Saint Joseph's A-10 Championship notes / Photo Gallery
October 31
The women's soccer team usually find themselves dancing and singing
after a win, but Sunday was a different story. The bus ride home from
the 3-1 victory over St. Bonaventure was only the beginning of what
would be an extremely long and stressful day.
Each player was on their cell phone receiving updates from the games finishing up all around the conference. The coaches were trying to do the math and all we wanted to know was if we were in the A-10 Championship.
After almost two hours in the bus came word that we were seated fifth and would be playing Dayton(foruth seed) in Dayton on Thursday at 8pm.
The remainder of the six-hour bus ride home was nothing but laughter and dancing. The team has played the entire year with hopes of once again making it to the playoffs and with hopes of advancing even further than before: bringing home the first A-10 trophy to Saint Joseph's on Sunday!
- Nicole DiEnna & Alisha Paine
November 1
After the weekends anticipation and excitement had settled down, the week began with beautiful weather and the team began its preparation for the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Following Monday's day of rest, the team united once again at Episcopal Academy. Invigorated and ready to perfect what we have been working on all season. The team then concluded their classes for the day and met again that evening to review set plays and practice penalty kicks. Finally the team returned to their homes and packed for Wednesday's departure to Dayton, Ohio.
- Laura Adams
Normally, we all dread Tuesday mornings at 11:30 because 11:30 on Tuesday means none other but the dreadful conditioning. But not today! Today was our final prep time before our departure for Dayton. Therefore, it was all about getting our touches back in order on grass, so conditioning was unfortunately skipped. Booo.
As everyone sporadically gets to Episcopal Academy for practice in between their classes (because we have the turf monster), we start warming up and are given our "reports." These reports are sacred, by the by. After we are done our dynamic warm up & "stretch whatever we want", we split up into defense and offense. Coach Jessie takes the defense so they can work on whatever they do to save our lives in games, and Coach BJ takes the offense to do some finishing touches. We then play possession, because we love to possess the ball. We play possession almost every day in practice, and that enables us to play our game each weekend. Next, we split up into 7-v-7 and did a short sided game until our one hour was up. Time to go to class!
Second practice of the day:
At around 5 p.m. or so everyone starts getting to practice for 5:45 warm up. Meanwhile, some of us got treatment and some of us lifted and then some of us just got ready for practice. For the first half hour, we went over our "reports" in specific detail. Our reports are one of the major factors for our success. We then proceeded to do our lovely dynamic warm up. After that, we worked on our set pieces and corner kicks, just to make sure we have everything set for Dayton.
Last but not least, we all took two penalty kick's each, because if the game ends up in a tie after sudden death, it comes down to pk's. Scary thought, no? We then, one by one, told the coaches if we "wouldn't buckle under pressure because of having to take a pk because if I miss, it's all my fault". Those are secrets that we won't find out until we take pk's again tomorrow. This is serious stuff! We then dispersed and went our separate ways until tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. practice.
- Kristie Hoban
Today was our last full day at St. Joe's as we prepared to depart for Dayton tomorrow afternoon. The day was busy as I went to classes and group meetings, and met with teachers to prepare for the next few days of missed classes. At 11:30 practice was at Episcopal where myself and the team had a one hour practice to work on necessary aspects of our game to defeat Dayton on Thursday.
Once practice was over we all returned to classes or went home to start packing. After an hour or so at my apartment, I returned to campus for our second practice of the day to have a walk through practice of set plays. Around 7:30 I was able to return home and finalize everything for tomorrow's departure. The team seems very excited overall to be heading to the A-10 playoffs once again this year and looks forward to having a successful weekend.
- Jess Daugherty
November 2
Today began bright and early with morning practice at 7:00 on Episcopal Academy fields. I walked to the Fieldhouse where Nicole met us with her car. She drove me along with two other freshmen to the fields.
The crisp air woke us up. The practice began and ended within a hour and we made our way back to our homes.
I took a warm shower and prepaired myself for the two classes ahead of me. I attended class, feeling a little more tired than usual due to the earlier than usual awakening.
After completion of both classes I made my way to the cafeteria where I ate my ritual 12:00 lunch with several teammates along with a few men's soccer players.
At around 1:30 I walked back to my dorm where I picked up my luggage and carried it all the way to the Fiedlhouse where our bus was waiting patiently.
Phil Martelli and Ellen Ryan both wished us luck before our departure to the airport.
Bugnar's Ipod satisfied our normal musical needs on the 15-minute trip there. We quickly and efficiently checked our luggage and headed toward our terminal where I raced Jess (Reynolds) on Jen Kuhn's crutches (I beat her twice).
The plane ride was quick and smooth. Before we knew it we were back at an all too familiar hotel and eating at an all too familiar restaurant.
After dinner we had a team meeting where we discussed team strategies and reminisced on some of the greatest moments throughout SJU soccer 2005.
It then dawned on us that some of the greatest moments were yet to come.
- Lauren Stevis
Our A-10 bound travel day began with 7 a.m. practice this morning where Nicole was overwhelmingly full of energy and loudness.
Practice was a pretty typical pregame possesion 7-vs.-7 and concluded with pk's.
After practice I had three classes and then had lunch in the cafe at the usual soccer table. After eating bread sticks and listening to some Craig jokes it was time to head over to the Fieldhouse. Even though it was only about 1:30 and we weren't leaving until 2:15, on this team being ont time is being late, so I am always about 30 minutes early.
After collecting all my uniforms, finding out one of our alumni, Jen Harris, got engaged and everyone was on the bus, it was time to leave. However, because we are the most supersticious team ever, we all had to get back off the bus to prevent a certain something that we claim always makes us lose.
We got back on the bus and Phil Martelli wished us luck and when
Chris Bagley was ready, we were on our way.
On the way to the airport we listened to Bugnar's Ipod, which has about 1,000 songs on it, yet we continue to listen to the same 10 over and over.
We made it to the airport and had a surprisingly easy check in, minus the fact that Bailey and Krisite had tickets with "Seat No" on them and Ali and Jess D. were freaking out about the small size of our place.
Our flight left at 4:55 and our team took up most of the seats on the tiny plane, but it was a short and turbulent-free ride.
We met our bus, which was a little less "retro" than the last one we had in Dayton and we headed back to the familiar Marriott.
We had about five minutes to relax and then we met back up for dinner at our apparently favorite restaurant, Applebees.
After dinner, we had the first of many more to come team meetings and phyched ourselves up for tomorrow's big game.
Now we have free time, so I am writing this journal entry and watching "A Cinderella Story" with Shannon, my roommate. Curfew is at 11 and we get to sleep in until 11! I think that's because lat time we beat Dayton, we got to sleep in and Jessie is very supersticious!!
- Emily Brant
November 3 (D-DAY)
Today started off great. We got to sleep in until 11!!! It was splendid. We ate at Panera Bread and it was delicious. I had two bagels: one with cream cheese & one cinnamon toast crunch bagel. Kelly did too and so did Coach Jesse! YUM! To our dismay the toaster was OUT OF ORDER, but the cashier ensured us that she could still cut the bagels for us. After brunch we proceeded to the mini-mart to buy out their stock of gallons of water. Hydration is key. The day went on with two hours of "study hall" slash nap time. Then we hit up Panera one more time and enjoyed their delicious soups in bread bowls. It was the best day. Following lunch we enjoyed some team building. We got to find out some of the team's deepest darkest secrets followed by an insight on Jack Jumper's life and some facts about Chris Bagley we could have done without. While enjoying team bonding SLU walked by and we gave them the stare down. It was awesome. After team building, game mentality set in. We had our typical pre-game with loud music, Nicole screaming, BJ's stellar scouting report, and motivation from team mates. The energy was amazing and we were all ready to play.
The game was filled with intensity, and it evident that both teams wanted to win. Dayton got lucky early scoring 2 goals on us. Our team kept fighting and showing our great team dynamics by never giving up and continuing to play together. We fought back and tallied a goal with about 15 minutes left in the game. From then on the game was filled with risk taking, intensity, and the will to win. In the end, our team came up short, but it was a well fought match. We may not have ended our season on a win, but we ended it with pride and great memories from all of the victories we obtained throughout the season. This team has been the best I have seen since I have attended Saint Joseph's, and Kelly agrees. We are a group of girls with so much heart not only for the game, but for relationships we have built with each other.
- Kaiti McCaffery
