Off Season!

Currently the Trinity Women's Lacrosse team is not holding practices. Since our tournament at A&M, we have only been practicing or twice every couple of weeks. This is the busiest time of the semester for almost everyone, with projects and papers due and finals coming up. Despite the school factor, I am still sad that we are not keeping up with the regular practice schedule. Since our tournament is over, and we only have one in the first semester pre-season, we are taking time off until next semester. The real lacrosse season begins in mid January when we return to school, and goes until early to late March, depending on how good our team is. I am happy that I have more free time to do my school work, but I wish that practice was still being held so that I could continue to improve. Since it is my first season playing, I would benefit a lot from practice. To ensure that I do not lose the skills I acquired during pre-season, I run with my stick a couple times a week, in order to practice cradling. Cradling is the arm motion that a player does while running, in order to ensure that the ball doesn't fall out of the head of the stick. This is especially important when a defender is near, since it protects the ball. Also, I practice throwing and catching against a wall. This works well because the lacrosse balls are solid rubber, and therefore bounce well. Since I have continued to practice in the off season, I hope that I will be a better player by next season.

College Station!

Last weekend was the first lacrosse tournament of the year, which was held in College Station. Since Lacrosse is a club sport in Texas, many Division I and II teams were playing in the same bracket as Trinity. Since I had never played a lacrosse game before, I was nervous even before we left San Antonio. Trinity doesn’t let their club teams use vans or buses, so our team had to carpool to College Station. Unfortunately, the car ride was a disaster. We got very lost along the way, and we hit a deer on the highway! Luckily the car was fine for the rest of the drive, but had a flat tire the next day. We finally made it into College Station at 11 pm instead of 9 pm, but arrived safely.
The next day, we had to wake up at 6 am to drive to the fields. Our first game was against Texas A&M. As we warmed up, I became less afraid to play a Division I team. When the first whistle of the game was blown, I was ready. Surprisingly, Trinity held its own against A&M the first half, letting in only 3 goals. The score was 1 to 3 at halftime. Unfortunately, we ended up losing 4 to 10. Despite A&M’s high score, we were not too discouraged. Next, we played UT, another Division I team that was very good. This time, we were only losing by 4 points at halftime, but then ended up losing 16-1. This time the whole team felt let down. It was an extremely tough loss, especially after we had worked so hard. We put it behind us, and warmed up to play against Southwestern, which is another Division III team, which raised our chances of winning. We ended up playing very well against Southwestern, and beat them 8 to 5.
Overall, I am very proud of the Trinity Women’s Lacrosse Team. We went into the tournament with 14 girls, two of which were recovering from recent bouts of Swine Flu, and 6 that had never played in a lacrosse game before. We didn’t lose faith after two tough losses, and finished the tournament with our first win of the year. Even though the A&M tournament doesn’t count towards the season, I am still glad that we participated because it gave the new girls like me an idea of what we are supposed to being doing during a real game. It was a fun weekend, and it made me glad that I joined the team!
(Picture from http://nutmeg.easternct.edu/mt-static/athletics/beers%20WEB_9535.jpg- only information provided)