HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

On this day, September 2nd, our very own Midori was born! Today marks her 21st birthday! After a night practice under the lights from 7-9pm, we brought out a cake and had a pinata for Meecho! After her brunch earlier today and lots of lovin’ from the team, I would say she had a good 21st birthday!

Happy Birthday Meed!

I would also like to give a shout-out to Beth, who had to get an injection in her hip today. She is SUCH a trooper and I want to wish her a speedy recovery with all of the unfortunate medical hardship.

Beth's a shopping diva!

We are gearing up for two games this weekend!!

Tie-Dye!

Not too much to report here on the front. We are just busy preparing for our upcoming games against Northeastern and Kent State. The activity of choice tonight was Tie-Dye! In honor of the upcoming anniversary of Woodstock and because we were just looking for something to do, we broke out the white t-shirts and anything else we could find.

Hallway activities!

We are all looking forward to our upcoming games and for many of us to see our families!

A first win followed with a day of shopping…

Yesterday, Sunday, we played in our first game of the 2009 season! Our opponents, Missouri State, came out battling and ready to play. We, however, were hungry for a win. We defeated Missouri State 3-1 and headed back to our new locker room for closing remarks. Here are a few pictures of the new room!

Our name for all to see!

 

Lockers!

After our glorious win, some of the seniors went out for a nice Sushi dinner.

Sushi Night!

On our day off today, a bunch of us went to the Gilroy Outlet Shopping Center. It features four seperate blocks of stores and tons of outlet shopping. We went crazy with good deals.

Colleen shopping around...

After 3 hours of shopping we took a pit stop at Starbucks and then headed back home.

Pit Stop!

It was a successful day off and we are now sharing all of our purchases and doing fashion shows!

Block Party!

One of our preseason traditions for the past four years has been attending the block party thrown by Nora’s neighborhood. This Saturday evening continued the tradition as we went for some amazing food, dancing, and playing around. Everyone seemed to have a great time. It was nice way to relax before the game tomorrow.

Smiles all around!

Dinner Pic!

The block party even featured the local fire department! They showed off their truck and of course we took pictures with them.

Truck!

Best attempt at a group shot...

We’re all sporting some pretty great shinguard tans in these pictures. That’s what many hours on the turf will do!

Another exciting event took place today. Stanford Field Hockey was granted a brand new locker room right next to the field. It is so beautiful and big!! We’re so lucky to have such amazing facilities. We get to use the locker room for half time talks and other moments. Tomorrow is the big game against Missouri State and everyone is fired up and ready to go! I’ll post the results asap!

Goal Setting

An important aspect to college athletics is having the ability to stay mentally focused through a long season. Today we met with a Sports Psychologist named Kevin Blue who helped us to create our identity as a team. These goals will help us stay geared up and motivated for the season. I am excited about the potential for this team!

After our meeting, we had lunch and then practice. It was pretty warm out on the turf, but we all pushed through it and had another good day. Everyone is getting pretty excited for game day, which is only TWO days away!

Davis Scrimmage

Sorry I haven’t had the chance to update! We’ve been very busy with practice, scrimmaging, hanging out, and sleeping! On Wednesday we played UC Davis, a new team to Division I. They did great for a new team, but we managed to win 4-0. It was a good game for us and a great way to get some more touches on the ball!

One of the great things about preseason is not worrying about schoolwork. After the game, a few of us went to Sprout on University Avenue and took our time eating lunch. After lunch, I had a coffee date with one of my TA’s from Human Biology who will be attending medical school very soon. She is an awesome person! We met at the CoHo (Coffee House) on campus.

Coffee and Conversation

After my coffee date, a group of us decided to take advantage of the amazing weather. We went out to the gorgeous pool and read magazines and novels in the sunshine. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Becky, Kels, Colleen, Jules

Today was a practice filled day, but still very productive. We are all getting very excited for the big game on Sunday! It’s almost time for our home opener!!!

Soccer Game!

Today was a fun day of field hockey, lifting, and soccer games! We had a morning practice followed by lifting with our new strength coach. Her name is Lesley and she is a little ball of muscle. The team is very excited to have her. In between practices, we tried to kill a little time by hanging out in the training room. We watched Aladdin and heated our muscles.

Ro resting!

As the afternoon passed by we had another practice and got to listen to a little music while we played. It was fun to have some pump up music playing!

After another dinner provided by Jimmy V’s, we all headed to the Men’s Soccer Game. They played Saint Mary’s in an exhibition match.

View from the Stands!

Becky, Colleen, and I laughed for awhile about loud cheering. We also ran into SuperFan who took our photo for his scrapbook.

Tomorrow we scrimmage UC Davis. It should be another great day to get out there and get some touches on the ball! I’ll let you know how it goes!

Double Double Toil and Trouble

Double days are here! The team is very busy so any free time is spent eating or sleeping. I will post more interesting news as it comes!

A Day Off!

Today was a wonderful free day! Rules for a day off:

1. Sleep in
2. Do as little as possible
3. Eat good food
4. Laugh

I think we covered all of our bases today! We lounged around until 11am and then headed out to a team lunch at Pasta?. After lunch the team split up. Some of us went to the movies and others went to San Francisco. The 12 of us who went to the movies saw The Time Traveler’s Wife. It was a good, but sad movie.

Becky's First American Theater!

After the movie we relaxed in the dorm room. A team dinner at Cheesecake Factory finished out the night! We have a double day tomorrow, so it’s early to bed!

3-1 Victory

Akon and JLu!

Yesterday we traveled across the bay to scrimmage one of our rivals, the Cal Bears. Games played between our teams are always hard fought. Cal came out hard, with many new faces battling to earn time and gain experience. They scored first, but we came right back. Xanthe took a quick shot from the top of the circle and it went right in. In the second half, we scored 2 more goals by Q and Steph. It was a fun scrimmage and we will face Cal many times to come.

Our bus ride took such a long time! First on the way there we ran into some traffic. However, on the way home we sat in gridlock for what felt like forever! There was an accident on the 880, so a normal hour bus ride, turned into 2 hours. We were all starving and sweaty!

Heading to Cal!

Kaylo and Pip!

Today is a day of rest! Many of us are heading to San Francisco for the day!