Autumn Byers

Autumn Byers, a three year goalkeeper for the Maranatha Women's Soccer team, was recently recognized in the Wall Street Journal. Here is the announcement that was in the on-campus Trumpeter:


Alumna Autumn Byers Recognized in Wall Street Journal - 9/27/2007- Maranatha alumna Autumn Rose Byers ('07) was recognized in last Saturday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal (Page R 13) for excellence in education along with other recipients of 2007 Student Achievement Awards.


Here is the link to the on campus award announcement. It is in pdf format. The Wall Street Journal is 'subscription only', so I can't link to the actual story.


Congratulations, Autumn! - C

Breese Stevens Field

Over the years, Breese Stevens, has always been one of our favorite places to play. The stadium is 82 years old and has held high school football, car races and soccer games. I believe that both my grandfather and father played highschool football in the stadium. My grandpa attended the old Central High School and my father is a La Follette grad. I remember seeing two great matches played there - one was between Concordia Wisconsin and Edgewood for the conference championship in 1998 - Concordia won 2-1 in 2OT. The other great match was between Maranatha and Edgewood that ended in a tie 2-2. MBBC was down 2-0 for most of the game before Sarah Beardslee and Sommer Rodolph both scored outstanding hustle goals in the last 10 minutes to send the match to overtime.

Recently, the city of Madison announced renovations to this facility that will make it a much nicer place to play. . . although I kind of liked the crumbling concrete, rusted seats, tiny locker rooms where you can hear the other team talking. . . - C

Men and Women v Wisconsin Lutheran

The women played a great game against a tough conference opponent last weekend. WLC is usually one of our biggest conference rivals going back to the days of Rebekah Himm and Kari Seijkowski (also known as "Psycho") for WLC and Sommer Rodolph and Jen Adam for MBBC. In 2003, we defeated them in regular season play and they spoiled our home playoff game. Every year since then just about every match has been decided by 1 goal:
MBBC 1 WLC 0
WLC 4 MBBC 1
WLC 2 MBBC 1
MBBC 1 WLC 1 2OT
WLC 1 MBBC 0 (MBBC outshot WLC 20 to 7)
MBBC 1 WLC 0

This year was no different as both teams played a tough, phyisical game. For the second year in a row, we held the advantage in possession, but struggled to find the net until Melissa Nichols picked up a ball near midfield, dribbled through about 3 people and just about "willed" the ball into the net. We had strong play out of our midfield, especially Cara Harrisonn who slammed the door shut defensively and Barb Gerlach who earned her first conference shut-out. Our team is relatively healthy right now and we are starting to catch glimpses of the potential of the talent on our squad. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are ready for the challenge.

The men have similarly played a number of close matches with WLC in recent years. Last year's contest featured, physical play, a weather delay, 40+ stitches, lot's of shots by MBBC, but a 2-1 WLC victory. This year's contest showed signs of being another tight match as Maranatha hit the crossbar in the first half on free kick by Hollenbeck and a couple of guys going for the header. The score was 1-0 WLC at halftime and we seemed to be playing okay. WLC scored fairly quickly into the second half to make the score 2-0, but we put together an attack that saw Andrew Solarek hit the right post after a good pass from his brother, Timothy. Then in the 71st minute, everything started to unravel. You can check out the box score here.

We are very injured right now on the men's squad. Joel Smith is still trying to return from his broken arm this summer. Josh Marino had surgery on his elbow yesterday. Steven White, Jarid Lawson, Levi Deiss are all unavailabel due to various tears and pulls. There are also several players playing through their various injuries. Hopefully they do not get worse. -C

Kim (Gavitt) Terpstra

Hopefully this picture doesn't get me in trouble. . . it was all Kim's fault.

Kim Gavitt was married over a month ago, but I have just gotten around to posting a link to Kim and Caleb's wedding pictures. Scroll down if you don't see them right away. I was unable to find a permalink to the wedding post itself. Thanks to Laura (Frazee) Shaver for sending the link. The pictures look unbelievable, too bad they had to go all the way to Alaska to get this kind of scenery.

Mrs. Coach spent a summer working in a Bible camp in Alaska and tells me about it all the time. I would love to go up there some day. . . but I think the chances of us having another women's soccer player from AK who gets married up there are slim. . . Congratulations, Caleb and Kim! - C

Photo Blog

Women's soccer was featured on the Maranatha Photo Blog the other day.

If anyone has soccer pictures that you thing should be posted here at Maranatha Soccer, please send them to jcaucutt at mbbc dot edu. - C

Parents and Senior Day

Parent's and Senior Day came a little early in the season this year so it was a scramble to get everthing together, but in the end, everything turned out well. We had a good number of parents who were able to attend and the weather could not have been better for soccer.

Both teams earned victories and we had a great picnic at Riverside Park. I need to thank my wife, Sarah for all her hard work in planning and executing the picnic. There were also several other families who live in the area and helped with the preparations - the Moses', Kutz's, Dow's and Harrison's. The Parent's Day picnic is one of the highlights of our season. I greatly enjoy spending time with the players and their families away from soccer. The players on our teams are a great joy to be around. Only two got dumped in the river as far as I know. . .

Here are the notes that were read during our recognition of the seniors before each match last Saturday:

Aaron Hale
Aaron has been a faithful member of the Maranatha men’s team since 2003. He was a big part of a team that won 9 games in 2004 and continues to provide faithful leadership in a supporting role this season. Congratulations for a great four years and for finishing the course!

Andrew Swift
Swifty came to Maranatha in 2004 and won the starting goalkeeper job. His presence in the net was a great asset to our team. Unfortunately, injury limited him to two seasons but he agreed to remain with the team as a member of our coaching staff. He has played an integral role in training keepers for both the men’s and women’s teams for the last two seasons. Congratulations, Swifty!

Timothy Reinert
Tim was a member of Coach C’s first year as the men’s coach and made an immediate impact. He is a strong and smart player on the field and a leader off it. The greatest accomplishment of Tim’s career was when he tore his ACL in September and rehabbed in time to take a mission’s trip to Germany in June of 2006. Tim is a second year captain and hopes to finish his career with a great season. Congratulations, Tim!

Daniel Kaminski
Dan did not start as a freshmen, but earned a spot as the regular keeper in 2006. He has had an outstanding career. He is close to being the all-time leader in goalkeeper minutes in Maranatha history. He is a great player and a great teammate even though he is from the state of Oregon. Congratulations, Dan!

Kristen Kowalcyk
There has been a Kowalcyk as a member of the Maranatha women’s team every year since 1999. Kristen has remained faithful to our program and we hate to see her move on. Kristen has played a key role off the bench and was a great part of our Germany 2006 Mission’s trip. Congratulations on a job well done, Kristen!

Shasta Miklowski
Owner of the all-time great names in Maranatha women’s soccer history, Shasta is a four-year starter and the leader of our defense. However, Shasta’s most significant accomplishment has been playing four years of college soccer while studying to be a nurse – and she hopes to finish in four years! This accomplishment is unlikely to be repeated. Congratulations, Shasta! - C

Northland

Last year, I quit posting half-way through the season. This year, I have determined to do better, but I am already behind. Anyway, the matches at NBBC were a great experience as usual. The ladies defeated the Pioneers 4-1. Melissa Nichols hit the post 2 or 3 times. She has the worst luck of any player I have ever coached, but she still managed to find the back of the net twice. Our possession was better, but we still have a long way to go. I had forgotten what it was like to coach a team this young. I am still excited about our potential. Our first conference match is Thursday against an improved MSOE team.

The men's match was a great game. Tim Reinert led the way with a nice header in the first half off a corner kick by Hollenbeck. Our defense then held strong until the 61st minute when NBBC tied the game 1-1. I would have been very happy with a tie, but we just didn't have the horses to last through double OT. It was a team effort: Andrew Solarek, Timothy Solarek, Shane Foy, Chris Jochum and Levi Deiss were all unavailable for various reasons. Everett Callan, Jarid Lawson, Tim Huber and Dan Reid all came off the bench to record quality minutes. Each of them played double or triple the time that they are used to.

Kaminski recorded 23 saves and had a great game. When he is "on", he is awesome. Our defense over-all, including the midfield played well. We wish we could have lasted another 14 minutes. . . but positive comments about the character and testimony of our young men was mentioned several times by spectators after the match. God was glorified. -C

D3Kicks

Many of you have seen the link on the right sidebar for d3kicks.com. Last year was their inaugural year and the site was reasonably interesting, but not all that compelling. This year, they have improved greatly and I go there everyday to check up on teams in the region. You are able to sort by gender and date to get the scores in which you are interested. You can also view DIII schools by state and region. D3kicks also releases national and regional rankings that are quickly becoming as respected as the NSCAA rankings.

If you are interested in the NCAA III soccer, I highly recommend adding this site to your favorites bar. - C

USA v Brazil

I am busy on both September 8th and 9th, but it would be great to go see Brazil practice and play in Chicago this weekend. If any of you attend the match or practice, let me know. - C

Ashford

The women's team struggles continued yesterday against Ashford. We are missing our defensive stopper Angela (Fenstermacher) Aulph and our checking forward, Sarah Beardslee both of whom we we lost to graduation last year. I think we have the talent to replace them, but there is no easy way to make up for experience - other than experience. Freshmen Shannon Delany from New Hampshire and Lisa Collogan from Des Moines, IA continued to show improvement and both will become significant players in future games. We have a quick turn-around with an important match against North Central in Chicago on Tuesday and then three days to work on many of the topics that we missed during preseason. It was nice to see Julie Muse get on the board by converting a PK in the waning minutes of the match even though the final score was unpleasant: 5-1 Ashford.
The men's team played very well in many aspects of our game against Ashford. We had an unfortunate "own goal" in the first half, but we did not back down even though the sun was pretty intense and we had just played a match the night before. Steven White tied the game off an assist from Andrew Solarek late in the second half, but we allowed Ashford to score the game-winner with seven minutes remaining. I still see a number of things that I like about this team. I think we have good team speed and our ability in the air is the best I've seen in my previous three seasons with the men. We look forward to working hard all of this week in preparation for our next match. - C