History Was Made
Blog Six
March 4, 2010
If you haven’t heard by now, history was made yesterday afternoon.
Tuesday night we went to Coach Delorenzo’s house for a little team bonding dinner. Although her mom makes some outstanding food, Coach cooked up some excellent pasta. As we sat at the dinner table, we discussed what was to come in less than twenty-four hours; the pasta party helped us gather our thoughts and focus our energy for the next day.
Yesterday’s pre-game was a little hectic for me. Sleep did not come easy last night, and so I over-slept my first alarm for 8:30AM class. I scrambled to get ready and made it to class with two minutes to spare, only to sit there for the next thirty minutes waiting for the professor to arrive. Luckily I have good friends to talk to there! After class I went back to my dorm to finish some work and get mentally prepared. I put my bag together, grabbed my stick, and headed down to gym for some pre-game wallball to calm my nerves.
We arrived at Manhattanville in no time, getting right into our warm-up. During shuttles we looked a little shaky, but 3v2 looked absolutely solid. With five minutes left before starting time, we gathered for a pep talk, the announcement of the starting lineups, and the national anthem.
And then the game.
The Valiants played with a hasty tempo and were able to use their speed to blow by us. But our strategy was to set the tone and keep it—something I think we definitely accomplished. Possession was essential to the game and we used it to our advantage by settling down our offense throughout the whole game. We got off to a quick 4-0 start before Manhattanville could score about 13 minutes in. The next three minutes saw the Valiants pull within 1, putting the score at 4-3. Thankfully, Julie, Steph, Jamie and Marissa went on a 4-0 run to put us up 8-3 at halftime.
The second half was pretty similar. Brii Horn scored within the opening 40 seconds to put us up 9-3, but Manhattanville quickly answered on a 4-1 run in the next 10 minutes. We were able to then again control the tempo, and continued to increase the score to 15-7 until Manhattanville put another two goals past me, decreasing our lead to 6. Steph scored with less than a second remaining to end the game at 16-9.
No words can describe how incredible and amazing it feels to be the first Maverick goalkeeper to record a win. It kind of feels like wearing clothes fresh from the dryer—it took a lot of work to get there, but the warm feeling of victory immediately satisfies. I’m pretty happy about my performance in the cage too; I finished with 8 saves on 17 shots, a pretty decent save percentage for a first-timer.
I can’t wait to travel to Philadelphia in two days to play Holy Family for my first homecoming!
