The Kickoff: Tuesday, Aug. 27
Your roundup of soccer news across Wisconsin and beyond
Top of the box
Rose Lavelle (UW) — fresh off winning a gold medal with the U.S. national team at the Olympics earlier this month in France — had an assist to help Gotham FC beat the Portland Thorns 2-0 in an NWSL match Saturday in New Jersey. Twenty-four hours later, Lavelle was a fan, joining former teammate McKenna Meuer (Madison Memorial) to cheer on the Badgers in their 2-0 win over Providence in Rhode Island.
High school boys
The 2024 boys soccer season starts today, with 94 games on the WisSports.net scoreboard. The first matches on the slate are in New Richmond, where the host Tigers face La Crosse Central and Menomonie takes on Tomah. Both games are scheduled to kick off at 10 a.m.
Boys soccer fans will want to bookmark these WisSports.net pages for the fall:
Longest active unbeaten streaks
32: Brookfield East (27-0-5)
20: Edgerton (16-0-4)
19: Hudson (16-0-3)
16: Somers Shoreland Lutheran (16-0-0)*
14: Middleton (11-0-3)
* longest active winning streak
Note: Penalty kick shootout losses are officially recorded as ties
2024 WIAA boys soccer key dates
Earliest day for games: Today
Regionals: Oct. 22 and 26 (Divisions 1 and 2); Oct. 22, 24 and 26 (Divisions 3 and 4)
Sectional semifinals: Thursday, Oct. 31
Sectional finals: Saturday, Nov. 2
43rd WIAA state tournament: Nov. 7-9 at Uihlein Soccer Park in Milwaukee
Professional
In Sweden, Lukas Sunesson (Marquette) scored his 10th goal of the season, and host Täby FK scored in second-half stoppage time Monday night to end an eight-game losing streak with a 4-3 victory over IFK Stocksund — Sunesson’s former club.
Sunesson is tied for ninth in the Ettan Norra (third division) in goals. Täby (3W-13L-3D) remains at the bottom of the 16-team league, four points out of the relegation playoff spot and seven points from safety, with 11 games to play.
Austin FC midfielder Ethan Finlay (Marshfield) was re-elected to the nine-member MLS Players Association executive board.
Follow all the players with state ties playing professionally in the U.S. and around the world on our Wisconsin Players in the Pros chart. If we've missed anyone, email us at wisconsinsoccercentral@gmail.com or let us know on social media.
College men
Marquette picked up a pair of Big East Conference honors after opening the season with two wins, as Mitchell Dryden (Whitefish Bay) was the Offensive Player of the Week and freshman Marten Brink was named Goalkeeper of the Week.
Dryden, who played his first two collegiate seasons at UW, had three goals and an assist as the Golden Eagles beat Drexel 2-0 and Marist 6-1. Brink, who played with the Paderborn and VfL Osnabrück U17 and U19 teams in his native Germany, stopped nine of the 10 shots he faced, with the lone goal coming on a penalty kick.
UW-Milwaukee forward Alejandro Martinez was the Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week after scoring twice and assisting on the other goal in the Panthers’ 3-2 victory over Bradley on Sunday. The junior from Santander, Spain, had 12 goals and 5 assists in 36 appearances (36 starts) for NCAA Division II UW-Parkside over the past two seasons before transferring to Milwaukee.
College women
Sophomore forward Zoe Hevey (Pewaukee) scored her first goal of the season in the 76th minute to lift Loyola (Ill.) over DePaul 1-0 in front of a program-record crowd of 1,178 fans Sunday night at Loyola Soccer Park in Chicago. The Ramblers (2-0-1) travel to Madison to face UW (2-1-0) on Thursday night at the McClimon Complex.