CAPTAINS DIARY (WEEK 2)
Thursday August 27
After practice in the morning we got ready for our first road trip of the season to Colorado Springs, Colorado. We started the adventure by bussing to Spokane and flying into the Denver Airport where we all found dinner. Some ate at Paradise Bakery (where we grabbed handfuls of the free cookie samples) others ate at a Mexican joint, Quizno's, and a yummy wrap place. The real fun began when we boarded the small plane to Colorado Springs and were informed that we would be in the air for EIGHT MINTUES! Of course we timed it and from take off to landing it took 20 minutes, by far the shortest flight any of us had been on. When we arrived, instead of a big bus, we rented four SUVs which were more "intimate" as Kiersten Dallstream put it. When we finally arrived to our high end Marriott Hotel, which was NOT 10 minutes away from the airport like Coach Jason had informed us; we all crawled into bed and called it a night.
Friday August 28
After a great night of sleep on the comfy beds we had an uncharacteristic like gameday ahead. We were given breakfast in Matt's room at 8:30 a.m. which consisted of bagels, orange juice, yogurt, granola, cereal and fruit. We then went to go check out the field and have a walk through practice at 9:15 a.m., where we found out that Colorado College has only 2,000 students (less than most of the high schools we went to), but a beautiful campus and field. After a quick walk through we returned back to the hotel and around 10:50 a.m. Cory had our delicious lunch available for us from Panera Bread. Shortly following lunch, 12:15 p.m., we ventured out for our second game of the season against Syracuse. In the first half Kiersten Dallstream scored two goals, but we had many other opportunities that we should have finished. We went into halftime up 2-0. The second half started and Tiara Pittman scored for a 3-0 lead, then following that Emma Stolz scored off Megan Chapin's corner kick for the final score of 4-0. We returned back to the hotel for a cool down in the pool ran by our new athletic trainer Gretchen. After that we were able to grab showers then left for dinner at Outback Steakhouse at 5:20 p.m. We all enjoyed our delicious meals and returned back to the hotel where we played a prank on Meghan Berlingo (the transfer goalie) that even the coaches wanted in on. It basically involved her weird packing styles but it was some good humor. After that most of the girls caught up on homework, visited with parents that came for the weekend or relaxed in their rooms. Next on the agenda was bedtime.
Saturday August 29
This morning started off with breakfast at nine, then practice at 11:30, which consisted of a nice little run and stretch followed by our favorite ultimate Frisbee game (which we played with soccer balls). It got really competitive this morning; Ashley Johnson got a "horn" (or rather large bump) on her forehead from Brandi, and there were multiple people flying through the air trying to catch balls. After practice some went with parents out for lunch and others went with the coaches to lunch and some went to go see the Air force Academy. Following lunch most did homework and others took a nap before we departed for delicious Olive Garden. At dinner we were surprised with the appearance of Anna Miller (a WSU Grad and an all-time favorite to the team). After dinner we had positional meetings then just relaxed to prepare for tomorrow's game.
Sunday August 30
Gameday!! We got a hearty breakfast this morning at nine from downstairs in the hotel, which had a huge buffet that everyone pigged out on. Between then and the time we had to depart for the game, we had to pack our stuff up and get in game mode. We knew after the game we had to run to the airport because we would be lucky to make our flight, but first all we had to do was finish the weekend off with a win against Colorado College. It was a cloudy day, and you could tell Colorado College was out to get us in the first five minutes. We scored first off Jacquelyn Roth's corner kick that was finished by Carly Dobratz; the game was not very pretty. We could not seem to maintain possession of the ball as we gave up a goal before half. Going into the second half tied at 1-1 we knew something had to change if we were going to win; we had many opportunities that we could not finish. Tiara Pittman's goal was called offside's and minutes after that the opponent scored in almost the same way they scored the first time, making it 2-1. With 20 minutes left in the game we were ticked off and trying anything. Tiara should have gotten a PK, but the referee did not see it that way. We were unable to put another in the back of the net. With our first loss of the season under our belts it was a LONG trip home, no one spoke a word for a couple hours. We returned back to Pullman around 12:30 a.m. with hopefully a lesson learned and hungry/motivated to prove ourselves again.
Carly, Maggie, Mallory
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