Oct. 2, 2002

CHICAGO, ILL - Much like Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo, major league baseball MVP Ichiro, and NBA hoops legend Kareem, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's soccer player Antou Jallow is becoming known on a first-name only basis in Horizon League men's soccer circles. Wearing simply "Antou" on the back of his all-black No. 9 jersey, the All-America candidate wreaked havoc on the University of Illinois-Chicago defense, scoring all four of his squad's goals in a 4-2 conference victory here Wednesday (Oct. 2). Thanks to Jallow's heroics, UWM has now won six consecutive matches while improving to 6-1-1 overall and 2-0-0 in Horizon League play. Meanwhile, the rival UIC Flames fell to 3-6-1 and 1-2-0 on the season.

Jallow, who entered Wednesday's contest as the second-leading goal scorer in the country, took over the national lead with his career-best four goal performance. The Swede now has 13 goals on the season and nine in his last three contests. Adding in his three-goal, seven-point performance versus Loyola University last Tuesday (Sept. 24), Jallow has terrorized conference opponents for seven goals and 15 points in just two matches.

"Antou has just been amazing," UWM head coach Louis Bennett said. "He is finishing about 70 percent of his scoring chances and that's just unheard of. At times, he makes scoring goals look easy. He's not concerned about looking pretty or spectacular. He just wants to be effective and he's doing a heck of a job doing that."

In the early going, it appeared as if Milwaukee would need all the help it could get as the home standing Flames looked impressive out of the gate. In fact, UIC took a 1-0 lead just 6:18 into the game when Patrick Grange found the back of the net after a free kick. The one-goal deficit marked the first time UWM has trailed in a match since Sept. 7 when DePaul took a brief one-goal lead.

"We started the game a little slow and I was upset with how we gave up the first goal," Bennett added. "And there were stretches of the match where we didn't play well. However, we kept our composure the entire time and we never panicked. I give the guys credit for righting the ship."

The UIC lead didn't last long before Jallow notched his first of four goals. The striker evened the score at one exactly two minutes later when he headed home a ball inside the goal box. Jallow's goal was aided by some nifty one-touch passing from B.J. Blake and Tighe Dombrowski. The sophomore then gave UWM a 2-1 halftime lead 30 minutes later when he drilled home a rebound shot from a blast off the foot of freshman Neil Drombowski at the 38:09 mark.

Playing an aggressive, freewheeling style, UIC started the second half much like the first, en route to tying the game at two early in the stanza. Joe Morelli took a Bruno Rasich free kick and volleyed a shot past UWM goalkeeper Chris Dadaian for the equalizer.

The two squads played an even, heated match for the next ten plus minutes before the Swedish sensation went back to work. Jallow registered his second hat trick in as many games when he headed home a shot past UIC keeper Ross Cain from a nearly impossible angle along the right end line. Forward Kyle Lance earned an assist on the play when he launched a pass into Jallow from the sideline near the right corner of the field.

With UWM holding on to a 3-2 lead the game quickly increases in intensity and physical ness as UIC pushed forward in attempt to even the score. Illinois-Chicago was forced to play a man down at the 65:34 mark when Morelli was ejected after a hard take down of Tighe Dombrowski just outside the goal box. However the one-man Panther advantage was short-lived as Neil Dombrowski was ejected after receiving his second yellow card of the game at the 69:13 mark. Fortunately for Milwaukee, Jallow had one more goal in him and the sophomore drove home the proverbial nail in the coffin with his fourth and final goal with 15 minutes left to play. Senior defender Chad Dombrowski earned his first point of the year by driving a crossing pass into the goal box, which Jallow promptly buried in the back of the net.

"Anytime you go on the road and can win, especially at the place of a longtime rival like UIC, it is a good thing," noted Bennett. "The game was intense and hard fought but for the most part I though our guys kept their head. We were patient and organized and took care of our chances when we had them."

Milwaukee will put its six-game winning streak on the line on Sunday (Oct. 6) when they head to Northern Illinois University for a non-conference contest. The UWM-NIU game is set for noon at the Huskie Soccer Field on the NIU campus in DeKalb, Ill.