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First off, I’d like to congratulate our seniors on a great season! Each and every one of them is extremely special and brought a unique skill and quality to our team. They will be missed dearly. They left me with lasting impressions about how to live life, how to accomplish goals in soccer, and valuable lessons of leadership. I know that they are all going to go on to do amazing things after college! I am excited for them to return to Valpo in future seasons so that I can hear about their accomplishments in their vocations.

Overall, I think that our team is pleased with our success this past season. We had a winning record and ended up with third place in conference. I felt that we drastically improved from last season. We grew and evolved a lot this season.
It was unfortunate that the quarterfinal game against Butler didn’t go our way. Losing in penalty kicks was a disappointing way to be disqualified. However, on the positive side of things, we scored two goals in that game and put on a pretty good performance. I learned a lot from this season and am very excited to grow and continue to learn in the off-season in preparation for next year.

Our final home game of the regular season is quickly approaching. With the last game also comes all of the senior events. Being a senior this year the planning for this weekend seems a bit surreal. This weekend includes a banquet for the seniors on Saturday night followed by the game on Sunday afternoon against Wright State. Looking back on my years at Valpo, it is hard to believe how far we have all come. Through all of the preseasons, bus rides, practices, lifts, and meetings we have all grown individually, but more importantly as a team. Rather than waiting until after the season I cannot think of a better time for this banquet than this weekend. To outsiders it may look as though the banquet is simply an opportunity for us to get dressed up in something other than the sweats and t-shirts that we seem to wear on a daily basis, and have a nice dinner recognizing the season and the senior class. However, the evening serves as a much more important event. Our team seems to spend all hours of the day together. The fact that we are able to spend countless hours together is most definitely a blessing, but can sometimes lead us to take things for granted. We are so used to relying on each other for everything from demanding the best in practice to helping with homework assignments that we sometimes lose track of exactly how fortunate we are to have been given 24 sisters at Valpo. With the regular season coming to an end and tournament time sneaking up, if there was ever a time for focus it would be now. The banquet is always filled with fun, laughter, tears, and love. I know that this evening spent together will be the perfect reminder of who we are actually playing for. We show up for practice everyday and give it everything we have for nobody else but the team. Of course we play for the university, for coach, for families, and for countless other reasons, but the simple truth is that we would not be able to play without each and every one of us. I am excited to use this weekend as an opportunity to really pull together an already tight knit team and make it into an extraordinary group of girls who are dedicated to succeeding in the upcoming tournament. Emotions will be running high throughout the weekend as we all begin to realize that our games as this particular group are getting fewer and fewer. I know that we will use these fears as motivation to really kick into gear for the rest of the way. Our regular season as the 2011 Crusaders may be wrapping up but our time as the ever growing VUWSO family will never end.

- Brooke Henderson

Hope to see you all at the game.

Brooke

When athletes are interviewed, they are usually asked to comment on a game or team activity. But I rarely hear anything about an athlete’s daily schedule or how their sport affects the more mundane aspects of their life.
This week made me realize just how much soccer dictates my schedule, because I was turned upside-down. Normally, we have a game on Sunday, followed by a light recovery practice on Monday. Tuesday is our off-day and Wednesday is our hardest training day. Thursday is our game preparation day when we work on low-intensity drills, walk-throughs, and set pieces. Friday we have a game, Saturday we have a light recovery/preparation practice, and Sunday we play again.
But this week was different. We came off our hard-fought Crusader Classic weekend into an important conference game on Wednesday. WHAT!? Yea, you heard me right… Wednesday. And now this weekend we have no games at all. Instead of having an off day, on Tuesday we had practice in order to prepare for our Wednesday game. I was appalled to realize that my body has become so used to not training on Tuesday that my legs resisted the idea of running. It also cut into a big part of my usual scheduled catch-up-on-homework day, which has sort of put me behind on homework this whole week. On Wednesday we had to miss our afternoon classes in order to travel to Loyola, and then got home late, which affected both the amount of sleep we were able to get and the amount of homework and studying we were able to complete. Thursday was pretty much normal, except that I kept thinking that it was Monday. By the time Friday came, I was exhausted. I was anticipating having a social Friday night and was really excited for it, but by the time I actually got there, I just wanted to sleep. It was really weird to end classes on Friday and not have any practice or game that I had to play. Once classes ended on Friday, I felt like I was living in some sort of twilight zone. I could feel the weekend excitement in the air, but I kept thinking I had to do homework and prepare for class, which of course didn’t happen because my roommate so graciously lured me into her normal Friday procrastination/jam session/ get ready for activities routine.
Regardless, it is all worth it because we BEAT LOYOLA. It will be nice having Sunday off from practice as well and hopefully I can get caught up on homework so I will be raring to go for our game this Wednesday against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
-Trisha Wladecki

Three claps for Rachel Hoaglin for scoring an amazing goal in the game verses Green Bay today!!!!! We are now 1 and 0 in the Horizon League with a game Sunday as well! All of the freshmen are so excited! Practice is tomorrow morning at 11 am and we travel at 1:30 pm to play Bowling Green!!!!! After the game today, everyone on the team is pumped up!

Today was a very eventful day, after the team won there was about an hour to eat at our lovely tailgate, clean up after the game and try to attend the men’s soccer game against IUPUI. All of this rushing around was definitely worth it! After an amazing game against Green Bay we got to watch a great game between VUMSO and IUPUI. The men won 1 to 0 and my friend Eric Nieto scored the only goal!

P.S. Kudos to the parents who put the tailgate together at our home games. We all love it so much!!!

- Rachel Sheehan

It seems like we just left campus last spring as summer ended quickly and preseason camp flew by. Tonight marks the beginning of another season and the start of a journey with a whole new Valpo Women’s soccer family. Playing under the lights this Friday night is a chance for us to have fun. We have trained hard individually all summer and have put it all together during preseason, but now is the time for us to show what we really are capable of accomplishing. Being a senior this year you would think that coming into my final preseason camp would be nothing new. You would think that I would have the routine down and know what to expect. But the truth is it is different and exciting every year. The main reason for that is because the group, our VUWSO family, changes every year. With six new freshmen joining the team this year we have great potential. Not only does it give us greater numbers in practice, but we have more versatility than ever before. This holds true on and off the field. Preseason is without a doubt a long and tiring few weeks. With two practices a day and few games we have to lean on each for strength. This means holding each other up on tough days and pushing each other to get the very best. It means keeping each other focused when necessary and making each other laugh when the time is right. All of this begins during preseason.  Trisha talked about the schedule in her blog so I do not need to go there. Fitness tests, physicals, new gear, and meetings aside, the best part of preseason is coming together as a family. A big part of this process is living in the dorms together. Playing soccer, eating, relaxing, studying, and just being together nonstop for those first few weeks allows us all to learn about each other and grow closer together. Our team is full of unique personalities and caring individuals who somehow seem to fit together perfectly to create a team with a comfortable and fun environment. Whether it is having a freshman talent show while the storm passes and we can get back to training, or hiding from each other in local stores so nobody steals our Crusader Cup costume ideas, we always seem to find the fun in everything. I am incredibly grateful to have such a large family away from home that is there for me throughout everything.  It does not matter if I need them to push me in practice, help me with homework, or be there when my emotions get the best of me; I know that one of my 24 teammates will be there to help me along the way. I am so excited to welcome the freshman into our family and am eager to watch us grow closer together. No matter what happens this season I know that we will not fail to let our personalities shine through and always find the fun and competitiveness in everything we do. In my final year I have really come to realize how truly blessed I am to have so many teammates to act as my family away from home. I am super excited for this home opener tonight. We have big goals this year and more passion then ever in working to make our dreams come true. Be sure to keep reading our blogs to keep up with our season as it will definitely be one to remember.

- Brooke Henderson

Ok, that enthusiasm may not be 100% genuine, but it’s not completely sarcastic either. Preseason is such an interesting time because so much is involved with preseason—good and bad, exhausting and energizing, exciting and boring. Before preseason starts, all of us are really excited because preseason means seeing your family away from home and actually playing soccer instead of just working out. The first night, when we all arrive, is filled with ecstatic screams, hugs, smiles, and story-telling. If you step back from the action for a second or two, the team reminds you of a litter of puppies, so excited they are quivering from head to tail, jumping and greeting the people that came to visit. The first full day is a good indicator of the rest of preseason. We begin with medical testing and best of all, CHRISTMAS, which is when we get all of our Valpo soccer gear. After that initial excitement, we have down time, which can be sort of boring because we have to save our legs for … (oh no!) fitness tests. But again, the fitness tests are a bit of a dichotomy. Physically and mentally, they are exhausting because you are pushing yourself to the absolute limit. But at the same time, the entire team bands together, bolstering flagging wills with supportive cheers. Even though you are exhausted, you also get an invigorating sense of team unity which makes you hopeful and excited for the upcoming season.
This preseason, we have been working hard and have taken huge steps forward in our playing. We are all eager to test ourselves against an outside opponent, which we will get to do this Friday when we play Western Michigan. (The added excitement comes from the fact that after our exhibition games we will no longer have two-a-days.) After our exhibition games, we will have one week together before the rest of campus fills up with students. As excited as I personally am for classes to start and to see my friends that are not part of the soccer team, I also treasure all the time the team spends together before distractions cut in. I feel fortunate that I can exist in a separate world that only consists of playing the game that I love and spending time with my wonderful teammates.

Hoo-Hah!
-Trisha Wladecki

When I first came to college, one of the hardest parts was leaving my family. I was so used to being around them all the time… and even though we argued and fought, there was still no group of people that I wanted to spend all that time with. What I quickly realized about VU WSO is that even though you leave your family behind at home, you end up gaining even more family by being a part of this team.

My immediate family at Valpo is the team – There are 21 of us sisters (or wives – which might be hard for people that aren’t on the team to understand), and we have 1 trainer, 2 coaches, and 3 volunteers that would do anything for us. (They care about us sooo much that they give out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate milk after EVERY game!) We’re just like any other family… we fight and argue, and get pretty mad at each other sometimes. But in the end, there’s no other group of people we want to be with.

Occasionally, we’re lucky enough that we get to see our real families during season. Sometimes our parents / siblings have the chance to come out and support us, even when the games are far away. What’s amazing is that these families always open their arms to any of the girls whose families weren’t able to come out that day and love them like their own. Even Coach John’s wife, Susie, has been there after games to give me a hug and tell me that she’ll be my family that day since my parent’s couldn’t make it.

These families don’t just support us at the games… since I’ve been here, countless people have opened their homes to us when we’ve been on the road to let us relax and give us a home-cooked meal. Traveling during season can be rough… just because we have games doesn’t mean we can put homework or any other stressors on hold while we’re away. These families make us feel loved and at home even when we’re hundreds of miles away.

Four years ago, I had no idea that leaving my family actually meant that I was gaining family. We look out for each other and care about one another (one of my teammates parent’s even told me that I could live with them if I decided to move out to Colorado when I graduated!), and when girls graduate and move away they are still as much a part of our family as the girls who are currently on the team. Of course, the team’s success is important and means a lot to us… but when it comes down to it, it’s the relationships that we make over the years that means the most.

(Dana McGlone – sorry for taking so long to blog, but maybe if you told me about the weather more often, I would have written it sooner)

Sammy

9-16-10

College soccer has certainly been a journey thus far.  It is unreal to think that it has already been a month and a half since I first arrived on campus for preseason.  As time has passed, relationships have grown and our team skills have progressed.  What was once a group of strangers to me, is now my team, my family and my best friends.  I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to play soccer at the college level and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.  At this point in the season, I feel that we are a true team.

However, getting to the point of true team-unity isn’t an easy process.  It took a series of games to get us to the point we are at now.  One dramatic leap in the direction towards unity came from a game we played against Eastern Michigan University.  The first half, we were not playing up to our full potential, and we were losing the game by two goals at half time.  At that point, we had a decision to make.  It was in our hands alone to decide whether or not we wanted to be successful in that game.  Coach Marovich told us what we needed to do in the second half, and after our halftime talk, we were ready to go back onto the field and show everyone what we were truly made of.  We scored two well-earned goals that were the result of pure determination and heart.  At the end of regulation play, we were tied two to two and had to go into overtime.

This game taught us a lot about ourselves.  It showed that even when we were in a position where giving up seemed like a logical answer, we did not want to accept defeat and we fought until we couldn’t fight anymore.  From the field to the sidelines, EVERY SINGLE member of our team had an energy.  Whether it was making a 70-yard sprint to secure the ball in the offensive third, or screaming encouraging words to motivate a teammate, everyone was on the same page and truly wanted to win.  This is what our team is about; sacrificing the betterment of your self for the good of the team.  Mia Hamm once said, “I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team.  I defer to it and sacrifice for it.  Because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”  Hamm says it perfectly.  A team will only find success when every single member is committed to sacrificing and living for the team.  It is easy to let your mind stray from this point of view, and start to think in the terms of “I”. But, as that corny old saying goes, “There’s no ‘I’ in TEAM”.  Individual success is important.  But selfish success is dangerous.  You could take the eleven best soccer players in the world and throw them on a field.  Unless they are all willing to sacrifice and fight as a team, they will find no triumph.

As we head to Tennessee this weekend, I am excited for us to progress even more.  I am proud of this group and all that we are capable of.

Sincerely,

Kristen Manski

This past summer produced a great number of changes in the Valpo Athletic Department. One of most significance was the women’s locker room project. I could not help but think of the hit TV show Extreme Home Makeover and Ty’s special room as I spent most of the summer working and thinking of ways to make sure the space was just perfect for the team when they returned for pre-season camp. My hope was that it was going to show them how important they are to me, the athletic department and the University. As the players returned for pre-season they got to experience the shock and enjoyment of the phrase “Bus Driver, Move That Bus.”

Check out all of the pictures from the entrance hallway to the wood lockers on our facebook page. The best part was the looks on their faces and how quickly they were taking pictures and sending them to family and friends. Truly one of the best moments, I have had coaching at Valpo.

All programs are built over time and the pillars of success come from all of the former players who have given time, passion, sacrifice, sweat, pain and even a little blood to elevate the soccer program to a new level. Those first alums may not have even had a space, others remember the first locker room of orange metal lockers in a small space, yet others remember the up grade to our most recent locker room which was exciting to have carpet, pictures and messaging as the program grew with greater success. Today, the women’s soccer team has their own locker room with a 42″ HD TV, sofa, wood lockers, new University brand and most important tradition and history.

When a current player walks into the locker room the first thing they see is the old name plates of former players around our bulletin board. The current team needs to see the Alumni who have been so critically important to the growth of the team. Next, the concrete pillar in the space has been painted white and has special meaning. Our alumni have paved the way to this new space, so when a player graduates they will be asked to leave a 1 to 2 sentence massage and sign their name on the pillar as they have left their mark on the program. As alumni come back to campus for any reason, please come to the locker room and leave your message and name because YOU are the pillars of OUR success.

As each day passes, this place becomes more comfortable and feels like home. Thanks you to the Athletic Department for fund-raising and managing the project. Three claps go to the IMC staff for there cooperation in the creating our wonderful space and developing our interactive program guide with pictures and videos of every player. We are so excited and blessed to have all of you behind us and our group is working hard each day to make you all proud.

So the only thing left to say is “Welcome Home Valparaiso Women’s Soccer Players, Welcome Home.”