May 21, 2010

Sophomore defender Tori Harrison and sophomore attacker Tara Arolla write about the end of the 2010 Cal lacrosse season in this entry.

BERKELEY - Greetings, Cal fans!

Hope all of you enjoyed our little video interview that is now posted on CalBears.com. We are getting pretty official with this blog over here!

Thinking back on this season the one word that really comes to mind is "fight". We had to fight through so much adversity this season, and unfortunately it took too long for that fight to transfer onto the field and result in some victories for us. This season's theme of "fight" was definitely inspired by our teammate Tighe Hutchins. As she battled through illness in our fall season, she set an example for us on how to fight through the tough times, and that is something we all took to heart when our regular season began.

A few weeks ago on a very, very early Wednesday morning, we departed for Denver. A few of us passed out on the bus with the idea of finals looming in the distance, and a few of the Denver natives bouncing in their seats trying to contain their excitement while endlessly trying to convince the rest of us why Colorado is in fact the best state in the country. All of us got suckered into believing them for awhile when we stepped off the bus into sunny, 70-degree weather, which we sadly have not seen a lot of this cold and rainy California spring.

We departed the airport to go straight to practice and then arrived at the hotel with approximately 15 minutes to get dressed and ready for our MPSF banquet. Yes we are lacrosse players, but were also still girls and trying to look good for this banquet. All of us arrived in our dresses and high heels and some us with our hair still drenched from our post-practice showers. However, nothing could upset us right then because of three glorious words: buffet-style dinner. In true Cal lax fashion we were the first team to get up for seconds and beg the waiters for more bread sticks. Later that night, all-conference teams were announced with Cal representation by Allie Welsh, Vail Horn, Allie Shropshire, Alyse Kennedy, Alex Tickner and DennaFaye Herald.

Although we played nice at the dinner and befriended our opponents, the next day the tournament started, and we threw all of that nice guy stuff out the window. It was time to battle for the NCAA play-in game. We beat Saint Mary's in our first round game, 20-11. We were fired up with our eyes on the semifinal game. We came up against Stanford in the next round, and after a close 60 minute game, we lost to the Card, 7-9. We were not ready to be done, but the feeling we had leaving the MPSF Tournament will give us that fire to make it to the NCAAs next year.

We returned back to Berkeley on Sunday night with the ominous cloud of finals looming over our heads. After the season and all of the traveling we had done, there was a lot of catching up to do. Most of us spent our dead week studying and preparing for our various tests the next week. Our teammate Mackey Violich gave us a nice study break by hosting her belated 21st birthday at her beautiful home in Stinson Beach. The great food and live band was just what we needed after so much focus time. Finals are finals, but we all made it out alive and more excited than ever for summer.

We want to wrap up by saying thank you to everyone who has been there for us this season. From our families, to our friends, to our peers here at Cal, we want to let you guys know that without your support, we would not know what to do. We hope you've enjoyed reading our blog and hope you check in with us next season! Enjoy your summer!

- Tara and Tori

April 20, 2010

BERKELEY - Hey, Cal lax fans,

We just returned home from the East Coast, and this trip actually turned out to be quite the little adventure. We flew out to New York on Thursday and played Albany on Friday. The quick turn around from our seven-hour flight to game time ended up getting the best of us, and we did not show up mentally for our game. Our team is very close, and this transfers over to our on-field connection. When everybody isn't on and the energy isn't where it needs to be from the start, we do not perform our best. The connection wasn't there versus Albany, which resulted in a loss. After talking out what happened as a group, we came together as a team and were able to turn it around with a huge win against Vermont. Every single person on our team made an impact, and it was truly a team victory.

Now on to the adventures of our trip - some interesting things happened, to say the least. First off, our bus driver may or may not have had a certified driver's license. We took about 20 wrong turns total...we spent the majority of the time reversing in the bus to get back on the right route. Every time we took a turn the bus bottomed out - we convinced ourselves that the bus was broken, completely eliminating the possibility that we were the ones weighing the bus down....

The airport situation was one in its own. Our plane in Vermont broke down on the runway, so we ended up sitting in the airport for about six hours. We made it to JFK around 12 that night and took taxicabs to our hotel. We were unhappy campers when we woke up to our alarms at the insanely early time of 4:45 a.m. After all of that, we made it back to San Francisco safe and sound around 11 a.m. Monday.

We are all exhausted and a little confused about what time it is, let alone what day it is. With a day of rest we will be ready to head back out to practice and gear up for our Saint Mary's and Fresno State games this weekend. The countdown to MPSFs begins...nine days!

Go Bears!

- Tori and Tara

April 1, 2010

EUGENE, Ore. - Hello, from Eugene!

We are sitting in our hotel overlooking the Valley River up here in beautiful Duck territory. The weather is great, and we are looking forward to a tough battle tonight at 7 p.m. against the University of Oregon. It is always a tough game against the Ducks...last year we beat them twice, with one game going to overtime. They are looking for revenge, but we are looking to walk away from this game with a 3-0 winning streak against one of our MPSF rivals.

Last weekend was a tough one against Denver and Stanford. We went into DOUBLE overtime against the Pioneers and lost in sudden victory. We put up a good battle against Stanford but didn't come away with a win. This week at practice has been a tough one. We have prepared mentally and physically for this game in hopes of leaving the past games behind us and turning our season around starting now!

Now we are off to wake-up a little bit, breathe in the fresh Oregon air and shoot around before the big game tonight. There are rumors going around that the Oregon crowd will be dressed in all black tonight in the stands; a Blackout Crowd. However, we won't let that intimidate us. We've got one thought on our minds - bears eat ducks.

Go Bears!

- Tara and Tori

April 1, 2010

BERKELEY - Hey, Cal lax fans!

Greetings from the West Coast! We are so happy to be back home after our 11-day spring break trip. We ended up going 2-2 on the East Coast and now we are gearing up for our TWO HUGE MPSF conference games this weekend. We play Denver on Friday, which is always a fun match up since we have so many Denver natives on our team. Sunday is our Senior Day, so please come out and honor our four seniors this year - Catie O'Mahoney, Alyse Kennedy, DennaFaye Herald and Alex Tickner. Our Senior Day game this year is against Stanford, so it's going to be a rivalry battle on the field.

This whole season we have proved to be a "second-half team" and have finally broken out of this habit. However, we are taking this to heart in the second half of our season and are prepared to start off this half on the right foot by dominating this weekend. These are going to be a gritty two games, and we definitely need the support from our Cal lax family. Let's start this weekend off right with a win against Denver at Memorial Stadium tomorrow at noon. Hope to see you there and please join us in honoring our seniors on Sunday.

LET'S GO BEARS!

- Tori and Tara

March 27, 2010

FAIRFAX, Va. - Hey, Cal lax fans!

This is Alyse Kennedy subbing in for Tara and Tori. Like the good Berkeley students they are, Tori and Tara are getting ahead in their homework before we head back to school. We're currently back east gearing up to play George Mason for our last spring break game of 2010.

Spring break has flown by and despite some tumultuous games it's been a really fun. Thursday we made the long haul to Fairfax, Va. We got to stretch our legs a bit when we stopped in Washington, D.C. We drove to the memorials and split up into two teams. All of us took pictures at the different memorials raised in honor of significant events in American and world history, including the Vietnam memorial, the Washington Monument and the more recent WWII memorial. For many of us, it was the first time seeing these historical monuments and the mall. We celebrated Mackie's birthday at Brion's Grill for dinner where George Mason memorabilia covered the walls. We got to have brownie sundaes for the special occasion while simultaneously getting pumped up for the upcoming game.

Some of the girls had the opportunity to go to the Holocaust museum Friday while others did some shopping around Georgetown. On Thursday we all had dinner at the Ellermans, Carter's family, who along with Alex Tickner's family produced an incredible meal of pork, grits, orzo and a delectable bean salad. The carrot cake Mrs. Ellerman made was incredible and a great end to the meal. When we got back to the hotel we did some team bonding and shared funny stories from our past.

We have some more free time today (the day before the game), so most of us are going to try and see a little more of the area. I personally heard there is a delicious cupcake place somewhere in a 20-mile radius of here, so I'm about to lace up my running shoes because where there is a will there is a way (just kidding, Theresa; I'm resting my legs the day before the game).

As our 11-day "vacation" comes to an end, it is really cool to see how the team has come together on an even deeper level. It's really become clear how different we all are being from all over the country (and England!). We've really worked hard to develop a strong team chemistry off the field, and we believe strongly that this will translate on the field in our upcoming conference games. This team is just beginning to tap into its true potential, and we're all excited to return back to California with a win! GO BEARS!

- Alyse

March 19, 2010

BERKELEY - Hello, everyone!

First of all we would like to sincerely thank all of our fans that came out to our game this past Saturday. It was an extremely exciting game as we took No. 11-ranked Notre Dame into overtime. We came up a little short in the end, but we are so proud of our team for finally coming together and showing ourselves what we can do. We really stepped it up last week in practice and made extra efforts on and off the field to prepare for that game. After seeing the payoff of our extra efforts last week, we have continued to step it up to prepare for our big spring break trip next week!

While all of our friends will be tanning on beaches over break, we will be flying around the East Coast to further work on our goggle tans while playing Quinnipiac, Fairfield, William & Mary and George Mason. It's going to be a fun and intense week of lacrosse, but some of our teammates will be getting a little taste of home as we will be playing near their hometowns. On a few of our nights off we will actually be able to have dinner at some of our teammates houses, which is always a really fun time to see embarrassing childhood pictures of our friends while getting a home-cooked meal.

The Cal lacrosse team would like to wish all of you a great spring break and can't wait to give updates from the other side of the country!

- Tori and Tara

March 8, 2010

We did it. We survived our three games in five days, and we came out with a W under our belt.

Last week was busy and exhausting, but as a team we feel like we have gained a lot that will help us in our future games. The first two teams we played were very challenging, but what we gained brought us together and gave us a win against Davidson.

Ever since the Davidson game, we have come together as a team, on and off the field. We're excited to go into the next game with this improved team dynamic. Last Friday, instead of practicing we took part in the Read Across America Day, and we went to Lafayette Elementary School to read to first graders. Our team just had as much fun as the little kids. just hanging out, laughing and reading classic elementary school stories.

We've been soaking up our days off, especially with this amazing weather. It reminds us how lucky we are and how unlucky our opponents are still freezing and shoveling snow off of their fields while we are soaking in this Cali sun. We have a long week of practice ahead, but we are ready to get prepared and work hard to take it to Notre Dame when we play them on our home field on Saturday.

GO BEARS!

- Tori and Tara

Feb. 25, 1010

Hello again!

Greetings from the steady downpour that is almost never-ending in Northern California right now. Despite the inclement weather we have been practicing all week, watching film and studying all the ways we can turn our unfortunate loss to UC Davis into an incredible learning experience that will propel us further and into our VERY busy weekend. This weekend we go up against some very tough competition including the reigning national champion, Northwestern.

Our game last Saturday was rough on us, but we've really stepped up the intensity this week in practice on and off the field. We are really excited to get back out on the field and prove what our team is really made of and most of all to have a blast playing these great teams. All of our housemates have been doing different things this week to help get us amped up for our games this weekend. The sophomore lacrosse and field hockey girls live together in a house we have nicknamed "The Penny" to go along with the other lacrosse houses, The Palm and Prospect. We all live on the same street, which has been very convenient as we are always popping in and out of each other's houses. This contributes to how close our team is, which is definitely an advantage we can use on the field.

We hope to see all of you out there at some of our games this weekend. We will be playing Ohio State on Friday at 3 p.m., Northwestern on Sunday at noon and wrapping our busy weekend up by playing Davidson on Tuesday.

GO BEARS!

- Tara and Tori

Feb. 19, 2010

Hi! Our names are Tori and Tara, and we are sophomores on the Cal lacrosse team. We will be writing blog entries every week to keep you updated on games, training and all of our team shenanigans.

We have arrived at the final countdown to the 2010 women's lacrosse season! We survived the grind of our preseason, and we are so excited to have the girls that we have been playing against this whole year finally on our side. We are so pumped to play our FIRST MPSF conference game against UC Davis this Saturday at 1 p.m. on the Aggies' turf.

We have had quite an eventful year already and overcome so many experiences as a team. All of this has even better prepared us mentally for this season.

As sophomores we have high expectations for this season to be so much better than last year. For us personally it means no more taking out the goals, counting the balls or sitting at the front of the bus, which we have gratefully passed down to our new freshmen. We have a strong freshman class that we can't wait to see step up and dominate out on the field. Our sophomore class has definitely matured and is ready to come out as a strong force. Our upperclassmen are out for blood this year and hope to lead our team to victory. We hope to get our first win of the season this Saturday and start the 2010 Cal lax season on a good note.

We hope to see you all out at Memorial Stadium supporting us this home season! We have an exciting schedule ahead of us!

- Tori and Tara