The 2013 season is here and we wanted to work closely with college programs to bring a part of the excitement to you. Throughout the 2013 season we will highlight lacrosse programs on our space for all of our readers to follow. Player blogs serve as a unique outlet for programs to showcase their season as it develops, plus highlight everything they have to offer a student-athlete. In contrast, families and fans get a glimpse into the program’s athletic and academic regimen.
Danielle Etrasco
Senior – #13 – Attacker
Boston University
Week 7: Luck of the Irish
Wow, it’s been a while. When we last left off, I was on the plane ride home from Denver, which at this point seems like an eternity ago. When we first got home all the dorms were locked because BU was still technically on Spring Break; luckily, my building stays open during breaks and holidays so I could go home to my own bed. Our freshmen were not so lucky and four of them came home with me to our suite. Now, I already live with 7 other girls, 5 of whom are on my team, plus these four freshmen, coming off of an entire week of close quarters and team bonding. It was a lot of time together to say the least.
Here at BU we have a spring break tradition where each class performs a skit that usually mocks the entire rest of the team. The freshman kicked off the night and despite some anxious faces and the classic I-hope-we’re-doing-this-right nervous giggles they did a good job. The sophomores built off of their skit from the previous year employing a game show theme to individually callout every member of the team. Keep in mind our coaches are present the entire night and apparently the girls get some weird pleasure out of tossing each other under the bus because let me tell you, they didn’t hold anything back. The coaches are also not spared from the mockery. All of the classes had fun imitating our slightly hyperactive assistant coach, Kim Hillier. Of course it’s always terrifyingly amusing to poke a little fun at Liz (Robertsthaw) and sophomore Lindsay Weiner delivered the best Liz performance to date with spot on facial expressions and accurate one-liners. It’s all in good fun though and the next day I heard more than one complaint about abs being sore from laughing.
I don’t know if it was the Bertuccis we ate the night before, or all the good vibes from the skit but the next day everyone was amped and ready to go against Ohio State. It was an awesome game on one of our first truly nice days in Boston. For any athletes out there, you know the feeling when you step onto the field, court, ice, whatever your terrain may be, and you just know; you just know everything is going to click. Your teammates are holding their heads high, shoulders back, walking with confidence you have never seen; that was this game. For my team as a whole and for me personally, it was one of the best games of my career to date. Now, if only I can remember what I ate for dinner, how many hours I slept, where I had breakfast, how much water I drank in oz...so much for not being superstitious. Also, congrats to freshman Louisa del Rio on her first collegiate goal!
The next day was St. Paddy’s day, which, in Boston, is a huge deal. Probably has something to do with all those Irish people living in Southie. Most of us made the trek and got our green on at the parade; even my French/Italian side had a great time celebrating good ol’ Saint Patrick.
As fun as the weekend was we had a lot of work to do for the week coming up. That Wednesday we played BC and in the first half things were looking good for us. In the second half, we were taught a lesson on the importance of draw controls, team defense, and attacking execution. As has been the theme of the season, we did not have a lot of time to dwell on the game because we had UMBC three days later. After a long game, and two overtime periods, UMBC got a goal with 7 seconds left and sealed the deal. What was even worse was that we had to go to this team fundraising event right after the game and be social. That’s all well and good if you win, but after a loss, the fact that we had to sit there and interact normally with adults who thankfully were mostly family but you still have to be nice and friendly. So that was tough, but hey, that’s life. It’s always hard to lose, but two games in one week, if you’re an athlete you know, it’s the worst. It wears you down, and can be challenging to bounce back from but after a lot of discussion and both individual and team reflection, and a great week of practice focusing on fundamentals and confidence, I can say that I feel good about our game tomorrow against Harvard.