Under the direction of fourth-year head coach Kevin Boyd, the Milwaukee women's soccer program will embark on its 36th season of NCAA Division I soccer this fall (and 42nd overall) with a road trip this week to take on nationally-ranked Wisconsin (preseason No. 23) of the Big Ten before returning to town for the home opener against Northern Iowa Sunday.

Thursday's tilt against the Badgers, a program that was ranked No. 19 in the final United Soccer Coaches Preseason Poll of last season (advancing to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament), will be available on Big Ten Network Plus (subscription needed) and will kick off at 7 p.m. Sunday's home lid-lifter against the NIU Panthers is set for a 5 p.m. kickoff and will be streamed on ESPN+ with Matt Menzl on the call. Both contests will also have live statistics for fans to follow along with the action. All links are available on the MKE website.

The Panthers hold a 5-26-7 all-time mark in the series with the Badgers, dating back to the first game that was played back in 1984. One-sided at the start (UW went 13-0-4 before MKE claimed a win), it's been more competitive of late. Since 2006, Milwaukee has posted a 4-9-3 ledger, with the Badgers claiming a tight 2-1 victory in the most recent matchup, which came in September of last season.

Despite the relative proximity of the two programs (around 270 miles), Sunday will mark just the second all-time meeting between the pair of Panthers. The only prior matchup came back in September of 2002, a 3-0 victory for the MKE side in a contest played in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

The Panthers are coming off yet another strong season, claiming their third consecutive sweep of Horizon League regular-season and tournament titles in head coach Kevin Boyd's third season at the helm. The regular-season title was the ninth in the past 10 years for MKE, a span that has seen the team go 80-3-10 in league play. In addition, the team has now won the regular-season title 23 times since 2000 (all but 2020 and 2014) and 24 total times overall. The Panthers also made their 18th appearance in the NCAA Tournament and 17th with the Horizon League's automatic berth.

LOOKING AT THE OPPONENTS:
WISCONSIN: The Badgers are coming off a 10-6-5 record overall a year ago, which included a 5-3-3 mark in Big Ten play. The team fell in the first round of the B1G Tournament before advancing to the third round of the NCAA Tournament, coming in No. 19 in the final United Soccer Coaches National Poll. Wisconsin and was pegged to finish seventh in the league this season in the preseason poll, while Hailey Baumann, Madison Ishaug, and Ashley Martinez were named Big Ten Players to Watch.
 
Paula Wilkins, the winningest coach in UW program history, is in her 19th season as head coach of the Wisconsin program. She has amassed an overall record of 322-125-70 (203-106-58 at Wisconsin) coming into 2025. She is ranked third in the Big Ten for career coaching wins and has secured eight Big Ten titles, along with three Big Ten tournament titles for the program.

NORTHERN IOWA: The Panthers went 9-6-4 overall last season, wrapping up Missouri Valley Conference action at 4-3-3 before falling to Illinois State, 1-0, in the first round of the MVC Tournament.

Former UNI head coach Bruce Erickson departed for Iowa Western after eight seasons, leaving as the winningest coach in Panther history, as well as the history of the MVC. Alex Place Thomas was named the interim head coach in June 2025. The Denver, Iowa, native spent the last eight years as the head girls soccer coach at Cedar Falls High School. Redshirt senior Olivia Knoepfle was named Preseason First Team All-MVC and the team was picked to finish eighth in the preseason poll.

FOR OPENERS
The Panthers did open 2024 with a tough loss to Xavier and are now 15-16-4 in season openers at the NCAA Division I level.  The team has now gone 6-4-4 in season openers the past 14 years, with a 1-0 victory over Western Illinois in 2015 snapping a three-game stretch without a victory. Speaking of season debuts, the six goals against NIU in 2021 (a 6-0 victory) marked the most in program history for a lid-lifter, topping the five scored against Robert Morris to open the 2020 campaign. Four had not been scored in over 30 years (4-2 over St. Norbert in 1988 and 4-0 over St. Mary's (IN) in 1987), while three has also been recorded on four different occasions.

RANKINGS ROUND-UP
The Panthers will be taking on a ranked opponent for the 54th time in program history when they battle #23 Wisconsin Thursday. Overall, Milwaukee is now 4-42-7 against ranked foes, most recently playing a contest against a ranked side in the 2024 NCAA Tournament when they fell to No. 13 Notre Dame. The team last recorded a victory in that situation against Xavier in 2021 (a 1-0 decision over a #14 Musketeer squad in the first round of the NCAA Tournament).

Looking back, the game against then No. 3 Notre Dame (which ended in a 2-2 draw) to open 2023 marked the 15th contest against a Top-5 ranked opponent in school history, with the most recent being the NCAA Tournament matchup with #2 Virginia in 2021. The highest-ranked team MKE has ever knocked off was No. 8 Nebraska back in 1998 when the Panthers won, 2-1, in 2OT. That 2023 matchup with Notre Dame was also the last time MKE opened the season against a ranked foe, something that has happened on six prior occasions in program history - with 2025 being the seventh (2023: #12 Notre Dame/2013: #19 Michigan/2012: #24 South Carolina/1998: #8 Nebraska/1995: #1 North Carolina/1993: #16 Wisconsin).

KEEPING THE BAR HIGH
Following a first year on the sidelines that included the Horizon League regular-season and league tournament crowns, Kevin Boyd repeated the titles and took the Panthers back to the NCAA Tournament for a 17th time in program history in 2023 and then did it again in 2024. His three-year win-loss record stands at 36-14-10 (.683 winning percentage) heading into the new campaign while going an impressive 26-1-6 (.879) in regular-season Horizon League contests.
 
In 2024, the Panthers went 12-7-2, going a near-perfect 9-0-1 in Horizon League play after a daunting non-conference schedule. In conference action, he led MKE to a staggering statistical lead in every category, pacing the 10-game slate in shots with 221 (second was 144), shots per game at 10.2 (7.3), shots on goal with 102 (73), total points with 88 (72), total goals with 28, and assists with 32. Also, on the defensive side, the team posted eight shutouts in the 10 matches, with its 0.20 goals-against average first by a wide margin (second was 0.70). Among national NCAA leaders, his team finished 11th in each of the following categories: scoring offense (2.38 gpg), points per-game (7.24), assists per-game (2.48). In addition, the Panthers were 15th in total points (152), 12th in total assists (52), and 17th in total goals (50). He guided Lainey Higgins to Horizon League Player of the Year honors, Parker Donahugh to Goalkeeper of the Year, and Kayla Rollins to a repeat selection as Horizon League Offensive Player of the Year. In addition, the six first-team all-league selections marked the most in program history.

SOME BIG SHOES TO FILL
Seniors played a key role in 2024, as five full-time starters graduated, including the Horizon League Player of the Year (Lainey Higgins), the Offensive Player of the Year (Kayla Rollins), and the Horizon League Goalkeeper of the Year (Parker Donahugh).

The team returns just one of its Top 5 point scorers, with Rollins (39 points), Higgins (22 points), and Molly O'Regan (16 points) moving on, leaving Kristina Karlof (15 points) as the leading returning scorer to the field this season. MKE will still have an experienced roster that sees six players that made at least 17 starts (out of the 21 total games) a year ago including Karlof (18), as well as Jenni Andjelic (starts in all 21 games), Anna Champine (21), Ellie Rebmann (19), Lola Wojcik (18), and Savannah Sievert (17). In net, Donahugh will also leave a big opportunity, as she played all but 183:03 in net last fall.

Points: returners account for 55 of the 152 points (36.2 percent)
Goals: 14 of 50 goals (28.0 percent)
Assists: 27 of 52 assists (51.9 percent)
Starts: returning players accounted for 125 starts last season. 

AN IMPRESSIVE LIST TO BE AT THE TOP
Let's break it down, the Panthers have been very good since the start of the 2017 campaign. How good? Well, at 113-22-17 (.799), they actually have one of the best overall winning percentages in the nation over that span in NCAA play heading into 2025. The only ones higher are 2022 National Champion UCLA at 138-21-17 (.832), 2019 & 2017 NCAA National Champion Stanford at 141-23-14 (.831), 2023 NCAA Champion Florida State at 140-24-16 (.822), and 2024 National Champion North Carolina at 147-26-17 (.818). Then, it's Milwaukee in fifth place on that impressive list. No. 6 on that list is now Georgetown (115-19-34/.786), followed by Duke (115-34-22/.737).

WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSE!!
Milwaukee went 5-1-4 at home back in 2015. Since then, the Panthers have posted an impressive 74-9-7 ledger at Engelmann Stadium (an .861 winning percentage), including perfect 8-0 (in 2022) and 11-0 runs (2019) through home outings and a 13-1 mark at Engelmann in 2021. The team is also 23-4-3 at home under head coach Kevin Boyd (.817), 37-5-3 since the start of the 2021 campaign in home games (.856) and posted a 19-game (18-0-1) unbeaten streak that was snapped in in a 1-0 loss to Marquette in September of 2023 (the last prior loss a 2-1 double-OT decision to Wisconsin in September of 2021).

LET THE NUMBERS SPEAK
Milwaukee put together a very impressive resume among NCAA national leaders in 2024, ranking just outside the Top 10 in three categories as well as eight total entries in the Top 25.
11. Assists per game at 2.48 (national leaders Arkansas/Florida State at 3.67)
11. Points per game at 7.24 (national leader Arkansas at 10.43)
11. Scoring Offense at 2.38 goals per game (national leader Arkansas at 3.38)
12. Total Assists at 52 (national leader Duke at 79)
15. Total Points at 152 (national leader Arkansas at 219)
17. Total Goals at 50 (national leader Arkansas at 71)
22. Shots on goal per game at 8.10 (national leader Arkansas at 11.52)
25. Shots per game at 17.19 (national leader Pittsburgh at 21.22)

FOUR MORE YEARS!
With a 5-0 blowout of Cleveland State Oct. 26 of last season, the Panthers clinched the No. 1 seed and at least a share of their fourth consecutive Horizon Leage regular-season title. A 5-1 win over the Phoenix in the regular-season finale gave them the title by themselves. The Panthers have had a very long line of success when it comes to Horizon League play, now claiming the regular-season title in nine of the past 10 seasons (2015-19/2021-24) as well as 23 of the past 25 titles overall (24 total). In fact, the team has posted a sparkling 81-3-10 ledger (.915 win %) over the past 10-plus campaigns (coming into 2025) in regular-season conference play. 

BRING THE HONORS
Lainey Higgins was named Horizon League Player of the Year, Kayla Rollins the Offensive Player of the Year, and Parker Donahugh was selected as the Horizon League Goalkeeper of the Year to highlight the 2024 postseason selections. The team saw eight total student-athletes get honored – six first-team selections and one second-team honoree. The six first-teamers mark a new highest-ever total (was five; four times) in program history.
 
Joining Higgins, Rollins, and Donahugh on the All-Horizon League First Team are Anna Champine, Senya Meurer, and Elizabeth Reece, with Ellie Rebmann picking up second team accolades. Natalie Zodrow rounded out the award winners with a spot on the All-Freshman Team.

HOO-RAY HORIZON
When it comes to Horizon League openers, the record is quite impressive all-time. Milwaukee has gone 26-3-1 in opening action (since joining the league in 1994), with a string of 14 wins in a row from 1998 through 2011. The squad had been victorious in nine straight as well, before getting knocked off by WSU in 2022. This fall, the team earned a 2-0 decision over Northern Kentucky on the road to get things rolling.

THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR
Milwaukee recorded a 1-0 victory over Northern Kentucky in the 2023 Horizon League Tournament to advance to the NCAA Tournament. That 1-0 scoreline has a familiar ring to it, as the team has been simply amazing in games featuring that final score recently. Since 2015, the Panthers have played 40 games that ended 1-0 (either way). Their record? An impressive 33-7 in those pressure-packed outings, including against Oakland Sept. 26 of last season.

CATCH THEM IN ACTION
Milwaukee women's soccer will be available for the viewing pleasure of fans this season, as six of the nine home games are scheduled to be streamed live on ESPN+ (subject to change due to weather and location). The Horizon League and ESPN have an agreement that includes ESPN hosting the league's digital network on the ESPN+ platform. ESPN+, which will host the Horizon League women's soccer, men's soccer and volleyball championships this fall season, offers fans thousands of live events, on-demand content and original programming not available on ESPN's linear TV or digital networks. Fans can subscribe to ESPN+ for $11.99 a month (or $119.99 per year) and cancel at any time. Launched in April of 2018, ESPN+ is an integrated part of a completely redesigned ESPN App.

ON TAP
The Panthers remain at home this week to host Marquette Thursday, before hitting the road to take on nationally-ranked Michigan State on Sunday, pegged for No. 12 in the preseason United Soccer Coaches Association poll.