Milwaukee City Wire

The Milwaukee Panthers men's soccer team lost 3-2 to Marquette in the annual "Milwaukee Cup" match on Tuesday night at Engelmann Stadium. The game drew a crowd of 1,588 and marked Milwaukee's first home defeat in nearly two years.

Head coach Kris Kelderman commented on the outcome: "The 'Milwaukee Cup' is always an exciting game and I think it was an exciting game for the fans to watch. Unfortunately, we'd like to be on the other side of the scoreboard at the end of the evening. The positive is, we gave ourselves a chance to get a result tonight. As far as that goes, the guys responded pretty well. The two goals that we scored being down a goal and then getting the lead … the team as a whole is disappointed. We had a lead with 12 minutes left – you'd like to think we could hold on or at least get a tie out of that. Unfortunately, we did not."

Marquette opened scoring early in the second half before Milwaukee equalized through Ryan Berghauer's first goal of the season. Jack Wagner later put Milwaukee ahead with a bicycle kick in the 79th minute after Pavle Ivkovic's volley rebounded off the crossbar.

However, Marquette responded quickly with two goals in just over two minutes late in the match to secure victory and retain possession of the "Milwaukee Cup." This loss was only Milwaukee's second against Marquette since 2014, reducing their all-time city derby advantage to 31-13-7.

Kris Kelderman acknowledged Marquette's performance: "Give Marquette a lot of credit. They are very technical, they are quick, they were good on the counter and as the game went on it got wide open. And I think that suited them a little bit better than us because of their quickness. I thought we were dangerous in spots and created some chances and gave ourselves an opportunity to get a result."

Injuries played a role for Milwaukee when both Berghauer and Daiki Kumakawa left due to injury during the second half. Kelderman addressed this challenge: "Not to make any excuses, but we've been dealing with some injuries," he said. "Losing Ryan Berghauer – an excellent defender who's been playing great and is great at restarts. And then Daiki, both of those guys, it was unfortunate. I think it did hurt us because those are two key factors in our group and it's unfortunate that we couldn't finish the game with them. I would be curious if things would have looked a little different with them in."

Despite having more total shots (15-13), shots on goal (6-4), and corner kicks (8-6), Marquette edged out Milwaukee statistically as well as on the scoreboard.

Kelderman expressed disappointment for his players: "I feel bad for the guys," he said. "They fought hard. We played against a good team tonight. It's a big game for everybody: for the fans, for the players, for the coaches, and for the schools. And we were very close to getting our hands on the cup. But in the last 10 minutes we got burned a bit. We just have to learn from it. The team is in a good place, and we look forward to more conference play."

Berghauer led Milwaukee offensively with five shots—a career high—while Angel Gongora contributed two assists.

Goalkeeper Nic Diana made three saves but saw his shutout streak end at over 383 minutes.

Milwaukee will return to Horizon League action this weekend when they travel to Michigan to face Oakland University’s Golden Grizzlies.