
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 17th 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 18th 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!
Leave a comment