MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee men's soccer team put together a solid day on the offensive side of the field but had to settle for a 1-1 draw against Oakland Saturday afternoon from Engelmann Stadium.
Dominic Zuniga gave the Panthers (5-4-4, 3-1-2 Horizon League) the 1-0 lead in the 32
nd minute that held up until the Golden Grizzlies (3-3-6, 2-0-5 Horizon League) found the equalizer in the 66
th. Despite numerous quality chances the rest of the way, MKE had to settle for the 1-1 draw after OU goalkeeper Cole Thompson finished with a career-high 11 saves from facing 22 shot attempts.
"Overall, I thought it was a pretty good performance," Milwaukee head coach
Kris Kelderman said. "I thought our team played very well defensively. We were hard to play against. But I feel we let that one slip away. You can look at the shot count alone, 22 to 10 in shots in our favor. But the opportunities that we had, we did not handle them well. And that's been a challenge of ours all season long."
Following a defensive battle to open the game, Zuniga opened the scoring with a beauty. It came on a 30-yard free kick after a foul, depositing his first goal of the campaign into the upper right of the frame at the 31:01 mark.
"We're seeking to get to that point where we can build a little cushion for ourselves and play with less stress and pressure," Kelderman said. "And we're struggling to get to that two-goal lead, which we can play differently. We can play more possession; we can take the air out of the ball."
The best look the rest of the first came in the 39
th minute, with
Hur Irizar Lekue and
Kellen Diercks playing give-and-go, but a quality save kept it 1-0 into the break.
Carson Pridie wasn't called on for a save in the opening frame, but made two excellent stops on chances in the 52
nd minute on back-to-back attacks.
The offense kept pressing, with
Praise Ogwu sending one just over the bar on a nice buildup from Zuniga and
AJ Wild in the 61
st, which could have made it 2-0.
Thar came up big, with the Grizz finding their goal on a saved rebound putback in the 66
th minute. Pridie kept it there next, making a tough save on a breakaway chance that he came out on in the 71
st minute.
The best opportunity down the stretch for a winner for the Panthers came in the 83
rd, when a Huwiler header off the corner kick was saved at the post.
"I was pleased with the performance today," Kelderman said. "I thought we played pretty well, but I felt like we let three points slip away today. I thought our buildup was fairly good. We created chances and gave ourselves opportunities. First and foremost, again, if you're not creating opportunities, then you've got an issue. I don't feel like that's our issue right now. It's just the execution on that final play. It could be worse where we could be losing ball games. We're in a good place defensively. I feel comfortable that we're a team that's hard to play against. We really minimized opportunities for the other team. We just have to get over the hump and get the second, third goal. Get a little cushion and do ourselves a favor."
For the game, Milwaukee racked up advantages of 22-10 in shots and 12-6 in shots on goal. Oakland did have four of the seven corner kicks on the day. Bretzmann (5 shots), Zuniga (4 shots), and
Roy Nozawa (4) paced the offense. In net, Pridie did finish with five saves.
Up next, the Panthers will have just one game next week, returning to the road to battle IU Indy Saturday. Game time against the Jaguars is set for 3 p.m. CT.
