• Home
    • Who Are We
    • USMNT Ramblings
    • Where Are They Now >
      • Mike Ammann
      • Chris Armas
      • Brian Bliss Part II
      • Petter Mellor
      • Gary Hamilton
      • John Robinson
    • My Club My Passion
  • Interviews
    • Robbie Mustoe
    • Cyle Larin
    • Daphne Corboz
    • Neil Stafford
    • Eric DaCosta
    • Ian McIntyre
    • Keidane McAlpine
    • David DiIanni
    • Keelin Winters
    • Rachel Daly
    • Arie Ammann
    • Andres Deza
    • EPL 2013 Steve Coxon
    • EPL 2013 Jeremy Melul
    • EPL 2013 Jim McGirr
    • EPL 2013 Elie Monteiro
    • EPL 2013 Lee Billiard
    • EPL 2013 Brian Tompkins
    • Derek Canavaggio
    • Dante Marini
    • Katy Freels
    • Lee Billiard - NWSL
    • Caitlin Foord
    • Sophie Schmidt
    • Jill Loyden
    • Brittany Bock
    • Veronica Perez
    • Kate Deines
    • Brendan Schimmel
    • Gerry Marrone
    • Lee Billiard
  • Extra Time
  • Off The Ball
  • Five For Friday
    • Gary Curneen
    • Dave Clarke
    • Andrew Kean
    • Dan Abrahams
    • Dave Hannigan
Soccer Banter

Thank You Team

9/26/2011

1 Comment

 
Picture
My first game back was an exciting one to say the least. At the end of the first half, when I was told to warm up, my stomach immediately knotted up.  It had been just about 3 weeks since my injury occurred and it seemed like I had been off the field forever.  I knew once I was out there it would be like no time had ever elapsed, however, I couldn’t help but be a little nervous. I didn’t want to go out there and be a liability and hurt the team. Not to mention I was dreading that first hard battle and header.  You could say I was a little scared to get hit in the face again. To make it worse, I waited at mid-field for about 45 minutes to enter the game because we never got the chance to sub (OK maybe it was just 5 minutes but it seemed like a life-time!!).  As I expected, all my insecurities faded once I was actually in the game.  I got that first header out of the way and then was far too focused on the game to care about anything else, but winning and taking care of my responsibilities on the field. 

As history repeated itself, my counterpart Grace got a concussion in the first half against Brown. I’m starting to believe that there is a curse on the defensive center mid at Rudd Field! As the game got deeper into the second half, and overtime seemed very likely, the 3 weeks off really started to catch up to me. I felt like I was making it harder on our two center backs, Meg and Lauren, by having to pass my man off as I struggled to get back. They definitely saved my butt a few times.  I know that it won’t take long to get back to where I was before my injury, but for the entire back line’s sake, let’s hope it is before Tuesday.

The game went into overtime, and early on we earned a corner.  We were all standing at the top of the box expressing the same thing, this would be a great time to end this and score. All that crossing and finishing we do at practice finally paid off because Tori sent in a great ball and Dee finished it perfectly.  I have never been so relieved to see the ball go into the back of the net.  I don’t know how many more times I could have made it up and down the field. There aren’t many better feelings than an over-time win! However, the demands of playing more than 90 minutes can be enormous and endurance becomes key.  I’ll admit, although reluctantly, that “fitness Tuesdays” have been effective in getting us ready for extra-time!



Picture
Coming to UMass, I was aware that the weather would bring rain and cold and eventually snow. This week in particular has been rainy. However a “little” rain didn’t stop the Minutewomen from getting out there and practicing. We are obviously a dedicated group. Once you are soaked, there is nothing more fun than running in the pouring rain. With the Boyden River at flood stage, and the team already saturated, post-practice seemed like the perfect time to do some mud sliding. The sight of the women’s soccer team running down Mass Ave, drenched in water and mud must have been amusing sight for the rest of the student-body.

To top off this fun filled afternoon, we finally got some of our gear! There are definite perks to playing soccer in college, one the most important (of course) being the team apparel. That night a couple of us went out to dinner together, all wearing our flashy new long sleeved UMass Women’s Soccer tees. Everyone in the restaurant was well aware that we were representing for the women’s soccer team – and I was pretty proud of that.  I felt like a little kid and it was the first time I wore my Danvers Youth Soccer shirt to elementary school. 

This week we have Dartmouth away; our last non-league game, and then we begin our Atlantic-10 schedule. Going forward, especially with the start of more traveling, it looks like we will be a lot busier. There is also the issue of missing classes, something that I am pretty familiar with (I certainly never won a perfect attendance award in high school.).  However, staying current with class-work will take greater effort. I’m sure all of this will make October fly by… just like September has. It’s hard to believe that my first season is already half over!  Hopefully come November we will be in the A-10 championships making this season last longer!!

1 Comment

Broken Nose, But I'm Back Playing

9/21/2011

2 Comments

 
Picture
As opposed to last week’s blog, where I sat still wired from a great win, this week I am essentially falling asleep on my keyboard. The blame can be put on a plenty of full field sprints and a long day in class. Today was my first day back and man did I pick a great day for it! The sun was out, the temperature was high in the 70s and I was excited to get back out there. This excitement slowly faded as I sat and watched our coach pull out ladders, set up cones and put flags in the ground. Any athlete knows that after a day off, the next will promise fitness – and it did! It proved to be a little difficult for me, but I am grateful to be out there and not just watching from the sidelines. However, I still find it amazing that after just a little over two weeks out of action, that my fitness could suffer so much. 

The hardest part for me today was breathing.  My legs felt fine, but I am still a little clogged up do to my broken nose.  I found the noises that I made breathing through my mouth were disturbing.  Especially to my running mates, Kris and Alyssa, who were convinced that I was being asphyxiated.  It was nice to get a ball at my feet but I'm still dreading that first header!  Thursday is Brown (and a second shot at an Ivy League opponent).  

This week also solidified for us freshman that managing our time is going to be essential if we want to succeed. There are barely enough hours in a week to make it to every class, every lifting session, every practice, every game and 6 hours of mandatory and supervised study hall. That’s not even taking into account the need for additional studying, food every now and then – and maybe some sleep. My mid-morning naps, and watching Real Housewives of New Jersey are definitely a thing of the past.     



Picture
On a much more fun note, this weekend was our very first home football game! We all took a “family” trip to the bookstore earlier in the day to buy some UMASS memorabilia to show our school pride. After walking thru the different tailgates with the team, I proceeded to go into the game…for all of 15 minutes. I quickly realized that watching football on TV is much more entertaining, and less boring, than in person. However, walking into the tailgate, it felt like I was at college more than ever before. It was a sea of maroon and school spirit was on high alarm. The highlight of my night was seeing Sam the Minuteman out and about. I don’t know why he hasn’t made an appearance at any of the women’s soccer games?

This week is already proving to be hard, but I’m looking forward to Thursday’s game and then 4 of my best friends are coming out to Amherst to visit this Friday. Skyping with them is just not cutting it, not to mention my 7-day free trial of group Skype has officially expired. I can’t wait to introduce them to my new friends, or Floor 3 of Emerson. I think my floor mates will be happy to finally be able to put faces to the names they constantly hear me referencing.  My friends from home are all at smaller schools, so I think they will love the atmosphere found on a bigger campus and especially Southwest Village. 

After surviving today, the rest of the week should be a breeze with the added bonus of actually being available to play in a game and a weekend that comes with a much needed visit from home. 



2 Comments

I Love Winning

9/13/2011

1 Comment

 
Picture
As I write this week’s edition of my Blog, I'm still coming down from the high of beating BU.  They were ranked #20 in the country and considered to be one of the best teams in the northeast. It seems that this game could be an important deciding factor of what kind of team we will be. We had lost our last two games and I was afraid that we could begin to accept losing too easily. I don't know that anyone outside of our locker room expected us to respond the way that we did.   

That ride home from Cambridge after the Harvard loss was completely miserable.  So, the win definitely reinstated some lost confidence in the direction our season was going. We have three more non-league games and then begin a very tough A-10 schedule.  Ultimately it is our results in the A-10 that will determine our success, but if the BU game is any indication, we will be ready to compete for a conference title! More importantly, the BU upset has really brought us together as a team. There's a new energy and a new desire to prove just how good we are - and can be.

This win definitely put a new spark in me. This week has been particularly hard.  I am still not able to play and have absolutely no answers or idea when I'll be back. A CT scan showed a crack in my orbital bone and 2 more in my nose. It was a diagnosis that was much worse than I expected.  I got the call with the results while on the bus to Harvard (making that trip incredibly horrible for me), and it dashed my hopes that I could be ready to play against BU.  Right now, I live with a sort of permanent anxiety as I await my next doctor’s appointment on Wednesday.   I am holding on to the belief that surgery will not be necessary and I will get back soon.



Picture
Not to mention I feel like the team’s equipment manager and I genuinely look forward to any on-field involvement, like my “quasi-assistant-coaching-job” during warm ups!  This is when I get to pass the ball in some drills and set up the cones. It is safe to say that sitting and watching my team struggle, with nothing more to offer than encouragement and cups of water, is a rotten feeling. The pride and excitement of winning Sunday has helped lessen a lot of this. Rather than looking forward to the upcoming week with dread (and thinking it will be more bad news like last week) I have to stay positive.  I believe that if things are going well for the team, then the rest will fall into place. My injury is what it is, I won’t be able to change that, so I just have to dedicate myself to doing everything I can to help the team.  Even if that means being the best cheerleader, equipment manager and cone-setter-upper I can be until I get back to action. 

These days just getting out of the dorm and watching other people act like fools is good enough for us freshman in Emerson. Not that watching movies and having mouthwash wars (a creative battle of who can keep Listerene in their mouth the longest) doesn’t get pretty crazy too! Especially when the next day you have no working taste buds. But we were all dying to change out of the sweatpants and t-shirts we had been wearing for the last month and put on some dresses, do some dancing and feel like girls again. Anytime we are all together is always fun. I am lucky to have such a great group of teammates, maybe all college teams are like this, but my guess is that we have a unique group. 

I've quickly learned that winning is the key in college sports. When we win, fitness isn't that bad, practices aren't as tense and everyone is happier.  It may seem pretty obvious, but you can’t underestimate the simple fact that winning makes life so much easier. People always want to believe that winning isn't everything but I think that those people probably have never won anything before. Give anyone the feeling of beating a nationally ranked team and I guarantee they too will become addicted to the euphoria. You win and you are well rewarded but the opposite is also true. If you lose, expect practice to be longer and the fitness to be harder.  It was sort of the same in High School and club, but just not as focused.  In college everything seems more intense, so the wins are bigger – and the losses more devastating.  The University of Maine is next, let’s hope we stay on our winning ways.


1 Comment

Soccer Camp Over, Campus is Alive

9/7/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
Like I mentioned before, being stuck on an empty campus for a month with nothing to do but eat, sleep and play soccer can tend to become tiresome. So you can imagine our excitement when actual students started to show up at the beginning of last week and the campus started to come to life. It finally feels like I am at college, rather than being at a soccer camp that went on for 3 weeks too long. However, it is definitely a challenge trying to get back into the swing of things and waking up for an 8am class.
 
We had some excitement surrounding the arrival of an unwelcome guest… Hurricane Irene!  The storm was forecasted to hit directly into Amherst with 75 mph winds and lots of rain.  As a precaution our home-opener against Fairfield was re-scheduled and we were unceremoniously moved from our 20th floor accommodations in the John Quincy Adams Tower to the lower floor of another building.  That meant two moves in 5 days as we finally got into our regular housing assignment on last Tuesday.  Fortunately for this part of central Massachusetts the storm was a bit of a dud.  We were obviously lucky because I know the flooding on the other side of the Connecticut River has been awful.     
 
Unfortunately for me, I'm sporting a mean shiner for the first week of school. A collision in the Elon game has taken me out for at least the next week. Good news is that my headache is gone, I can finally open my eye because the swelling is down and now it's just a great conversation starter.  I bet my professors will all remember me (aren’t you the soccer player with the black-eye?) I just wish I could have a better story about how it happened - maybe a loss in a MMA bout.



Picture
Any athlete knows it is torture to sit on the sidelines for even just a day and the fact that we have local rivals Harvard and BU coming up this weekend only adds to the frustration. After a tough loss to Bryant last Sunday, and my feeling of helplessness because I was out, I find my eagerness to get back on the field is further heightened.  However, I'm not going to lie, spending the afternoon at the Heath Center for x-rays - rather than an hour of fitness at practice – wasn’t that bad.  I would rather be playing, but I was pretty confident that I would be in better shape to wake up for 8am class than my teammates who were out there running. Hopefully I will wake up symptom free again tomorrow, pass the concussion test, and I'm back on the field on Sunday. 
 
Putting the weather and soccer drama of the last week aside, school presented its own set of problems for me. I've blamed it on my concussed state of mind, but going to my first college class I found myself painfully lost and utterly confused. Strange, since I felt so confident last week about my superior campus knowledge!  I found myself walking into a 200+ packed lecture 20 minutes late, black eye and all. It was an embarrassing first impression, and I made sure I was a half hour early for my next class. Getting to places today was easier (obviously my previous dementia had departed) but I think that my Honors Seminar could be the toughest class I ever faced.  Thank goodness for mandatory study hall and the available tutors.  Let’s hope that they are up on their Plato and Socrates!  
 
Probably the only downside to not being the only people on campus anymore is how packed the dorms and dining commons are. We had become sort of possessive of the school. It seemed like it was just us and the football team for so long (I’ve never seen people eat so much grilled chicken and boiled eggs) that I became too accustomed to no wait and “all mine”.  I know some schools have special housing and dining facilities for interscholastic athletes.  If you asked me last week if I wanted that my answer would have been a resounding… no.  However, another long wait for a sandwich or the girls’ bathroom and my mind might change.

0 Comments

    Becky Landers

    Landers is a freshman midfielder from Danvers, MA playing for the University of Massachusetts. She played her club soccer for Stars of Massachusetts. helping the team to 3 state championships and two Region I titles. 

    Follow UMASS Women's Soccer on Twitter: @UMassWSoccer

     

    Archives

    March 2012
    February 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Soccer Banter: Been Kicking Since March 1, 2011