Another quick road trip and another W in the Win column!  These one game away weekends seem to fly by as the days are filled with travel.  The running joke on these trips is that all we do is eat, sleep, and play soccer! 

Just to show you what its like, our schedule this past weekend looked like this: we flew out of State College at 10:30 am, connected in Philly, and arrived in Indianapolis around 4:30 pm.  From the airport in Indianapolis we drove straight to the practice fields in Bloomington (about an hour from the airport) for our normal pre-game practice.  After practice we went straight to dinner around 7 o'clock, then finally to the hotel!  By the time, we got back to the hotel and showered up from practice it was around 10-11 o'clock.  By this time, everyone is tired from a full day of travel and usually does a little homework and falls asleep as we were up at 7 am the next day for a jog and stretch. 

After the jog and stretch was our pre-game breakfast before we left for the fields for our 11 am game versus Indiana!  Therefore, as you can see it is a busy two days with practically just eating, sleeping, and soccer!  However, this is what we love to do and wouldn't trade these days for anything.

To recap the game a little for you, it started out a very slow game as our coaches told us it would with Indiana wanting to try to slow the game down.  However, even with a slow start we were able to put a goal in early on a transition play with Jess Rosenbluth slotting the ball to Maya Hayes for her 17^th goal on the season.  The rest of the half was back and forth with pretty equal opportunities for either team.

 At halftime, we knew it wasn't our best performance and we came out with more urgency and pushed for more goals and more possession in the second half.  We played much better the second half and continued to rack up our set piece goals with Carly Niness scoring off a corner by Ali Schaefer!  Just two minutes later Maya Hayes scored her Division 1 leading 18^th goal of the season with an amazing goal off a punt by our goalie Erin McNulty.  The goalie was off her line, and Maya took the ball off the bounce and volleyed it over the keeper from around 20 yards out!  Let's just say everyone went wild yesterday when we watched film on the game!  It was an exciting second half and another win to keep us on top of the Big Ten heading into a big home weekend with newcomer Nebraska on Friday and Iowa on Sunday.

Not only is this a big weekend for us, but for Penn State as a whole as it is Homecoming week!  This is exciting as we have many Alumni coming back for our game as well as the football game.  Our game time on Friday was changed to 8 p.m. due to the homecoming parade. 

So now, there is plenty of time to see both!  Friday will also be our Think Pink game as we play for those who have been affected by breast cancer and raise money for research to cure such a terrible disease.  If coming to our game isn't enough of a draw, Friday night the top two scorers in the country, #1 Penn State's Maya Hayes, and #2 Nebraska's Morgan Marlborough will be playing against each other right here on Jeffery Field.

Sunday's game vs. Iowa at 11 a.m. also brings some excitement as it is Military Appreciation day as we recognize all those in the military and everything they do to keep our country free and safe that allows us to play the game we love.  It is also a doubleheader with the men's team who will be playing Northwestern right after our game. 

Come celebrate homecoming and Think Pink with us on Friday night as we take on Nebraska at 8 p.m. for the first time in the Big Ten.  Then on Sunday help us celebrate all our military members as we take on Iowa at 11 a.m. as a doubleheader with the men's team!

WE ARE!