Today is her fourth entry of the campaign as she chronicles the adventures of the team during her senior season.
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Well, our remaining conference games can be counted on one hand, and I am officially sad and nostalgic!! This is certainly no new feeling, since I thought that last season would be my last. But, it is starting to feel very, very real. Perhaps more often than I have let on, there have been numerous times over the last fifteen or so months when I questioned if I was going to get this final season to play. It has certainly not been a smooth road for me, but it is also one that I am feeling so lucky to have gotten to travel. Not many people get the second chance that I have gotten, and every day I get to be on the field, I am extremely grateful.
This nostalgia and gratefulness comes after what we hope was our last overnight road trip of the year. Not because we want the season to be over, but since the Horizon League regular-season champion gets to host the league tournament. So, many thanks to those long bus rides to the Ohio and Michigan schools — a real motivator for us to continue to win our conference games!!
Now that’s not to say that the bus trips aren’t fun… I had to meet the team in Cleveland because of a school conflict, but I heard all about the trip, which included some chick flicks, two rounds of singing happy birthday to Troy (not his birthday), dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and the odds game… ask Cassidy about that one ;). We also watched the Disney movie, Life-Size on the bus ride home, which was surely a coach favorite.
In all seriousness, it was great to be back with the team Friday night. We had the whole day Saturday in preparation for our game, so we walked at the field and explored the city of Cleveland a little bit. Then we had Jimmy John’s for lunch, obviously making us Freaky Fast by game time.
Saturday night we came away with a 1-0 win against Cleveland State. Callie O’Donnell scored the game-winner, cooly commenting after the game that she didn’t know how she could possibly have missed that goal, with a great ball coming from the width by Aubrey Krahn right to Callie’s feet in the box. Keep tallying assists, Aub, and maybe we won’t have Chipotle before games anymore!! (For some unknown reason, Aubrey doesn’t like Chipotle. The rest of us are working on it….) With Callie’s goal, she earned the Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week. Paige and our backline kept the clean sheet the rest of the game, earning Paige another Horizon League Defensive Player of the Week award. Congrats to those Panthers!
Olivia remains my favorite roommate on the road (the only one I have had). Special points this week for good gossip and getting a perfect score on her accounting homework. Be sure to congratulate her when you see her on campus, Panthers!!
We were happy to get another win on the road, but will be using the rest of this week to make some adjustments and improvements ahead of a tough back half of the season. Three of those will come at home and the final match of the regular season will be at UIC.
Thank you for reading! As Life-Size’s Eve says, shine bright, shine far, be a star!
Kelsey
