VARSITY ATHLETICS

January 20, 2009

First UAA trip to big cities and big opponents...

By Freshman Forward Chelsea Peck

From the famous words of Ashleigh Tondo, “The UAA is unlike anything you have ever experienced,” and boy was she right (potentially for the first time.) On Thursday morning, as I boarded the air plane, I could have only imagined what real UAA competition was like, especially on the road. I heard stories about the upbeat tempos, the higher level of competition, and not to mention the “must sees” of both St. Louis and Chicago.

After a long day of traveling, we arrived in the beautiful city of St. Louis. Everybody was starving and anticipating the delicious dinner from CJ Muggs. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel and made our way down the street to the restaurant where we drank, ate, and carried on merry conversation. Reid Anderson and Bryan Erce came up with this fabulous idea to go swimming. So pumped up, we all raced down to the pool to find that it was dry, actually drier than dry. The entire pool was taped off with caution tape, which made us wonder. Let down by the lack of water, we watched the Cavaliers win and became inspired for our games against Washington University the following day. Friday morning, we woke up bright and early for a 9 a.m. practice before our game. We worked hard, shot around, and got our legs under us for the big game. We went back to the hotel to watch game film and rested up. Knowing that it was going to be a tough game we got appropriate nutrients from none other than the “St. Louis Bread Company,” aka the original Panera Bread.

Bonding over our “you pick two’s,” we learned nifty secret talents about our teammates. Who knew that Beth Andrasik could cross only one eye, or that Erin Hollinger can close one nostril, or better yet, that Anna Taylor and I were the only two that could wiggle our ears and fold over our tongues (Ripley’s Believe It or Not, here we come!) We got to the gym with a full stomach and knowing a little more than one would like to know about each other. From the tip ball, the pace was set. It was just as Ashleigh had said, something we have never experienced! The game did not end up in our favor, but it was definitely a learning experience. It set a new tone for our upcoming games. Considering we had a game on that upcoming Sunday, it was necessary to put that loss behind us and take away learnable moments to help us in our next game. After our game, we enjoyed pizza court side of the men’s game which was exciting and close, but again, unfortunately they were unable to pull off a win. Exhausted, everyone returned to the hotel where we rested up for a day of traveling to our next destination, Chicago, Illinois.

Once again, Saturday morning we headed off to the air port and landed in what we like to call, “Chi Town.” From the air port we stopped by the hotel to drop our luggage off and prepared for practice at the University of Chicago. Practice was once again a good hard practice where we went through some of the opponent’s offense and established a game plan for our game the next day. We practiced for a hard two hours and immediately had to go get ready for a special dinner. Not just any dinner, but an Alumnae dinner.

Dressed to the nines, we found ourselves at an amazing restaurant called Giordano’s. We had salad, an amazing tray or appetizers, and pizza. Not just any pizza, the World’s Best Pizza. It was the typical Chicago deep dish, but stuffed… stuffed with Cheese or any toppings or your choice! Barely getting through one piece, we of course thanked the alumnae for their great hospitality and headed down to Michigan Avenue. There, we shopped for amazing pink and orange sneakers (Sarah Milligan), “bargains, bargains, and more bargains” (Everyone), and not to mention men with British accents (Tondo). After an eventful walk around town and some of us living on the wild side (Rice), we went back to the hotel and rested up for our game that Sunday afternoon.

Able to sleep, we woke up around 10 to have breakfast at the food court in our hotel (I know, crazy). We got to the gym around noon to watch the men’s team beat the University of Chicago. It was our turn next. We got ready for the game by doing our pregame warm up. Stepping out onto the court, it was a different atmosphere from that of University of Chicago. We played hard and gave it all of our effort, but with a lack of flow on offence, it was difficult to pull out a victory. We showered up, thinking about what we could have done differently and headed back to the air port. While waiting for the flight, we discussed the game and our team’s tendencies to try and figure out where we went wrong. We flew back home with lessons learned, new expectations, and a new tone set for the rest of the season.

Posted by: Creg Jantz January 20, 2009 10:26 AM | Category: Women's Basketball

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) January 20, 2009 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback