This weekend, we traveled to good old Louisiana for conference games against Southeastern Louisiana University, and Nicholls State University. We left Huntsville REALLY early again, and went straight to the bustling town of Hammond, LA where we had a short practice to get our legs moving and to get a feel for the field we were going to be playing on the next day. After our practice, we went to the hotel, where we found out that *GASP* there was no MTV! So no Jersey Shore watching party Thursday night. Bummer.
Friday, we got up for study hall that was scheduled for 10 in the morning. Me and Kelsi Brown, my roommate, decided that sleep was much more important than breakfast, and woke up at exactly 9:50 AM. It was glorious. Our game was at 3:30 because SLU doesn’t have lights on their field, so we had lunch, and pretty soon after that left the hotel for the game. Keep in mind that our hotel was about an hour from the field, since it was in the middle of the two schools. This will be important later.
We get to SLU and finished watching Never Back Down, a fighting movie about a guy (and his six pack) that never backs down. Go figure. We finished the movie, and got off the bus to go into our locker room. As we are putting our stuff down and getting settled, a realization dawns on us, and our coaches. We forgot the jerseys. Yep. The whole bag of jerseys was back in New Orleans. At this point, it is two hours before game time. If you do the math, you will see what we saw: WE. ARE. SCREWED. We were thinking that we were going to have to warm up in our tennis shoes or something. It was bad. But, luckily, Nikki’s parents were staying in the same hotel we were, and they hadn’t left yet! Coach called the hotel and arranged for Nikki’s parents to pick up the bag of jerseys, which they then drove the entire way to the game. Seriously, Mr. and Mrs. Watkins, Y’ALL ARE AWESOME.
Our jerseys arrived a little less than an hour before game time, so we quickly changed and got onto the field. We were only behind by about 10 or 15 minutes, so it worked out as well as expected! I think coach thought that the jersey fiasco would be a bad distraction for us, but we came out hard in the first 5 minutes of that game. We had them on their heels, but just couldn’t capitalize on anything. In the second half, they scored off of a corner, which actually may have not gone in. Lindsey Posner cleared the ball off of the line, but the ref on the sideline called it a goal. He wasn’t in position to make the call, because in order to see the ball completely go over the endline, you actually have to be on the endline. Crazy concept, right? Anyways, we lost 1-0. I was bummed about it, but we played pretty well and had a lot to build off of.
Saturday, we had a day off from practice! We had study hall from 10 to 12, and then got lunch delivered. After that, we got on the bus to head down to the French Quarter! We had about three hours to walk around, and we all had a lot of fun. I thought the different artwork was really cool, and I also liked to look at all of the different masks! That night, we ate at Hard Rock Café, and then headed home.
Sunday, we got up bright and early to go to IHOP for breakfast. After that, we drove to Thibodeaux for our match against Nicholls. It was a crazy game, with three goals being scored in the first 10 minutes. We scored first, but they responded only 17 seconds later right off of the kickoff. The one they scored was soft, so I wasn’t too happy about it. Amanda Biega scored a great, sliding goal to put us up 2-1 though. After halftime, we came out strong and had a great half. We scored three unanswered goals to win 5-1! Five different people scored, which is a great thing. Teams can’t shut us down by shutting down one person, because we have many different people who are really good and are scoring threats.
I have to give a shoutout to my backline after this weekend. Gayle Ziegler played great this weekend, especially since on Friday, she seemed to be a fan favorite for the SLU supporters (not in a good way) and on Sunday, she seemed to have a target on her back for Nicholls’ dirtiest players. On Friday, Carly Rheman saved everyone’s butts more than once by making great sliding tackles at exactly the right times. Hillary Ackerman did a great job covering for other players and connecting her passes, which is what we have been working on. And Nikki Watkins had great timing, and she is consistently one of the hardest tacklers on the team. They all did great this weekend. After the game, Coach treated us to Baskin Robbins on the way home!! Mmmm, chocolate peanut butter shake. Way better than dinner.
We have one game this weekend, against SFA on Friday night at home!! So everyone, be at Pritchett at 7 pm for the soccer version of the Battle of the Piney Woods! We need everyone’s support, this weekend more than ever!
-- Jenny Pence
SHSU Keeper
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