Sectional chanpionship game has already been watched by the coaching staff and it looks like we have players that are capable of creating chances against their defense. Our game vs. Hammond Clark will be at 1 pm Saturday. The Regional Championship is at 7 pm and will be between the winner of SB St. Joe-West Lafayette and the winner of NorthWood-Hammond Clark game.

The team after winning Sectionals!!!

Angola-NorthWood Sectionals Finals preview

The Hornets won the NECC Conference (6-2) this season outright for the first time in 16 seasons. They have 12 seniors on the roster. Their record overall is 12-4-1 and Dailey is their leading scorer (for the 11 games I could find information on, he scored 15 times). They are scrappy and hard working as you would expect. Their regular season schedule is not overly impressive and does not match up with the Panthers' 2020 schedule. They did not face a ranked opponent nor did they play any NLC team. Therefore they are hard to compare to NorthWood. The Panthers were at #8 in the rankings on the final day of the regular season. Game time is 7 pm at West Noble. The winner advances to the Regional Semi Final at Mishawaka Marian a week from tomorrow (10/17). The Panthers are all healthy for tomorrow's game. The weather forecast shows mostly cloudy and 67 degrees for kick off time tomorrow and the wind will be at NNW 8 mph which is less than what we have been dealing with at West Noble all week long. Of course it doesn't help that we are in the middle of a corn field......

Copy and paste below link in your browser to read Keith Knepps article in the Ink Free News on last night's game

http://www.inkfreenews.com/2020/10/07/panther-futbol-team-26-avenges-team-25/

Dutch Touch POTG

Dutch Touch Player of the Game : Nick Lechlitner. Nick shut down Henry Torres all night long, denied him the ball and kept him to ZERO shots on goal! Nick also recorded the second NW goal (and also Nick's second of the season). Congratulations Nick Lechlitner.

West Noble - #8 NorthWood 0-2 (0-1)

ON THE WAY TO THE GAME>Iwema pronounced correctly but "Durkskin"? But it does not throw of coach Duerksen; the pre-game speech is a spirited one. The game plan has been made very clear. We worked on defending their number 1 threat (# 9 Henry Torres) with Nick especially motivated to get the game going. After the Chargers kicked us out of the tournament, everyone is determined to return the favor on their home field. The game starts off with NW taking the ball to the West Noble half of the field. And a nervous start with several fouls finally settles down some after about 12-13 minutes. Our passing is not especially crisp and we do not really see a lot of sequence passing. It becomes clear early on that Andre's throw ins are dangerous each and every time. Sebastian decides to take matters into his own hand (or foot) when he fires a laser in the 16th that seems to surprise the somewhat thick and not so agile Charger stopper. He does not get close to the ball and lucky for him it hits he left post. Unlucky for him is the fact that Andre is in he perfect poacher location and has no trouble placing the ball over the line for a deserved 0-1 lead. Takings shots and crashing the goals were mentioned in the run up to this game and apparently the players have paid attenion. A lot of action takes place in the middle third of the pitch. A lot of collissions, near fouls and some actual fouls all get called as fouls (mainly the NW ones). After another foul, the center arbiter states that the next NW foul is a yellow. Think about that! With more than half the game to go, the ref decides to just make up his own rule and thinks that there is a threshold on the number of fouls and no matter who commits the next "foul", receives a caution. And the odds are that the recipient would be Sebastian since he is involved in the majority of possession battles in the middle of the field. And so it happens; in the 38" Seba gets a yellow for a very, very, very soft foul. It is ridiculous that the rules interpretation is thrown out the window and the man in yellow comes up with his own. What makes it tough is that Sebastian is the type of player who is in on most of the defenisve confrontations in the middle of the field because of his position and his role and ability. And West Noble has the #9, 10 and 14 who can all be threats coming thru the middle. It takes a part of our game away and it is taken away by the center referee. A referee should not have any influence on the outcome of the game by coming up with his own rules. Period. Luckily Sebastian is one of those players with a very high soccer IQ but still, it was not a decision that was welcomed with a lot of enthusiasm on the bench. The call is questioned at the half and the referee trio does not really have a good explanation and decides to disappear into the announcers camper. The second half starts with more NW offense. An Andre cross gets to the 6 and Chan almost puts the ball in the net but his effort sails just to the left of the goal. All night long (and I mean 80 minutes straight), Torres experiences the close proximity company of one Nick Lechlitner. The man is determined to stop Torres' every attacking attempt. And it is not just determination, it is execution as well. Henry Torres never ever is a threat because Nick is on his back, on his front, on his side all night long. Torres can not receive a ball or Nick is there. Torres is held to zero (!!!!) shots at goal. It is the defensive pinnacle performance of the night. Because of this effort from Nick, the rest of the defense focuses on the other threats. In the air, Chase and Nick both, rule all night. Every time Torres does get the ball, Nick gets assistance from others like Joey whose role was to help double Torres up. In the 61st, NW gets a free kick from 50 yards out. Coach Duerksen tells Nick to put the ball on the frame. The keeper is shaky at best and it is time to try him out. Nick puts the ball high in the air and it flies towards the goal. The keeper misjudges the shot, gets maybe a finger on the ball (and maybe not even that) and the ball hits the ropes! A 0-2 lead feels like a large lead with the Chargers not really threatening us much. With about 11 minutes left in the game, the Chargers start sending up their center defender #3 but that leaves gaps in the back and it eventually is not a strategy they keep in their repertoire. In the 67th, Sebastian crosses a ball from the right side into the box and Chan is in the right position to get it over the line but just misses the ball. The Panthers stay composed until the end and even though it wasn't our prettiest match of the season, it does become our most important win on the season.The Panthers are now 12-3-3 on the season. We move on to the Sectional Finals where we will face Angola who beat Garrett 3-1. Game time is at 7 pm and the weather will be great so few excuses to not make it out to the game! Andre becomes the record holder in total career goals scored with 60 surpassing the 59 from Rodrigo Dosal. Several other records are set as well (more about that later). Undoubtedly, the Dutch Touch Player of the Game is Nick Lechlitner.

West Noble- NorthWood preview Sectional Semi Final

Even though the temps will be around 70 around kick off, winds once again will be fairly strong tonight and on an open field like the one at West Noble, those winds could have an impact on the game. The Panthers are 11-3-3 and came in 3rd in the NLC. The Chargers are 9-6-2 and came in 3rd in the NECC. NorthWood started the Sectionals with a 1-9 win over Lakeland. West Noble was tied at 2-2 in OT with Wawasee before beating them in a PK shootout. The Chargers' most dangerous player without a doubt is Henry Torres (#9) who likes to hang out near the last defender, cut back and forth going at the goal and take shots. He tries to shake off his defender but needs little room to get off a shot. He single handedly defeated the Panthers on our hometurf at Sectionals last year, a loss that still stings today. West Noble does not really have a signature win this year unless you want to call the PK shootout win versus Wawasee and the regular season win against the Warriors just that. Overall their schedule is marginal and besides Carroll, Canterbury and Northridge most teams they played do not have winning records. But all of that said, they are still a dangerous opponent who can score out of nowhere. Eric Galarza (#10) is the other player to watch. He likes to shoot from outside the box and has a hard shot. Both Galarza and Torres scored against Wawasee and both scored their PK. The Panthers would like to return the favor however by beating West Noble on their home field in Sectionals. The game will once again be streamed live by Froggy 102.7 where you can hear the radio commentary and the live stream itself will be on michianapromotions.com.

Lakeland-NorthWood Dutch Touch POTG

Co Players of the game: Andre DeFreitas (5 goals) & Sebastian Guillen (hat trick and two assists)

Lakeland-NorthWood 1-9 (0-6)

Cam gets introduced as EYEWAMA but that is about the only exciting event in the first 17 minutes of NW's first round in Sectionals at West Noble. With a chatty Lakers coach on the sideline, the match kind of lulls itself to sleep early on. It is clear from the beginning that Lakeland is no match for the Panthers and the only thing keeping the boys from LaGrange in the game is the fact that they defend with a minimum of six but more often then not, about 9 players stay around the box and behind the ball. A 0-0 end result must be the goal. That strategy disappears and disappears quickly when the Panthers score thrice in quick succession. Andre'S first goal comes in the 17th (Kayden assist) and as we have become accustomed to, Sebastian takes the next goal (20"; unassisted) and Andre again in the same minute (beautiful floater over the defense from our own Iguana Cam Eyewama). Dreams of a tie for Lakeland fly out the window in a span of 3-4 minutes. Kayden adds another assit in the 25th from a corner to Sebastian; 0-4. The 36th minute sees Ryne assist Andre for the 0-5 lead. Sebastian slips a nice ball to Andre on the ground a minute before the half. Andre chips it over the keep, 0-6 halftime score therefore. Not much to say at the half. Beebe plays center defense with Nick with Chase being out until Monday. He gets 80 minutes of practice to get ready for a tougher opponent. In the 43rd, Sebastian steals the ball from Lakeland at half field and dribbles all the way to the goal and then finsihes it with a nice goal, 0-7. Sebastian stays involved as he assists Andre for his last, NW's fifth and school record tying total career goals (59) to give us the 0-8 lead. Concentration is lacking as we give up a cheap goal in the 55th which means we once again do not get a shutout. Nine minutes before the final whistle, Cam assists again, this time to Joel Guzman. The player built as much for theTour de France as soccer, scores the way he would climb the French Alps and puts the scoreboard operator to work for the final time; 1-9. Next up West Noble (winner of PK's versus Wawasee after a 2-2 regular and OT tie) at 5 pm Wednesday. Thanks to Sarah DeFreitas for the snacks and delicious sandwiches! Practice at the High School today from 3-4:30.

THE GAME WAS STREAMING LIVE ON FROGGY 102.7/MICHIANAPROMOTIONS.COM

Follow the game LIVE!

Unable to make it to the game but you want to watch it? Here is the solution; the game will be streamed live today on michianapromotions.com. The broadcast will start at 4:45 pm.

Lakeland -NorthWood preview Sectional Quarter Final

Lakeland finished the season at 1-15. Their only win was a scoring fest versus Prairie Heights (7-6 ). The Panthers finished the season 10-3-3 and are seeking win number 11. Earlier in the season, NW defeated Lakeland 10-0. Game kicks off at 5 pm at West Noble (just south of Ligonier and right of off US 33). The bus will leave at 3:45. Luis Castillo and Kyle Cripe are the only players who are unable to join the team today. Hopefully they will be back with us soon. We certainly will try to keep playing as long as possible in the post season. Sectional Tickets are $ 6 for a session ticket. Tickets are sold at the gate on a first come- first served basis. You can bring lawn chairs.

Dutch Touch POTG

Dutch Touch Player of the Game - Andre DeFreitas with 4 goals and an assist on the night while setting the NorthWood All Time single season scoring record with 25 Goals!!!

NorthWood-Bethany Images

NorthWood-Bethany Christian 6-1 (3-0)

The regular season ends at home on the coldest and wettest night of the season. A cold rain can not dampen the Panthers' spirit tonight as we go for win # 10. Despite a 3rd minute shot by Sebastian that needs a stretched out save from the Bruins stopper, the Panthers start off very slow as they have in the last few matches. It is something that needs corrected come tournament time. Fortunately Cam Iwema snaps us out of it in the 17th with a nice split pass to Andre De Freitas. Andre's shot hits the net, 1-0! Chandler comes up the middle in the 23rd and gets the ball to Andre whose shot goes past the keep for a 2-0 lead. Kayden gets involved when he finds Sebastian Guillen three minutes before the tea. Sebastian's run parallel with the top of the box to his right makes the keeper go to his left. At that moment, Seba slots the ball into the keepers right corner and the Bruins goalie can not get close to the nice finish on the ground; 3-0.

JOEY'S LIP-AFTER "TREATMENT" HALF TIME - Little adjustment is needed so the HT talk is short. SECOND HALF- It is not easy to play a normal game in this cold and rainy weather. But we do decent and in the 63rd Andre attacks near the 18 but is confronted with a wall of Bruins defenders so he decides to drop the ball back to Sebastian who is about 10 yards drop from Andre. A one touch laser from Sebastian disappears into the goal for a very comfortable 4-0 lead. Bethany does not threaten a lot and Graber has a slow night. Two minutes later, Chan gets his second assist of the evening. He passes the ball to Andre. Andre turns and shoots and with the ball going over the line, he ties the single season scoring record with the games 5th and his 24th goal of the season. A few minutes later, Andre records his 4th of the night and 25th of the season which sets the NorthWood all time single season record. Congratulations to Andre De Freitas. He now has only 5 goals to go to break the all time overall scoring record for NorthWood. That record is still held by Rodrigo Dosal with 59 total career goals. All field players make it onto the field tonight in the last home appearance this season.The Bruins score in the 76th to make the final 6-1.

JOEY BRINGS THE BALL DOWN THE FIELD IN FIRST HALF ACTION The regular season ends with a 10-3-3 record. The entire season we have had the focus on getting better for the post season. With our hope to stay healthy (not as healthy as hoped with two players out for a couple of weeks) but certainly healthy and stron enough to have a good showing in our Sectional. We feel well prepared and want to show we can do better than last season.

THESE SENIORS ARE FINISHED FOR THE NIGHT BUT NOT DONE YET FOR THE SEASON // NOTES - Practice at the HS today from 3-4:30ish. Next Game: Monday at 5 pm at West Noble versus Lakeland. Arbitration was almost flawless last night. We have never seen this ref but I wonder if he is new to the area. On the DUTCH TOUCH REF SCORING CARD he gets a solid 8!

Regular Season Final Match Day

NorthWood steps on the pitch with a 9-3-3 record where the Bruins start the night with a 4-8-2 record. We have played four common opponents so far. Both NW and Bethany lost to Northridge. Bremen defeated Bethany and lost to us. We beat ECA and Bethany drew with the Eagles. Goshen beat Bethany 3-0, we drew Goshen 0-0. NorthWood is ranked #8 in 2A, Bethany has fallen out of the top 20 in 1A. Bethany's #10 Colin Ward has 6 goals on the season and seems to be their main threat. The Bruins have scored 11 times this season and have been scored on 37 times. Bethany was involved on 8 shut outs so far, 2 on the winning side and 5 times they were on the losing end. One match was a 0-0 draw. Game time is 5 pm.

Warsaw forfeits game vs NorthWood

Using an ineligible player forced Warsaw to forfeit the games versus Mishawaka and NorthWood. Our record is now 9-3-3 going into tonight's match against the Bruins.