Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Jenny's Journal: Just one game = a ton of training

Hey everyone, it’s me again with the weekly update for the women’s soccer team! This past weekend, we played Prairie View A&M on Friday, and then had the weekend off from games. Last week, we practiced a TON of finishing, which is what I thought we were going to do.

On Wednesday, we played a game called lightning, and the team was split into two different teams. We had the Houston team, and the “Other” team. One keeper would kneel at the top of the 18 yard box, and the team that was shooting would pass the ball to her. The keeper would then push the ball to one side or the other for the shooter. There was one keeper in the net and two field players on the posts.

Those three people had to keep the ball out, and if the shooting team scored, the two field players had to switch out for different ones. Confusing to explain, but it was a lot of fun to play! It got really competitive, and it’s fun for the keepers too because we can make a ton of saves! Thursday, we practiced set pieces and corner kicks like we usually do.

So by the time Friday rolled around, we were pretty excited to play. We knew we had to get a good result to give us a boost going into conference! For the first half, we had a bunch of opportunities, but couldn’t quite find the net. During halftime, we made some adjustments in the lineup and in how we played, and we came out strong on the second half. Hillary Ackerman scored the first goal of the night, which was great! She is one of the hardest workers on our team, so it was awesome to see her get rewarded for it! She even scored with her left foot too!

During halftime, I “shined” her shoes with my nasty, wet gloves. I guess I’ll have to do that more often now! After Hil scored, we didn’t look back. We went on to score 5 more goals. Michele McCullough made a great save on a corner kick, and Kelley Sikinger also had an amazing breakaway save with about seven minutes left! It was awesome that all three of us got that shutout! The team felt good after that game, and we were proud of how many goals we had scored.

Saturday, we had a much needed day off. No soccer, no weights, no school, an ACTUAL day off! I planned on sleeping in until at least 10:00, but then was wide awake at 8 in the morning. And so was the dog. It was awesome, really. I went to the Bearkat football game at 6, which was fun! It was nice to see the guys get a win. Sunday night, we had a fitness practice. It was a little scary when we showed up at the field, because there were NO soccer balls out. We had a good fitness session, though, and everyone did really well!

This weekend we start conference play at UCA! We’re going to try to carry this momentum through practice this week and into the weekend! I’ll try to come back next week with some more great news!!

-- Jenny Pence
Bearkat Keeper

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