Northwestern University Athletics
Erin and Kelly: THE DYER BLOG
2/22/2009 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Blog Entry #4
February 16, 2009
It's Sunday night, almost Monday morning at about 11:55 pm. Kelly and I are once again on the bus, heading back towards Evanston after another weekend full of softball. This weekend, we made our way out to Las Vegas, Nev., to play at UNLV. It's always an exciting place to go because the UNLV campus is literally right in the mix of all that is exciting about Vegas.
The weekend started out with two games on Friday. Our first opponent was Hawaii. Last year, our team made a trip to Hawaii for Spring Break (not bad huh?). That weekend however, was not our best. So, this year, we were all looking forward to playing a tough game vs. Hawaii and redeem ourselves. The game went really well, we came out hitting the ball hard and took a win from Hawaii. Our next match-up was later that night against UCLA. Our game was delayed quite a bit with the previous games running longer. Our game ended up going into the early morning hours. It was an absolute hitting battle between our two teams with home run after home run. Every inning someone was on top with the momentum constantly shifting between teams. Adrienne Monka hit two of the farthest home runs I have ever seen, and drove in a ton of runs for us. In the end, we lost one of the craziest games I've been a part of. It was a huge disappointment to the team because of how hard we fought throughout. However, we did learn that our offense can come back from any deficit and keep us in ball games. After the game, we got back to our hotel and fell right into bed around 5 a.m. Chicago time. Needless to say, the next morning came real fast.
We were back in action the next morning with two more games ahead of us. Our coach Kate Drohan, told us that we had a decision to make. She told us that this day was going to be a defining moment within our season. It was our choice to decide what kind of team we are going to be. Even though we were running on about four hours of sleep, we ended up playing two great games against Oregon and Southern Utah. We proved to our coaches and ourselves just what kind of team we wanted to be, and what we were planning on accomplishing in our future. That night, we were released from the team to go out to dinner with any friends or family who came to watch our games. It was nice because even though Kelly's and my family could not make it out, we were picked up as orphans by our second family, the Lafevers. We ended up going out with a bunch of families to Buca de Beppo. It was nice to go out for a big family dinner with some of our closest teammates and their families. A nice break away from all the softball, and a good way to relax!!
Finally, our last game was on Sunday in the afternoon vs. Cal State Fullerton. We were one of the last games of the day, with one of the longest trips back home. After a good win, we shook their hands and ran to the bus in order to catch our flight back home to Chicago. All in all, it was a great trip, with much improvement from our last trip. I'm sure this week's practices will consist of more adjustments to offense as well as defense, and of course more and more lifting!!! (We never stop getting stronger!!) Hope all of you who have President's Day off will enjoy your Monday...I on the other hand will be taking an exam in Modern Cosmology around 2 p.m. And if you're thinking it's about make-up, you're wrong...it's Astronomy. Real exciting stuff.
Until next time, Go `Cats!
-Erin aka the little guy
