On the DL with Dot - Our Trip to New York
Lauren Mansfield here, aka Dot. I am a rookie from Vancouver, BC and excited to start my career as a Varsity Blue. The start of a promising season began with a trip down to New York State to face some tough American competition.
Monday morning after a 7am beep test the team got on the bus and headed down to Albany, NY where our preseason training would begin. When we finally arrived in Albany (after a 7 hour bus ride), we hopped off the bus and ran literally right onto the field where we faced the University of Albany Great Danes. We held our own for the first part of the game but as the game progressed our exhaustion began to show. We ended with a disappointing score of 6-0.
For us BC rookies it was an adjustment playing at this level but a challenge we welcome. Alex Thicke is a promising forward, Heather Haughn looked great at left D, and I felt good on the back line with Ontario rookie Frankie Vondrejs (5th year in the OUA) and vets Kaelan and Hannah. Ontario rookies Ally Evanyshn and Gabby Permell showed well up front with lots of speed and tenacity.
The next morning we practiced at Cornell and then paid a visit to a popular Cornell spot Collegetown Bagels to refuel our bodies for our evening game against the Big Red. At 6 o’clock we got ready to play what turned into the longest game ever: 2 x 30 min halves, one 20 min half, 1 ten minute half (7 vs 7) and then 2 rounds of strokes. Even though by the end everyone was exhausted, we tied Cornell 1-1 and we were much improved from the day before.
Wednesday, after another morning practice at Cornell, we embarked on an interesting drive down the winding country roads to Colgate University. After driving for 2 hours, and even asking for directions from a cowboy on horseback, we managed to arrive on time and got in a full warm up before the game. We played a good game and made progress on our “half court press” and even had sports commentators in the press box - Colgate did a great job of making us feel welcome. The final score was 3-1 for us with standout games from Alex, Kaelan and Sam. To recuperate and prepare for our last game on Thursday, we devoured 16 pizzas on the bus ride home and took a much needed sleep-in the next day.
Thursday mid-day, we all boarded the bus again and drove through the countryside pastures to Syracuse. After a short detour, our lovely bus driver got us to the university to play the game. We were all pretty nervous to play them, as they are a well-known team that made it to the final 8 in the NCAA last year.
During the game you could see how tired we were but we managed to battle through and gave them a good game with the a final score of 4-0 in another long game of 2x30 minutes and another 20 minute period with 2 rounds of strokes. Third year goalkeeper KJ Williams defended her net well with creative goaltending strategies from assistant coach Shankar.
Overall it was a very challenging but successful preseason. The American teams we were playing have been training for 2 weeks already but it was great competition for us and we made a lot of progress as a team. There are still many things we need to work on but we have lots of training time to get ready for our first league game on September 18th!
And that’s “the down low” from your Varsity Blues field hockey team.
- dot
