Milwaukee needs to take advantage of the savings at their local Target and put the ball where it needs to be, the back of the net.

We all know the scene. Family on a road trip, sitting in the car, kids squabbling in the back seat, and dad keeps losing patience. He grips the steering wheel tight, his knuckles getting whiter with every passing second. Dad’s blood vessel on his temple is visibly thumping, blood rushing to his face. He’s losing his composure, and after awhile, even mom has given up trying to calm him down before he explodes on the kids. One kid goes a little too far, and pushes dad right over the edge.

“Do I have to turn this thing around?!”

Here at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the men’s soccer team is going through sort of the same thing. Starting 0-4, the Panthers have had a hard time. The streak of consecutive years in the second round of the NCAA tournament seems like a distant memory, replaced by a nightmare start to a promising season. They haven’t hit rock bottom yet, but the Panthers aren’t in the right place.

Without a victory entering the Panther Invitational this past weekend, Milwaukee hasn’t had a season begin so badly since 1998. The good news is in 33 Panther Invitationals, Milwaukee has walked away the champion of 20 of them. Not enough to calm you down? Consider that in 1998, the last time UWM started 0-4, they rebounded and went to the NCAA tournament.

A glaring problem in the Panthers’ offense is their lack of a serious goal-scorer. In past years, Milwaukee had players who could score seemingly at will. Antou Jallow hit the net 24 times in 2002, and while no one is expecting a current Panther to step forward and overtake that record, no player has stepped forward into that role. Milwaukee has a horrible goals-shots ratio, taking aim on goal 45 times with only two goals in four games. Zeke Dombrowski has both goals on the year in ten shots. Hopefully, heading into the conference season September 29th, Martin Castro and Colin Baker will be able to get out of their funk and tack on some points. It’s not for lack of trying; the Panthers control the ball better than almost every team in the nation. However, when you take more shots than your opponents, more than eleven a game, and only have two goals to show for it, something is up. Milwaukee needs to take advantage of the savings at their local Target and put the ball where it needs to be, the back of the net.

It’s not as if they scheduled a bunch of patsies and were upset. The defending national champions from UC-Santa Barbara beat UWM 2-0 despite the Panthers controlling the ball for most of the game. Cal Poly remains undefeated heading into the weekend. A slightly scary fact is that UWM lost to Western Michigan this year, a team that isn’t very strong and was dropped by Cleveland State, a lower-echelon team in Milwaukee’s Horizon League. Nothing to go crazy over, but it does make one think. Are the Panthers in regression?

History says no. However, one can only wonder if Coleman, who entered the weekend with a 8-13-2 overall coaching record, was the right choice to replace Milwaukee’s own Benedict Arnold, Louis Bennett.

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