Note: This entry will be much longer, covering a lot of outside of game activities. - KM
Travel Day: Sept. 11th
Last weekend was our first real road trip—across town to Marquette doesn’t count so much. We had to be packed and ready to leave Englemann Locker room by 6:30 a.m. Now let me tell you, we are not the most cheery team that early in the morning. So, it was quiet ride to the airport.
Our flight took off and we were assigned seats alphabetically, which places me next to our head coach Mike. Now a little background on Mike: He is a health fanatic, no meat, no sugar, no fried food, no carbonated food, nothing artificial—organic. Naturally, it affects what we can eat, so no fried food, no soda, no candy. So the flight attendant comes over the loud speaker, “Our complimentary drink service will be coming around shortly.” For the past three years on flights, Mike and I have been seat buddies, and I have been ordering tomato juice because of it. Now personally, there is nothing more refreshing then a little soda while you’re cramped in seats that one size fits all. So for the next 10 minutes I stressed about if I should get my Canada Dry Ginger Ale I had been looking forward to, our get the same old tomato juice out of fear from my seatmate.
I chose to stand my ground, all the other players were getting soda, why can’t I!
“Ginger Ale please”
“Ok,” the flight attendant responded as Mike turned his head my way, nodding up and down, “Good choice, my mom use to always give me that.”
…really Mike? I suffered through three years of tomato juice!
Anyways, we landed in New Mexico in the afternoon some time and headed to our hotel, which will remain anonymous because… well, I have been told by my editor to keep his editing to a minimum. We unpacked a little, tried to watch TV… a single channel that said, “Congratulations you have a dish 2000!” and quickly left the room to eat lunch and then head to practice.
Practice went well, some light possession and some hard-finishing. We played a crossing and finishing game, where it was field players vs. keepers. Twenty balls get served one at a time, and we (field players) have to try to finish. The rowdiness of it comes from the keepers picking what number we can make out of the 20. Let’s just say the keepers came up lucky… twice… and there will be rematches in the future. Drea, however, was ready to stay out there till dark until we won.
Game Day: Friday the 12th
We got to sleep in a little ‘til 9:30, grabbed breakfast which was easily the best part of our hotel, watched tv… some time over night we got about nine more channels. Got ready for a very light training and headed to their practice field again. We did a light jog and stretch and then played soccer tennis, one of my favorite games. Basically two equal grids attached by a center line, no serving sides or anything, one bounce per side, three touch per side, rally scoring, lines are in, very similar to tennis but with our feet and a soccer ball. All the lines are in, except for the middle line, and we play this game very often. Now Drea, age 23, decided to help us out. If we didn’t get that the middle line was considered a dead ball, she described it as, “The middle line is like lava! Your ball touches it and it disintegrated!” She was teased for a couple days after.
Anyways, practiced ended we head back to our hotel, which we found out was only going to be our hotel till 1 pm, when we get to switch to the Hampton Inn! From there it was time to head out for our game.
We were playing University of New Mexico, who have been averaging over 1000 fans per game, and had their men’s team playing after us who, like us, are ranked in the top 25. The game started fast, the only two goals of the game came in the first 10 minutes. They scored first… I am not sure what is in the water, but their center backs were huge…like a least three times the size of our Canadian, or a small child. Not only were these two big, but could smack a ball farther then most I know, and that was their game plan. I don’t think their midfield received a single pass from their backline, it was backline straight to their forward, #3, who I will give credit, was very skilled technically. So back to the first goal, a large defensive back for them smacked a ball into our defensive third, to around the corner of our right 18 yard box, from Kane’s perspective. As the ball was hit, both #3 and Kane ran towards the ball, #3 stuck her leg out, moments before Kane, hit it up and over Kane’s head, bounce once, bounce twice, and into the goal. 0-1.
We came back quick. Lou and Hagen both were threatening their back line which held high and eventually I received the ball facing forward 35 yards out. Hagen began a run from the inside of their left back across the line, I split their right back and right center back, where Hagen broke behind their line onto the ball, past the goalie and goal. 1-1.
Another player on their team that I will give credit to, was their keeper. In the rest of the first half, I hit a corner to Hagen, who with her head, smacked the ball to the corner and the keeper some how tipped it out. The Canadian, Keara, hit a line drive off the crossbar, Hagan again with her head to the corner of the goal and the keeper got another tip on it. Sperl hit a corner in and it bounced around until Teegarden received it, almost posted up on the keeper, and flicked it to her right, the keeper of course somehow grabbed it!
The second half was no different. Teegs had a shot from the top of the box, we had some good serves in, Laurel played me a great ball across the box, exactly like the Samford game, but I missed. Overall, we were pounding them and couldn’t finish and they got to tie with us.
Walking away from the game, Mike was mad, but was happy with our work rate and effort, he was mad at the third jersey (black and white stripes…) on the field, which I am not allowed to express my anger towards. Can only say as supporters of our team, you would not have been happy with them either.
Day of rest: Saturday the 13th
We woke up in our new hotel, a little bummed but it was our day to spend in the city and with the parents who could make the trip down to support us. We stuck in fairly large groups but ventured in different directions as well. I stuck with Leslie, Kayla, Drea, Mary, Laurel, and Keara, also my parents, Kayla’s, and Keara’s. We went to the world’s longest free-standing tram. I never knew there was even a tram in New Mexico, and it’s the worlds longest. A tram is like a train compartment, attached to metal wires that “fly” you up a mountain. New Mexico is already above sea level by a lot, and we took the tram up to 10,000 and some feet. It was actually really fun and I have plenty of pictures to prove it.
A couple other families went to the trams, some drove up the mountain. Others went to old town, a shopping area, others relaxed and did homework.
In the end we all met up to head to dinner as a team. Now, I don’t know how many of you know what the camping game is… but we play this at dinner. I also like to believe that it’s not a real game and Roadhouse just made it up… So basically, one person is in charge, and says, “I am going camping and I am going to bring, elephants and bubblegum.” And everyone else around the table has to figure out what rules these two words follow and then ask if they can come, “Can I bring Snails and lollipops?!”… “NO!” “…earmuffs and apples?” “Yes” “elbows and cherries.” “Yes” Here the themes are first word starts with an “E” and second word has a double letter. Now the figuring out part is fun, but what is the most fun about this game is the people’s reactions. Roadhouse will just sit there silently for a while and then just knows it. And Deebach will be the last one and mad she can’t get it, but wants to play again, and McGrath hates playing the game. In the end it is entertaining and the food is there before we know it.
Game Day 2: Sunday the 14th
The second game was a lot different then the first. 10 a.m. was kick off. No national anthem, no ball girls, no fans (outside of our amazing pack of about 16 parents). It was also very windy which caused us to over hit the ball and have a lot of unforced turnovers. That was a big part of the first half, we over hit balls and beat ourselves in the first half, allowing them to go up 0-1. There were moments we connected passes well at times, but couldn’t connect on that final ball.
We went into the second half talking about what we needed to fix. We came out and we did everything we talked about, we threatened their back line, kept the ball and had a great build up to a great goal.
Overall the weekend didn’t go as we planned, we will probably drop from the top 25, still remain in the top five in the region, but will need to prove ourselves next weekend.
We boarded our plan back to Milwaukee, a little sad but excited for Minnesota next weekend. Also we all learned that everyone forgets things (meaning the players shouldn’t have to run fitness when we loose a ball). Mike left his computer at security, David left his shoes in the rental car, and Brittany left her phone on the plane. Chris didn’t lose anything… yet.
