UWM has quietly gained women's soccer reputation
This is no Stanford, with its 117 national titles across 20 sports.
It’s not a North Carolina, with a 223-year history of higher education.
Not a Texas or Tennessee, a Florida State or Penn State. And not a Wisconsin, not completely, and certainly not a program with the sort of name recognition, athletic record or prestige all those familiar programs carry.
This is a hyphenated school, and in many regards the secondmost prominent institution in the market for which it is named.
“A hidden gem,” UW-Milwaukee women’s soccer coach Troy Fabiano said, speaking of his university in terms that also apply to his program.
UWM has quietly won 17 of the past 18 Horizon League regularseason titles, including the last three, and set the league mark by going 26 consecutive games without a loss.
The Panthers flirted with the national record for the longest unbeaten streak and recently came within 11 days of reaching two full years without losing a regularseason match.
All this with a collection of local players, Midwestern talent and a blossoming West Coast pipeline, competing in relative obscurity and with minimal hope of a career in soccer when their college experience ends.
“It’s something that we embrace,” said defender Erin Corrigan, a redshirt senior from Whitefish Bay. “Everyone kind of overlooks us. That’s what we’re trying to change.
“We do have a strong program, and we do have a lot of young kids that are going to keep it going the next couple of years as well. That’s something we embrace, and it’s also a goal of me, personally, and our team, is our success does translate to … more attention.
“And I think any attention toward our school from our program helps, and that’s good to see.”
The big picture
For the first time in a long, long time, Milwaukee had a serious hiccup Sept. 17, when it lost to Marquette, 1-0. The Panthers had not lost in the regular season since Sept. 28, 2016, a 2-1 decision at Valparaiso. In between they compiled a record of 30-1-5.
Even with the defeat, the Panthers (9-1, 3-0 Horizon League) still received votes in the United Soccer Coaches NCAA Division I poll. (They have since fallen out.)
“Losing to Marquette was definitely tough. But I think we kind of needed it to push us a little more,” said starting goalkeeper Elaina LaMacchia, a freshman from Cedarburg High School. “If we lose during the season now, it makes us want the conference championship, it makes us want to make the NCAA tournament more, to prove ourselves.”
The streak was never the goal, players and Fabiano said. It was never really talked about within the program, even if it was in the back of people’s minds.
Advancing to the Horizon League tournament, and then out of it, are most important.
Despite its regular-season success, UWM hasn’t qualified for the NCAA tournament. Two years ago the Panthers fell to Northern Kentucky in the conference tournament championship game, and last year IUPUI moved on via penalty kicks after a 0-0 tie.
“It’s frustrating,” senior forward Lourdes Onwuemeka said, “but it’s also motivation for us.”
Beginning with a meeting with Wright State at 2 p.m. Saturday at Engelmann Stadium, the Panthers have six more regular-season matches before the conference tournament begins Oct. 29.
Quite a collection of players
Onwuemeka of Hercules, California, was the start of UWM’s West Coast connection, initially recruited by Fabiano when he was at UW-Parkside. He then found forward Julia Barajas in Corona, California, and landed two of her club teammates, junior forward/midfielder Chandler McDaniel and junior goalkeeper Olivia Davies, as transfers. McDaniel came from Virginia Tech and Davies from Cal State Fullerton.
Closer to home, four of the top five scorers heading into the week came out of southeast Wisconsin high schools: Haley Johnson (four goals, six assists), a freshman from Kenosha Tremper; Corrigan (two goals, eight assists); Jelena Sever (four goals), a freshman from Greendale; and Mackenzie Schill (three goals, one assist), a sophomore from Pewaukee. The other, junior midfielder McKaela Schmelzer (four goals, two assists), is from Loves Park, Ill.
This is a team, too, that lost nine seniors after last year, seven of them starters.
“The group of girls we have, we work together, we bring our energy and try to combine it into one and feed off of each other, work for each other, play for each other,” Onwuemeka said.
“It’s the personalities we have on the team, that’s what gets us through all the games, every minute of the games, that’s gotten us to how successful we’ve been so far during the season.”
Selling UWM
In terms of women’s soccer pedigree, UWM operates on a far different plane from, say, North Carolina or Stanford or Notre Dame. And it can’t match Wisconsin or Marquette in terms of prestige within the state. Still, Fabiano is plenty happy with what he has to sell.
UWM is a Tier One research university located in a medium-sized city with a winning program that has competitive facilities in the middle of its campus.
“A lot of people are amazed when they get on campus about the academic side,” Fabiano said.
Players’ majors include four disciplines of engineering, pre-med, kinesiology, education, nursing and finance. Senior Kelli Swenson, the Horizon League’s 2017 defender of the year, had a 4.0 grade-point average entering her final year.
“You’re in the city. You have plenty to do in the area,” Fabiano continued. “When you get kids on campus who’ve never seen it, they’re shocked by how nice it is.
“I’ve been here four years, and yes there are a lot of moving pieces on why kids don’t come, but it’s been pretty impressive how overall impressed families have been about the campus and about the program and about the academics. … So we do have some pieces there that allow us to be successful.”
The end game?
Whatever happens over the next two months, Onwuemeka and Corrigan will have completed a successful college run. For LaMacchia and Johnson and the other underclassmen, the record will take years to develop, but all indications are they will continue to win games. But then what? What do regular-season conference titles and long unbeaten streaks mean after college? Memories? Bragging rights?
“To be honest, I’ve kind of been denying thinking about that a little bit just because I don’t want it to be over, at least at the college level,” Corrigan said. “It’s something that just growing up, you strive to play at the collegiate level, so now that it’s kind of winding down, especially after five years, it’s hard.”
More opportunities exist for highlevel women’s soccer players than did when Corrigan landed at Milwaukee.
The National Women’s Soccer League has matured; the Women’s Premier Soccer League has grown to 108 teams in four regions. Pro leagues across Europe look to the U.S. for players, including Mallory Guertz, LaMacchia’s predecessor in goal, who has played in Sweden and now France.
“It’s changed drastically over the past few years,” Fabiano said. “The end game was play four years, get a degree, get a scholarship if you can, and then you’re done. But you can say that about … what’s the percentage of college football players that actually go play pro? I don’t know.
“So hopefully they do learn some life lessons. … Sometimes when you go in the real world and you see you’ve been part of a successful team, there’s a commitment that goes with that.”