It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a week of preseason; I feel as though it’s been at least a month. It’s funny how close you can get to people when you are isolated from the rest of society and forced to spend every waking hour together. However, the word forced might be unfair here; we choose to spend even our limited free time with our teammates. For example, three of my teammates and I are currently sitting together on the same couch reviewing video from some of our recent scrimmages. We had a long practice this morning, but we have gotten the afternoon off in a rare opportunity to rest our legs up for some more two-a-days. Having free time seems like such a strange concept that we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves.
To be honest, it feels as though the rest of the world doesn’t even exist during preseason. Eating, sleeping, and playing soccer are literally the only things that occupy our minds. And it’s great. I mean, who could complain about having no other responsibilities besides getting to practice on time and taking care of your body. On the one hand, taking care of your body is actually a big responsibility considering the work we put in on two-a days, but on the other hand there really isn’t any brainpower required. Most of our brainpower goes into comprehending all of the soccer knowledge thrown at us on a daily basis. We spend a lot of time watching video and analyzing how teams play in order to improve our own organization on the field. Whether it is a national team, a professional team, or another college team, our coaches can always find something for us to learn from another group of players (although it’s not always something good).
While we are spending most of our time learning right now, we do have an opportunity to apply what we’ve learned in only 4 days. This Saturday we are traveling to Georgetown to play in a scrimmage. Scrimmages are always fun to play and watch because they give us the chance to try new things that we wouldn’t always be comfortable trying. Who knows, maybe we will come up with a great new setup or free kick. After the scrimmage, our first true game is only a week from Friday. We are kicking off against West Virginia at 7:30 on August 22nd right here on our very own Jeffrey Field (which is looking beautiful by the way). We have had a rivalry going against WVU for a number of years no. For some reason we just can’t seem to stand each other when it comes to women’s soccer. Furthermore, one of our very own seniors from last year is now a WVU assistant coach. Things will definitely get interesting that night. So on that note, please come out and support us as we start our season off in just over a week!