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 3
Boy do we have a lot of catching up to do. In the past two weeks we’ve gone back to boxing, played three games, and Boston got steam rolled by Nemo.
As promised, I will quickly report back on my boxing experience. Last week I attempted to paint a picture of how I imagined boxing felt. Well after completing my first class (the team’s second), I can honestly tell you sore doesn’t begin to describe it. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were sore for days. Anyone looking for good cross training, I strongly recommend hopping into boxing ring. Not only will you get an amazing workout, you will also have the perfect opportunity to relieve some stress and wail on the bag.
Practices are transitioning from small-sided work to a broader 7v7 and full field focus. In order to practice full field we need to actually be on a full field. So that means rain or shine, or 15° wind chill, we’ve been outside. The weather has been mostly cooperative and there have only been a couple of days I’ve lost all feeling in my fingers and toes. Every year people come up with more creative ways to keep their fingers from falling off; there’s the classic hands-in-the-shorts (or armpits), a couple people use Latex gloves to “trap the heat,” and then there are those who choose to flap their hands around wildly as if they’re imagining their hands are on fire, talk about power of the mid huh? The coaches have been covering everything; in the past two weeks we’ve revisited our attacking motions, transition plays, defensive strategy, and my personal favorite, the ride. I’m not sure I could explain the ride any better than to paraphrase USA head coach, Ricky Fried, when he describes it as the only time in a game where the entire team has the opportunity to work as a unit, from goalie to low attacker. Granted, this depends on what style of redefend your team uses; here at BU our entire team is involved in slowing down the other team’s transition and everyone works together to cause a turnover. I have always had a secret love and desire to play defense but never decided to test the waters of “middie life.” The ride is my opportunity to fulfill my defensive dream. Not that I wish for the other team’s goalie to make a save, or for our attack to get a turnover, but if I’m going to pull a positive out of a potentially bad situation, it’s that any time one of those things happens we get to ride. I also welcome the opportunity to return the bruises the defenders so kindly give us attackers (just kidding... break your feet down and don’t foul!).
If you’re reading an online blog I have to assume you keep up with social media fairly regularly. So it’s no news to you that the east coast found Nemo, not under the sea but in the form of the worst blizzard this coast has seen in decades. First can we take a second to discuss who is in charge of naming natural disasters? Sandy…Katrina…Irene…Issac…and now Nemo. Seriously?! I’d like to meet the man or woman who has the job of choosing the names, more importantly I would like to see what they’ve chosen to name their kids, those poor things probably have some weird celebrity-type names like Sea Foam Green or Pomegranate because mommy/daddy have exhausted all possible terrible names on these storms. This past weekend we planned to head down to University of Pennsylvania for a preseason tournament Friday night, play Saturday and return after the games; a quick 24 hour trip. Well Nemo stuck his lucky fin in that plan and instead we had to flee Boston Thursday afternoon and had to stay in Philly until Sunday morning. Our fast trip to UPenn turned into a 4-day spring break trip.
I can’t say I minded the extended trip. Away trips always provide a lot of laughs, some great team dinners, and the opportunity to play against some outside competition. One of the highlights of the trip was definitely dinner at our head coach’s parent’s house. Lucky for us Liz grew up in the Philly area and her parents were nice enough to invite all 25 of us to dinner at their home. The food was phenomenal of course but I think I most enjoyed seeing the childhood pictures. Unfortunately there was a strict no cell phone rule so I can’t share any of them with you but the mental image will be with me forever. I’d equate dinner at Liz’s house to seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store, you know they don’t live at the school, but seeing them out of their natural habitat always throws you for a loop; well seeing pictures of Liz as a little kid was similar, I obviously knew it happened but it’s a whole different story having the photo evidence.
On Saturday we finally had the chance to playa against people besides ourselves. First game out we played UPenn which is always a fun game; BU has a long history of seeing them in the NCAA tournament so somewhat of a rivalry has formed over the years. The second game was against Georgetown which was all kinds of fun for me. Not only is our former assistant and alumni, Lauren Morton (Mort), their assistant coach, their head coach Ricky Fried is my USA coach. Talk about feeling judged. To the best of my ability I tried to ignore the fact that literally every coach on the field has, at some point, coached me. They knew me inside and out. I know a lot of the girls felt like Mort was watching their every move and I honestly thought at some points she was going to yell stuff into us instead of the Hoyas. Of course that didn’t happen but I secretly think she was pretty close, especially when a certain teammate of mine moved after a whistle, I thought Mort was going to have an aneurism. It was great to see her so close to our sideline even though it was very strange having her coach against us. For our third and final game we faced UVA. Overall I think we had a good weekend, great to see different combinations of people on the field and always nice to see how you match up against other teams before the actual season starts. The hardest thing about the weekend is now waiting two more weeks before we play UMass! It was such a tease getting that little taste of outside competition. I am happy we have these weeks to fine tune and I think this weekend was very telling of the things we still have to work on.
Stay tuned to how these final practices go before the big showdown!