Drexel University Athletics
FH Players' Blog
11/11/10 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
This will probably be my last blog, at least officially on this website. Thank you family, friends, administration, and any fan who has ever supported DUFH. And of course, thank you to my teammates and coaches for making all of this possible. Admittedly, it’s difficult right now coming to terms with the end…but win or loss, I promise that I had the time of my life.
I was asked if I could post the speech I made at the CAA banquet as a blog entry, so here it is…
Good evening coaches, administration, and fellow student-athletes. I want to begin by saying that I feel privileged to speak on behalf of my teammates. I am so proud of our accomplishments thus far, and I truly love each member of Drexel Field Hockey as if she were my sister. There is no doubt in my mind that these friendships we share have contributed not only to our success on the field, but to the wonderful experience of college that we share off the field.
I look around tonight and, initially, my eyes of course split this room into sections of teams, faces of girls and coaches I’ll never truly know, maybe never even have a conversation with. But when I look past these walls of loyalty, of bonds to our individual schools, I see people with the same interests and the same common goals: to play field hockey, to love field hockey, and to make our time on each of our teams as enjoyable and successful as possible. Differences aside, we are all bonded in these similarities, and for that, I have the utmost respect.
On a personal note, what can I say about the 2010 Drexel field hockey season? When we moved in together to begin our preseason in August, stomachs in knots, just full of excitement and nervous energy, we took our first steps on a long road that we had ultimately hoped would bring us to this very night, this very weekend, these final games. A schedule which once seemed like a long list of games, has dwindled down yet again to a few lines, a few dates and times which hold our fate as a team. As a senior, this is the fourth time I have experienced this cycle, and it seems each year it just goes faster and faster. I could stand here and recap our triumphs and praise us for the hardships we’ve overcome; the exciting wins, the rough losses, the early practices and those nail-biting games we feel the rush to have escaped. But we all already know that stuff. We know what we’ve done and what we still need to do. So tonight, I say to my teammates, to my friends, to my sisters…thank you for another wonderful season and for the happiness we have all brought and will continue to bring to each other’s lives. Coaches, thank you for enabling us to reach this moment, for the support and the instruction, and for being the type of coaches that make us want to do anything to win for you. I know now, Drexel, that it is all of you who add the real meaning to those words “Proud to be DU.”
Thank you for your attention this evening, and VCU, ODU, and Northeastern, good luck this weekend.
11/02/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
All the seniors always used to say the same thing to us throughout our first year: “It goes by so fast, don’t forget that.” I wanted to believe them then, to heed their advice and to somehow store each moment in my mind like a file of memories. But I was younger then, maybe dumber (I’m finding they might be one in the same?). The time before me, before all of my classmates, seemed infinite. It felt like there were a million practices left to wake up for, a thousand weights left to lift, hundreds of games left to play, plenty of trips left to take. We tasted our first glimpse of endings as freshmen, watching our seniors, our leaders, take those last ceremonial steps with their families on senior day. But it was merely an acknowledgment then, an inevitable ending that need not be worried about for a long, long time. But the clock kept ticking, practice after practice, game after game, moment after moment, until time had turned our laughter and our sweat and our tears into the passing of years. And now I find myself facing that inevitable, something I was so sure was too far away to ever be real.
I have caught myself saying those same words to our freshmen. I love the expression on their faces, the smiles and the laughter. I love watching their feelings of infinite time. There’s something both refreshing and saddening knowing that we belong to a carefully planned cycle of endings and beginnings. Players before us felt what we feel now, just as we had once laughed in the face of the years ahead of us as our freshmen do. But when I woke up this morning, I did what I always do. I peeked out my window at the tips of Philly skyscrapers, said good morning to Liz, stretched my tired muscles. And with that, I came to a realization: nothing has changed yet. As seniors, though I sometimes feel the weight of that clock on our shoulders, we are more privileged than we have ever been. We finally have the wisdom and courage to face our endings, yet we still have time on our side—at least another week of field hockey, to be exact. We walk the fine line of that cycle, of those endings and beginnings, where determination becomes the difference between our last game and the continuation of our careers.
I cannot wait to put on our white jersey and white socks on Saturday, my heart not only feeling the rush of home field advantage, but the motivation of a player knowing she’ll do anything to push back that ending—something I am certain all of my teammates are feeling, not just the seniors. In the meantime, I think I want to spend a little more time with the freshmen this week…no, not to torture them with sentimental words (sorry, guys, I know I do that a lot), but maybe just to absorb that fresh feeling. Our careers must inevitably end, but maybe that infinite feeling never does have to go away.
In the meantime, I think we’ve all already caught the CAA playoff fever…or in some of our cases, just a real fever (must be the weather?). Classes are going to be pretty hard to focus in, every line of text and every lecture somehow encouraging our thoughts to drift back into field hockey mode. But as cliché as it sounds, with all this talk of endings and beginnings, I’d do it all over again if I got the chance—yeah, even the classes. What can I say, it just “goes by so fast…”
Come support DUFH in our conference championship this weekend! We will be facing number 4 seed VCU in the semifinal game Saturday at noon. Go Dragons!
10/20/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
In the spirit of midterms week, I’d like to dedicate this post to my teammates and to once again winning the battle of mental exhaustion.
Week 5 at Drexel is like a mad rush to cram ridiculous amounts of material into your head in order to prepare for midterms, when at any other school the fifth week would only be a third of the way into a term. It’s midnight now on a Thursday night, or I guess early morning, and I have my alarm set for 5:15am. I know my teammates are experiencing the same exhaustion, physically and mentally. I know our immune systems are getting tired of the vitamin C we’re pounding, usually in vain. I know that our bodies are becoming annoyed with the cruel October mornings, mist from the watering system chilling our bones. And I know that my head is feeling lazy, begging for mindless activities, tempting me to surrender, to shut my textbook and sink into my bed. But my heart, my heart keeps me in it. Our hearts keep all of us in it.
People sometimes ask us, “How do you do it? How do you balance it all? Aren’t you exhausted?” The truth is, yeah, we’re completely physically and mentally exhausted. You get to the end of the season and your body starts to scream at you. Especially now, as a senior…recovery time feels longer, muscles feel sorer, past injuries creep back up, bones aching with even the thought of a rainy day. But I guess what I’m really trying to say is that, this is it. This is who we are, this is what we do. And if each morning we relented to the negative thoughts, to the darkness of 5am, to the stress of an imminent midterm, to the fatigue of our bodies, we would never ever pull ourselves out of bed. We wouldn’t have the strength to overcome a 2-0 deficit to Lafayette. We wouldn’t have the mental focus to recognize that our 5-0 CAA record doesn’t mean anything until we clinch the title. We would be weaker without those weaknesses constantly reminding us what we are capable of overcoming. Ironic, isn’t it?
We now have three regular season games left, all CAA opponents, and we are looking to clinch first place to host the playoffs once again. So, after four years, I think I finally understand the balance of it all…we are destined to be exhausted, even meant to be. The exhaustion builds our confidence, shows us how much we can take without folding to the pressure. We refuse to break. And well, if that’s not it, if there really is no hidden meaning, no “everything happens for a reason” explanation for midterms week….no one wants to be the teammate that brought down the team GPA. (Just having a little fun haha…I might be delirious by now!)
Our bus hits the road for Boston Saturday morning. We’ll look to keep our undefeated CAA record on Sunday when we play Northeastern at 2pm.
Go Dragons!
10/13/2010 - Sophomore Jenna Phillips
A poem from a goalkeeper's perspective
I’m inside a circle, which isn’t really a circle at all, it’s a half circle. (But that’s beside the point)
I stand.
I wait.
Following the ball back and forth across the field with my eyes.
Occasionally when the opponent gets near…
I yell.
I direct.
“Force right, keep right, good job” or “Force left. Pinch! Pinch!” Really it all depends.
The ball travels back down away from me.
I breathe.
I relax.
Thinking to myself, “Come on girls, force a corner!” (They usually do)
The crowd roars…literally. (Mr. Cairone)
I scream.
I cheer.
“Let’s Go DU!” or “Here we go Drexel!” (One or the other, I mix it up)
I hear that beautiful distant sound of the ball hitting the back of the cage.
I jump.
I clap.
My smile widens as my team runs back to our side of the field, facing me, hugging, and tapping sticks.
They set up once again and the process starts over.
I stand.
I wait.
10/3/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
Bus rides to and from away games have grown to become one of my favorite aspects of playing college field hockey. It’s funny the way the atmosphere of the bus ride can say more than words ever could. After a long trip, perhaps a tough loss, there is a deafening silence. The black night engulfs you into the constant motion of the bus, tempting you into sleep. Highways and roads blend together, until you’re unsure of state lines and interstate signs, only your vague intuition of direction and that sense of feeling close to your destination. And you can feel, through the silence, the way we’re all reflecting on the way we’ve played. After a win, on the other hand, we enter the bus with endless chatter, sometimes screaming, and even a simple song on the radio is enough to start an embarrassing dance party in the aisle. The bus rides, then, though sometimes long, are the types of memories that in years to come will always make us smile. They encompass time with the team that may seem insignificant, but will become the moments we will reflect upon with a happy nostalgia. For these reasons, our long road trip to Virginia is one of my favorite trips.
We opened our play in Virginia Friday night against VCU in Richmond. They’ve been looking pretty good in the CAA this year so we knew we couldn’t take them lightly. After a 3-1 win, we had our happy time on the bus and made our way to our next hotel in Harrisonburg to face JMU on Sunday. Coach took us on a tour of the Grand Caverns after practice on Saturday. The caves and rock formations were very cool to see and walk through—maybe a bit cold for my liking, but it’s always fun to see Mariel scream when a bat flies at her (haha sorry, Mariel). The caverns might have helped us settle some nerves, knowing that JMU would be a pivotal CAA game for us.
In the time that my class has been here, our JMU games have always been a huge battle and have ended in heartbreak. They’ve traditionally been one of those teams that seem to slip by us, not necessarily because they were better, but just because it was “one of those games.” Admittedly, the memories I have of them have accumulated in the past four years to make me (and my teammates) angrier and more motivated to beat them than ever before. Needless to say, after a 3-2 victory, adding a win over JMU to our college careers was the most fitting way to say goodbye to potentially my last field hockey trip in Virginia.
I’m writing from the bus at this very moment. We just stopped at an ice cream stand near JMU and are happily devouring cones and cups while savoring our victory. (If you’re thinking we get to have a lot of fun—cave tours, ice cream pit stops—you’re right) There is a settling feeling right now, a calm accompanied with nice chatter and the flow of laughter. I guess this could be the last memory I have of traveling to Virginia with the team. I hope the hours pass slowly, maybe that the ride lasts a little longer. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of traveling home after a successful weekend.
9/21/2010 - Sophomore Jenna Phillips
“Practice like you play”…
This is a saying every athlete has heard come from their coaches at one point or another. Today at practice, and many times before, our coaches emphasized this statement quite a bit.
I’ve never been one to like this statement. Personally, it’s never made sense in my head. Yes, I know that sounds silly. It is such a simple statement. But does everyone truly understand the principles of that four letter saying? I didn’t. So, I brought it up to our goalie coach, Andrea, today at practice.
Basically my take on it is: I personally don’t feel like I practice how I play because the entire atmosphere of a game compared to practice is different on so many levels. How can a practice be played like a game when it is so different? Game days are filled with anxiousness, excitement, music that pumps me up, and fans all around us; just an entirely different feel. Compared to practice where there is none of those things. There is only our team and sometimes a totally different mindset during those few hours we are out there practicing. However, Andrea brought up a good point which is, although practice may never feel like a game, the intensity of play should always be as hard as we would go in a game. As long as you are trying to play as hard as you can and go one hundred percent in each drill, then that is practicing like you play. If a team only goes fifty percent on any given day, most likely that lack of intensity will carry over, which is not good.
I felt like we understood each other in our conversation and met at a common ground. It’s good to discuss these things sometimes so everyone can be on the same wave length. Now, I understand that statement on a greater level and I know why coaches usually say it. The premise of the statement “practice like you play” doesn’t necessarily mean practice will be exactly like a game in terms of atmosphere, but it will be similar in the fact that everyone on the team needs to play with the passion and intensity that is usually brought out on game days. Getting ready for big games, especially, requires focus on the practice field in order to be prepared for the real thing.
So, keep that in mind this saying during your practices. Practicing as hard as you can will train your body to play as hard as you can and the momentum of practice will carry over to that game!
Go Dragons!
9/16/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
When I was fifteen I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do in college. My family knew I loved field hockey but it was expected that I’d play softball in college because that was “my sport.” Needless to say, I threw my parents for a bit of a loop when I told them my dreams of not only playing field hockey in college, but the goal to get a scholarship to play for a Division I University. My grandparents, on the other hand, seemed calm as can be, blindly loyal and certain of me in my aspirations to play whatever I wanted wherever I wanted. Maybe it’s a grandparents kind of thing, the kind of love that would believe you if you said you’d be on the next mission to Mars. Or maybe it was just my grandparents. I’m not sure, but it never mattered what I wanted, so long as I dreamt it they pushed for me to attain it.
As I grow older, I find myself pulling together bits and pieces of advice I received from my grandmom, “Nan,” and my grandpop, “Pop,” throughout my childhood. But I’ll never forget something Pop said to me the first time I explained to him my most innocent hopes and insecurities about playing field hockey in college. We were on the porch in my grandparents’ house, a hot summer day, me barely 15 and Pop pushing his mid-70’s. And he sat calmly in that same chair, taking in the heat and sweet sound of nothing.
He said, “If you want to do that, you can do it. But you have to eat, sleep, and breathe field hockey. You have to want it.”
You have to want it. I knew that I wanted it. But did I “eat, sleep, and breathe” it like he said? It didn’t matter, because from that day forward, I promised myself that I would. I had to if this is what I wanted.
A year and a half later, fate had put me in the office of my coaches Denise and Nicky, and onto a team of girls who shared that desire the way I did. Together, 20-some girls would eat, sleep, and breathe field hockey. Together, we would work to take Drexel Field Hockey to the highest level it could go.
Now, as hard as it is to believe, I’m no longer a scared fifteen year old but a twenty-one year old woman entering her last year of college and ultimately, the last days of her college field hockey career. Together, our team has achieved so much. We have been through the roughest lows: losing to Towson 4-0 in the first half my freshman year, struggling to merely make a CAA conference playoff appearance; to the highest of highs: overcoming a three goal deficit to beat Duke in overtime my junior year, making our first ever NCAA appearance. We have spent countless mornings running on a dew-covered turf field, the sun barely up, our tired eyes struggling to stay open. We have poured our sweat and, in some cases, our blood (some more than others, Jen Cairone? haha) onto that field. We have struggled through painful injuries, spending hours with trainers, praying and hoping that we could will our bodies to be as strong as our hearts. We have all made sacrifices time and time again and fought through everything not for a guarantee, but only for the hope that such hard work will reap the benefits of that almost indefinable word: success.
Success. What is it, then? Is it just winning? What happens when that isn’t good enough? So then is it appearing in the top 20 ranking for the first time? But what happens when those days that merely making the poll aren’t enough, when we have to be top 15, top 10? Winning is success, yes. A high ranking is success, yes. But at the end of the day, as a senior, what do I have to show for my time here? Success isn’t just records or rankings. It’s not expectations and the weight they hold. I can look around at my fellow seniors and I know that each of us holds a time in our hearts when there were no rankings for us, no expectations. We had no videos to advertise our games, no banners displaying our titles on the field, not even this blog. We had our hearts and that one desire that bound us all together: to eat, sleep, and breathe field hockey. If we could do this together, no matter the result, we would always be successful.
This upcoming weekend is a time for us to prove to ourselves our own measure of success. We will be facing Sacred Heart, a team not in the rankings, and UConn, a team always in the rankings. UConn, especially, will be out for blood. After defeating them in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year, I can’t say I blame them. But I know that when I wake up for practice tomorrow, I can look into the eyes of my fellow seniors and be confident that we have something that they don’t have. We have the experience of remembering a time with no expectations. And no matter our rankings now, that will always give Drexel Field Hockey one advantage: heart.
Check out our games this Friday night at 7pm vs. Sacred Heart and Sunday at 12pm vs. UConn.
Go Dragons!
This will probably be my last blog, at least officially on this website. Thank you family, friends, administration, and any fan who has ever supported DUFH. And of course, thank you to my teammates and coaches for making all of this possible. Admittedly, it’s difficult right now coming to terms with the end…but win or loss, I promise that I had the time of my life.
I was asked if I could post the speech I made at the CAA banquet as a blog entry, so here it is…
Good evening coaches, administration, and fellow student-athletes. I want to begin by saying that I feel privileged to speak on behalf of my teammates. I am so proud of our accomplishments thus far, and I truly love each member of Drexel Field Hockey as if she were my sister. There is no doubt in my mind that these friendships we share have contributed not only to our success on the field, but to the wonderful experience of college that we share off the field.
I look around tonight and, initially, my eyes of course split this room into sections of teams, faces of girls and coaches I’ll never truly know, maybe never even have a conversation with. But when I look past these walls of loyalty, of bonds to our individual schools, I see people with the same interests and the same common goals: to play field hockey, to love field hockey, and to make our time on each of our teams as enjoyable and successful as possible. Differences aside, we are all bonded in these similarities, and for that, I have the utmost respect.
On a personal note, what can I say about the 2010 Drexel field hockey season? When we moved in together to begin our preseason in August, stomachs in knots, just full of excitement and nervous energy, we took our first steps on a long road that we had ultimately hoped would bring us to this very night, this very weekend, these final games. A schedule which once seemed like a long list of games, has dwindled down yet again to a few lines, a few dates and times which hold our fate as a team. As a senior, this is the fourth time I have experienced this cycle, and it seems each year it just goes faster and faster. I could stand here and recap our triumphs and praise us for the hardships we’ve overcome; the exciting wins, the rough losses, the early practices and those nail-biting games we feel the rush to have escaped. But we all already know that stuff. We know what we’ve done and what we still need to do. So tonight, I say to my teammates, to my friends, to my sisters…thank you for another wonderful season and for the happiness we have all brought and will continue to bring to each other’s lives. Coaches, thank you for enabling us to reach this moment, for the support and the instruction, and for being the type of coaches that make us want to do anything to win for you. I know now, Drexel, that it is all of you who add the real meaning to those words “Proud to be DU.”
Thank you for your attention this evening, and VCU, ODU, and Northeastern, good luck this weekend.
11/02/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
All the seniors always used to say the same thing to us throughout our first year: “It goes by so fast, don’t forget that.” I wanted to believe them then, to heed their advice and to somehow store each moment in my mind like a file of memories. But I was younger then, maybe dumber (I’m finding they might be one in the same?). The time before me, before all of my classmates, seemed infinite. It felt like there were a million practices left to wake up for, a thousand weights left to lift, hundreds of games left to play, plenty of trips left to take. We tasted our first glimpse of endings as freshmen, watching our seniors, our leaders, take those last ceremonial steps with their families on senior day. But it was merely an acknowledgment then, an inevitable ending that need not be worried about for a long, long time. But the clock kept ticking, practice after practice, game after game, moment after moment, until time had turned our laughter and our sweat and our tears into the passing of years. And now I find myself facing that inevitable, something I was so sure was too far away to ever be real.
I have caught myself saying those same words to our freshmen. I love the expression on their faces, the smiles and the laughter. I love watching their feelings of infinite time. There’s something both refreshing and saddening knowing that we belong to a carefully planned cycle of endings and beginnings. Players before us felt what we feel now, just as we had once laughed in the face of the years ahead of us as our freshmen do. But when I woke up this morning, I did what I always do. I peeked out my window at the tips of Philly skyscrapers, said good morning to Liz, stretched my tired muscles. And with that, I came to a realization: nothing has changed yet. As seniors, though I sometimes feel the weight of that clock on our shoulders, we are more privileged than we have ever been. We finally have the wisdom and courage to face our endings, yet we still have time on our side—at least another week of field hockey, to be exact. We walk the fine line of that cycle, of those endings and beginnings, where determination becomes the difference between our last game and the continuation of our careers.
I cannot wait to put on our white jersey and white socks on Saturday, my heart not only feeling the rush of home field advantage, but the motivation of a player knowing she’ll do anything to push back that ending—something I am certain all of my teammates are feeling, not just the seniors. In the meantime, I think I want to spend a little more time with the freshmen this week…no, not to torture them with sentimental words (sorry, guys, I know I do that a lot), but maybe just to absorb that fresh feeling. Our careers must inevitably end, but maybe that infinite feeling never does have to go away.
In the meantime, I think we’ve all already caught the CAA playoff fever…or in some of our cases, just a real fever (must be the weather?). Classes are going to be pretty hard to focus in, every line of text and every lecture somehow encouraging our thoughts to drift back into field hockey mode. But as cliché as it sounds, with all this talk of endings and beginnings, I’d do it all over again if I got the chance—yeah, even the classes. What can I say, it just “goes by so fast…”
Come support DUFH in our conference championship this weekend! We will be facing number 4 seed VCU in the semifinal game Saturday at noon. Go Dragons!
10/20/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
In the spirit of midterms week, I’d like to dedicate this post to my teammates and to once again winning the battle of mental exhaustion.
Week 5 at Drexel is like a mad rush to cram ridiculous amounts of material into your head in order to prepare for midterms, when at any other school the fifth week would only be a third of the way into a term. It’s midnight now on a Thursday night, or I guess early morning, and I have my alarm set for 5:15am. I know my teammates are experiencing the same exhaustion, physically and mentally. I know our immune systems are getting tired of the vitamin C we’re pounding, usually in vain. I know that our bodies are becoming annoyed with the cruel October mornings, mist from the watering system chilling our bones. And I know that my head is feeling lazy, begging for mindless activities, tempting me to surrender, to shut my textbook and sink into my bed. But my heart, my heart keeps me in it. Our hearts keep all of us in it.
People sometimes ask us, “How do you do it? How do you balance it all? Aren’t you exhausted?” The truth is, yeah, we’re completely physically and mentally exhausted. You get to the end of the season and your body starts to scream at you. Especially now, as a senior…recovery time feels longer, muscles feel sorer, past injuries creep back up, bones aching with even the thought of a rainy day. But I guess what I’m really trying to say is that, this is it. This is who we are, this is what we do. And if each morning we relented to the negative thoughts, to the darkness of 5am, to the stress of an imminent midterm, to the fatigue of our bodies, we would never ever pull ourselves out of bed. We wouldn’t have the strength to overcome a 2-0 deficit to Lafayette. We wouldn’t have the mental focus to recognize that our 5-0 CAA record doesn’t mean anything until we clinch the title. We would be weaker without those weaknesses constantly reminding us what we are capable of overcoming. Ironic, isn’t it?
We now have three regular season games left, all CAA opponents, and we are looking to clinch first place to host the playoffs once again. So, after four years, I think I finally understand the balance of it all…we are destined to be exhausted, even meant to be. The exhaustion builds our confidence, shows us how much we can take without folding to the pressure. We refuse to break. And well, if that’s not it, if there really is no hidden meaning, no “everything happens for a reason” explanation for midterms week….no one wants to be the teammate that brought down the team GPA. (Just having a little fun haha…I might be delirious by now!)
Our bus hits the road for Boston Saturday morning. We’ll look to keep our undefeated CAA record on Sunday when we play Northeastern at 2pm.
Go Dragons!
10/13/2010 - Sophomore Jenna Phillips
A poem from a goalkeeper's perspective
I’m inside a circle, which isn’t really a circle at all, it’s a half circle. (But that’s beside the point)
I stand.
I wait.
Following the ball back and forth across the field with my eyes.
Occasionally when the opponent gets near…
I yell.
I direct.
“Force right, keep right, good job” or “Force left. Pinch! Pinch!” Really it all depends.
The ball travels back down away from me.
I breathe.
I relax.
Thinking to myself, “Come on girls, force a corner!” (They usually do)
The crowd roars…literally. (Mr. Cairone)
I scream.
I cheer.
“Let’s Go DU!” or “Here we go Drexel!” (One or the other, I mix it up)
I hear that beautiful distant sound of the ball hitting the back of the cage.
I jump.
I clap.
My smile widens as my team runs back to our side of the field, facing me, hugging, and tapping sticks.
They set up once again and the process starts over.
I stand.
I wait.
10/3/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
Bus rides to and from away games have grown to become one of my favorite aspects of playing college field hockey. It’s funny the way the atmosphere of the bus ride can say more than words ever could. After a long trip, perhaps a tough loss, there is a deafening silence. The black night engulfs you into the constant motion of the bus, tempting you into sleep. Highways and roads blend together, until you’re unsure of state lines and interstate signs, only your vague intuition of direction and that sense of feeling close to your destination. And you can feel, through the silence, the way we’re all reflecting on the way we’ve played. After a win, on the other hand, we enter the bus with endless chatter, sometimes screaming, and even a simple song on the radio is enough to start an embarrassing dance party in the aisle. The bus rides, then, though sometimes long, are the types of memories that in years to come will always make us smile. They encompass time with the team that may seem insignificant, but will become the moments we will reflect upon with a happy nostalgia. For these reasons, our long road trip to Virginia is one of my favorite trips.
We opened our play in Virginia Friday night against VCU in Richmond. They’ve been looking pretty good in the CAA this year so we knew we couldn’t take them lightly. After a 3-1 win, we had our happy time on the bus and made our way to our next hotel in Harrisonburg to face JMU on Sunday. Coach took us on a tour of the Grand Caverns after practice on Saturday. The caves and rock formations were very cool to see and walk through—maybe a bit cold for my liking, but it’s always fun to see Mariel scream when a bat flies at her (haha sorry, Mariel). The caverns might have helped us settle some nerves, knowing that JMU would be a pivotal CAA game for us.
In the time that my class has been here, our JMU games have always been a huge battle and have ended in heartbreak. They’ve traditionally been one of those teams that seem to slip by us, not necessarily because they were better, but just because it was “one of those games.” Admittedly, the memories I have of them have accumulated in the past four years to make me (and my teammates) angrier and more motivated to beat them than ever before. Needless to say, after a 3-2 victory, adding a win over JMU to our college careers was the most fitting way to say goodbye to potentially my last field hockey trip in Virginia.
I’m writing from the bus at this very moment. We just stopped at an ice cream stand near JMU and are happily devouring cones and cups while savoring our victory. (If you’re thinking we get to have a lot of fun—cave tours, ice cream pit stops—you’re right) There is a settling feeling right now, a calm accompanied with nice chatter and the flow of laughter. I guess this could be the last memory I have of traveling to Virginia with the team. I hope the hours pass slowly, maybe that the ride lasts a little longer. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of traveling home after a successful weekend.
9/21/2010 - Sophomore Jenna Phillips
“Practice like you play”…
This is a saying every athlete has heard come from their coaches at one point or another. Today at practice, and many times before, our coaches emphasized this statement quite a bit.
I’ve never been one to like this statement. Personally, it’s never made sense in my head. Yes, I know that sounds silly. It is such a simple statement. But does everyone truly understand the principles of that four letter saying? I didn’t. So, I brought it up to our goalie coach, Andrea, today at practice.
Basically my take on it is: I personally don’t feel like I practice how I play because the entire atmosphere of a game compared to practice is different on so many levels. How can a practice be played like a game when it is so different? Game days are filled with anxiousness, excitement, music that pumps me up, and fans all around us; just an entirely different feel. Compared to practice where there is none of those things. There is only our team and sometimes a totally different mindset during those few hours we are out there practicing. However, Andrea brought up a good point which is, although practice may never feel like a game, the intensity of play should always be as hard as we would go in a game. As long as you are trying to play as hard as you can and go one hundred percent in each drill, then that is practicing like you play. If a team only goes fifty percent on any given day, most likely that lack of intensity will carry over, which is not good.
I felt like we understood each other in our conversation and met at a common ground. It’s good to discuss these things sometimes so everyone can be on the same wave length. Now, I understand that statement on a greater level and I know why coaches usually say it. The premise of the statement “practice like you play” doesn’t necessarily mean practice will be exactly like a game in terms of atmosphere, but it will be similar in the fact that everyone on the team needs to play with the passion and intensity that is usually brought out on game days. Getting ready for big games, especially, requires focus on the practice field in order to be prepared for the real thing.
So, keep that in mind this saying during your practices. Practicing as hard as you can will train your body to play as hard as you can and the momentum of practice will carry over to that game!
Go Dragons!
9/16/2010 - Senior Christina Mastropaolo
When I was fifteen I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do in college. My family knew I loved field hockey but it was expected that I’d play softball in college because that was “my sport.” Needless to say, I threw my parents for a bit of a loop when I told them my dreams of not only playing field hockey in college, but the goal to get a scholarship to play for a Division I University. My grandparents, on the other hand, seemed calm as can be, blindly loyal and certain of me in my aspirations to play whatever I wanted wherever I wanted. Maybe it’s a grandparents kind of thing, the kind of love that would believe you if you said you’d be on the next mission to Mars. Or maybe it was just my grandparents. I’m not sure, but it never mattered what I wanted, so long as I dreamt it they pushed for me to attain it.
As I grow older, I find myself pulling together bits and pieces of advice I received from my grandmom, “Nan,” and my grandpop, “Pop,” throughout my childhood. But I’ll never forget something Pop said to me the first time I explained to him my most innocent hopes and insecurities about playing field hockey in college. We were on the porch in my grandparents’ house, a hot summer day, me barely 15 and Pop pushing his mid-70’s. And he sat calmly in that same chair, taking in the heat and sweet sound of nothing.
He said, “If you want to do that, you can do it. But you have to eat, sleep, and breathe field hockey. You have to want it.”
You have to want it. I knew that I wanted it. But did I “eat, sleep, and breathe” it like he said? It didn’t matter, because from that day forward, I promised myself that I would. I had to if this is what I wanted.
A year and a half later, fate had put me in the office of my coaches Denise and Nicky, and onto a team of girls who shared that desire the way I did. Together, 20-some girls would eat, sleep, and breathe field hockey. Together, we would work to take Drexel Field Hockey to the highest level it could go.
Now, as hard as it is to believe, I’m no longer a scared fifteen year old but a twenty-one year old woman entering her last year of college and ultimately, the last days of her college field hockey career. Together, our team has achieved so much. We have been through the roughest lows: losing to Towson 4-0 in the first half my freshman year, struggling to merely make a CAA conference playoff appearance; to the highest of highs: overcoming a three goal deficit to beat Duke in overtime my junior year, making our first ever NCAA appearance. We have spent countless mornings running on a dew-covered turf field, the sun barely up, our tired eyes struggling to stay open. We have poured our sweat and, in some cases, our blood (some more than others, Jen Cairone? haha) onto that field. We have struggled through painful injuries, spending hours with trainers, praying and hoping that we could will our bodies to be as strong as our hearts. We have all made sacrifices time and time again and fought through everything not for a guarantee, but only for the hope that such hard work will reap the benefits of that almost indefinable word: success.
Success. What is it, then? Is it just winning? What happens when that isn’t good enough? So then is it appearing in the top 20 ranking for the first time? But what happens when those days that merely making the poll aren’t enough, when we have to be top 15, top 10? Winning is success, yes. A high ranking is success, yes. But at the end of the day, as a senior, what do I have to show for my time here? Success isn’t just records or rankings. It’s not expectations and the weight they hold. I can look around at my fellow seniors and I know that each of us holds a time in our hearts when there were no rankings for us, no expectations. We had no videos to advertise our games, no banners displaying our titles on the field, not even this blog. We had our hearts and that one desire that bound us all together: to eat, sleep, and breathe field hockey. If we could do this together, no matter the result, we would always be successful.
This upcoming weekend is a time for us to prove to ourselves our own measure of success. We will be facing Sacred Heart, a team not in the rankings, and UConn, a team always in the rankings. UConn, especially, will be out for blood. After defeating them in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year, I can’t say I blame them. But I know that when I wake up for practice tomorrow, I can look into the eyes of my fellow seniors and be confident that we have something that they don’t have. We have the experience of remembering a time with no expectations. And no matter our rankings now, that will always give Drexel Field Hockey one advantage: heart.
Check out our games this Friday night at 7pm vs. Sacred Heart and Sunday at 12pm vs. UConn.
Go Dragons!