Team Dinner 9/2/21

There will be a team dinner directly after prctice tonight at Stauffer Park at the pavillion just north of the Nappanee Pool. We will be done with practice right around 5-5:15 pm today. Players can park by the Pool. Thank you to Jack Walter's mom for putting this together!

First win recognition for Head Coach Kyle Dijkstra

Athletic Director Roman Smith presented Kyle with the first career win ball yesterday.

Lakeland-NorthWood 0-8 (0-4)

A long bus ride that starts late but eventually gets us to Lagrange as we travel from one Amish Capital to the next. A quiet crowd of 33 "packs" the 6 stands at the beginning of the game. It would swell to almost 60 by half time. The Panthers get announced and it sounds as if we have contracted some new players for this game. Alden Greenlee, Trent Iwuuuma and Dominic DAY Freitas apparently take the field. The National Anthem starts about halfway through the first line on a absolutely gorgeous summer afternoon. The field is in good shape and the Lakers have an actual press box. Oh, to have a press box and storage shed!! 1st HALF- The Panthers start with a plus 6 passing string (probably close to 15 or so) and would end the night with a 77% Pass Succes Percentage for the night. In the third, Michael takes his first shot at goal and it hits the left and then the right post. The woodwork takes another beating in the 5th as Dom hits the post as well. Despite being in possession of the ball throughout the first 25 plus minutes in the first half, NW is unable to get a ball behind the Lakers stopper. A individual effort by Carlos finally gets us underway. In the 22nd, Carlos driblles thru the Lakeland defense like a hot knife thru butter and scores NW's first goal of the game. Dom (DAY Freitas) takes it upon himself to double the lead 11 minutes later (assisted by Carlos). Finally the floodgates open up a little. Two minutes later a nice combination puts us ahead by three when Joel finds Carlos, Carlos crosses flat across the goal mouth and Joel finds the back of the net. Another three minutes after that, in the 38th, Grant places himself on the assist stat sheet when he delivers a very nice long pass into Carlos' feet. Carlos has little trouble finishing and changes the scoreboard to 0-4 for our HT score. 2nd HALF- Four minutes into the second act we continue add more ink to the scoring list. This time Dom finds a lively Carlos by way of a thru pass. Carlos makes sure his old friends and cousins won't forget his performance anytime soon puts the ball over the line for the 0-5 lead. In the 51st, Ethan executes a long throw in to Dom who goes in the box and takes a shot that finds the ropes, 0-6. Dom finishes the night with a brace. In minute 55 Joey gets in on the action as he lays off an assist to his buddy Michael. Michael shot stat sheet will finally have one dot in orange as he puts the long shot into the back of the net for the 0-7 Panther lead. A minute later, Landon gets his first assist of the night when his pass gets to yes, you guessed it, Carlos Alvarez who signs for the 0-8 which effectively gives him the Haul for tonight's game. So a Brace and a Haul within the same game and add to that a goal for Joel and Mihael and you end up with 8 total. As hard as we battle to score the mercy goal, it would not come tonight. We hit the crossbar and posts several more times but the Lakers GK prevents number 9 from going in with the help of the woodwork of course. Trace takes the field to defend out goal for the last 22 minutes and everyone gets to play tonight with the exception of Alex who felt good enough to come to school today but did not feel that great during the match and was physically unable to take the field. All in all, we played good possession style soccer, were very patient and never got in a hurry to score goals by skipping the midfield or going straight up thE middle.The referees are invisible tonight and have little work to do. On the 0-10 scale, they collectively receive a "8". An uneventful night with the exception of 8 goals. The Panthers are 2-3 on the season and will entertain Wawasee on Tuesday at home in or third NLC match up.

GOAL SCORERS CARLOS (#3- 4 GOALS) AND DOMICIC (2 GOALS) ARE SHOWN ON THE ATTACK AT LAKELAND.

A

A RELAXED BENCH

ALEX PLACES HIMSELF IN QUARANTINE ON THE BACK BENCH AFTER FALLING ILL

Game Day #5

Today's game is at Lakeland High School in LaGrange. This is a Varsity contest only. Game time is 5:30 pm. The Lakers are 0-4 on the season. The Panthers are looking to rebound after three consecutive losses. NW is ranked 13th in the ISCA rankings in 2a and 18th in 2A according to Maxpreps. It looks like we have all players back for tonight's game. Players have to be at Door 7 behind the school at 3:40 pm to load the bus for the one hour trek to LaGrange.

NorthWood - Concord 1-5 (1-1)

A decimated NW squad plays well for about 47 minutes. NW goal by Dominic De Freitas. Having to deal with suspensions, illness and injuries results in 2x20 min JV game. Varsity is 1-3 on the season after playing well for a good portion of the game in the last three games against good opponents. Next up is Tuesday's match up at Lakeland which is a varsity only game.

METERMAID VISIT.

Northridge- NorthWood 4-1 (1-1)

No national anthem, Eberle is now Erbel, announcing takes three hours and four bad moments determine the outcome. Carlos scores the lone goal off a Michal Hahn corner. NW outplays NR but does not have the luck the Raiders have with several defensive blunders by the opponent.

Next up: Concord on Saturday. 10 and 11:45 am starts. Time to start eliminating defensive miscues!!!!! Hopefully we will have officiating that does not hand out cards as if the candy store has a sale for one team only! On the scale from 1-10 the NR-NW ref gets a "3".

Kaleb Eberlinho.... with a brazilian touch!

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

Game Day 1

The Panthers will host the NorthWood Invitational tomorrow. Gams are at 11, 1, 3 and 5. NW will play Bremen at 11, Mishawaka MArian will face Western. The winners of game 1 & 3 will kick off at 5 pm for the trophy and the losers will face each other at 3 pm. It will be a warm one tomorrow so hydration is important!!!!! Go Panthers!

Practices Tue 8/17 - Fri 8/20

Today's practice will be on grass at the High School. The rest of the week we will be on turf at Wellfield Park.

Wawasee Jamboree

In the first game we play Manchester on a field that hasn't been mowed for a while (see the pic with 2/3 of a ball showing) and play into the wind but come away with a 1-0 win on a nice goal from Joel in the 40 minute contest. In match number two, we face Columbia City. We have quite a few opportunities, play well, combine efficiently but are unable to put the ball in the back of the net. The game ends the way it started; 0-0. The defense does not give up any goals today, we play well and have to do without Carlos and Andrew today. We now direct our attention to the next five practices before we open the season at home with a double header in the NorthWood Invitational vs. Bremen at 11 am. I will post the Invitational information later this week.

Kaleb has it all wrapped up....

Kaleb arrives at Friday's practice.

2021 Compete Week

The inaugural 2021 Compete Week concluded yesterday with the skill competition. After a week of competitions including the Pugg Tournament, the Cooper Test, the Red-Black scrimmage, 1v1 tournament and the skills competition, the trophies were awarded at the end of Friday's practice. Each competition had points attached to the results. Wes Bell won the JV competiiton, Joey Eshelman was the Varsity champion. Solomon Yegon finished second in the Varsity comeptition after he defeated Grant Miller in a sudden death PK shoot out. Grant finished third. Congrats to the winners.

What they competed for.

VARSITY CHAMPION JOEY ESHELMAN

SOLOM YEGON COMES IN SECOND AND GRANT MILLER FINISHES THIRD

WESLEY BELL -JV CHAMPION

Wawasee Jamboree 8/14/21 information

The bus leaves the Pain Palace at 9:40 am. Don't be late!! We play at 10:45 vs Manchester (not City or United) on grass, followed by a game on turf against Columbia City. Both "games" are 40 minutes without HT. An announcement will be made at today's practice about what we will wear.

Red/Black - White scrimmage 4-1 (2-0)

Another succesful Red Black scrimmage. Three points for Compete Week went to the winners, red&black coached by coach Dijkstra (sr.). Coaches Douwsma and Taylor tried every trick in the soccer book but to no avail. Head Coach Dijkstra turned in a respectable -albeit not flawless according to the coaching "staff" for red & black (PK????) - performance in the center. A great crowd consisting of family and bribed friends (thank you Joey and company). Check out the images below.

2021 Pugg Tournament - Champions, Coaches win 6th of 7 annual competition

The PUGG tournament has been played at the conclusion of two-a-days week since 2015. The coaches have won all but one (2019) tournaments. This year Coaches Brayton Taylor -not pictured/unable to compete in yesterdays game- Seth Douwsma, Kyle en Dijkstra Sr. with the addition of Bryce Knepp were the players who silenced a rowdy crowd early on and made sure it stayed very quiet after a 5-1 win in the Final.

2021 Pugg Tournament - Runner Up

Electing to play 4v4 rather then 5v5 versus the coaches, Mark, Grant, Bode, Aiden G, Wes and Soloman lost 5-1 to the Coaches; still a good result. Congratulations!!!!

2021 Pugg Tournament - 3rd Place

Michael, Andrew, Trent, Cam and Alex missed the Championship Final on goal difference but won the battle for third place.

Red-Black Game information