Summertime!

Hello once again!

The school year has finally ended! It is so great to be home, be able to relax once again, and not have to worry about any school work at the moment. The only thing that I am concerned with at the time is the amount of laundry my mom will leave for me to fold in the morning. Unfortunately, I just found out that my break doesn’t last very long, as I have to go back to Baltimore for my summer job this Sunday, but for the next couple of days, I plan on doing absolutely nothing, worrying about absolutely nothing, and eating as much home-cooked food as possible before its back to cereal and English muffins.

Post season ended only a couple of weeks ago. It’s weird knowing that I will be an upperclassman next year and that two years have already flown by. Where does the time go? The fact that it is summertime still hasn’t hit me. It feels like I am still in the middle of my freshman year. I am finally starting to understand what Meredith Tolley, Erica DiClemente, and Melissa Bangay were talking about in the beginning of my freshman year when they said that we need to take advantage of the time we have together because time flies and before we know it we will be graduating and leaving Loyola like they were about to do. They were right, I am already halfway through college and it’s really freaking me out since I am a statistics major, and have no clue what kind of job I will be able to get when I graduate.

This year’s post season was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Our coaches pushed us to a level we never thought we would be able to reach. We were able to grow as basketball players, grow as a team, and grow as individuals. Although the workouts were extremely hard and tiring on our bodies, we were able to get through them together, which in my opinion made our team even stronger. We all had to struggle and work together.

This summer should be fun, but eventful. Unlike last year, I will be taking a class (Biology) this summer. One of my roommates from the past two years will also be taking a class, so we will be rooming together and our suitemates will be Nicole Krusen and Katie Sheahin. I hear summer school is very different from the actual school year. I am not sure what people mean by the word different, but I’m excited to find out. It will all be worth it in the end because I will be working, I will get a few credits out of the way, and I will be playing basketball almost every day.

The majority of the team, as well as two of our incoming freshmen will be taking courses during the first summer session. It will be nice to bond with one another in our down time. The fact that we have a lot of free time in the summer will give me the opportunity to obtain enough information about each player to write about them in my blogs.

Enjoy the beautiful weather and make sure you follow our men’s and women’s lacrosse teams, as they both won their conference tournament and will be headed to the NCAA tournament shortly! Go Hounds!

Beginning the Offseason

Hello everyone!!

I apologize for taking so long to write to you all again! Schoolwork and post season have kept me pretty busy!

Last year, because we went to the second round of the NIT, we only had a few weeks of school remaining, so we didn’t really have a post season. We would schedule our own workouts with our trainer Brian and do them whenever we wanted. This year on the other hand is basically the complete opposite. We have been working out extremely hard and I think I can speak for all of us when I say my body has never been more exhausted. On a normal day, we will have lift/conditioning with Brian as well as shooting with the coaches or an individual practice with the coaches for about 45 minutes. We will play pick-up about two or three times a week as well. It may not sound like a lot, but trust me, it is. Sometimes we will even have 6:30am practices and it’s always a struggle getting out of bed at 5:30 in the morning.
I’m so excited to see all of this hard work go to good use during the season. I’m going to quote Nai right now when I say, “We are going to be the fastest, strongest, and prettiest team in the MAAC”. I really do believe that these workouts now will definitely benefit us in the future, especially in February and March. Today, Coach Logan said he is going to stretch our abilities and push us to the next level. This makes me excited so see what is to come!

I am currently on the train going home for Easter Break and it feels as though I have been away from home for months even though it has only been about three weeks since spring break. I’m more than excited to see my family and to be able to relax. These past few weeks have been extremely stressful with basketball and schoolwork. All of my professors felt it was necessary to have exams, papers, and projects right before everyone left for break. Thankfully I made it out alive and won’t have to worry about anything for the next 5 days.

I’m going to start picking individual players on my team to write about. I think you will really enjoy them. Hope you have a Happy Easter and eat a lot of the Reese’s Easter eggs.

Maacachusetts

Hello everyone!

Our season unfortunately just ended with out loss to the Niagara Purple Eagles 77-63 in the quarterfinals of the MAAC tournament. We finished our season with a 13-17 record, which was of course not what we wanted to end out season with, but a better record and winning the MAAC championship is something we can strive towards for next year.

Our men’s team wound up winning the MAAC championship this year, which was so exciting!! They definitely deserved it this year, and I am so happy for them. This is the first time they are headed for the NCAA tournament since 1994, which is a huge accomplishment. This Sunday they will be finding out whom they will be playing in the first round of the tournament and where they will be playing. Hopefully they can keep winning and show the world what they are capable of doing.

This year seemed to fly by for me. I guess the saying “time flies when you’re having fun” really is true. Playing basketball and being with these girls is something I love doing. Many people do not realize how fortunate we are to be a part of a team, where we will always have people to turn to and count on.

Coach Logan gave us the rest of our spring break off, so I headed for home for the week. We will begin our post-season workouts on Monday. The off-season/post season is different in the sense that we will not be traveling anymore for away games, we won’t be practicing as a whole team with the coaches, and we won’t be spending nearly as much time together as we spent during the season. We still continue to work out, but these workouts will mainly be with our personal fitness trainer Brian.

The team went through its ups and downs this season, like all teams do, but in the end, we all seemed to click and become one. When you spend close to 4 hours a day with your teammates, your lifestyle changes. After a certain amount of time, these girls weren’t just my teammates, they were family. I consider my team and my coaches to be my family away from home. Everyone on the team understands what we go through as basketball players. We are all in the same boat when it comes to managing our time appropriately in order to do well in the classroom and do well on the court. Everyone experiences the stress of completing study hall hours, missing classes for games, and making up missed work. We are all able to relate to one another’s problems, which actually seem to bring us closer towards one another.

I am really looking forward to this summer and next year! Because I am a walk-on that is not on scholarship, I am unable to take summer courses like all of my other teammates, so I take a trip down to Baltimore during the summer and spend a couple weeks at school to workout with the team and play with them. The girls on my team are all required to attend one summer school session each summer. Some people choose to attend both summer school sessions in order to get some classes out of the way. The sessions are usually close to seven weeks long.

Being an upperclassman next year is definitely going to be weird to me because it still feels/looks like I am a small freshman. It’s definitely not going to be the same without our seniors from this year: Kat, Miriam, and Kiara. I don’t think anyone is going to take their place, but I am excited to see what our incoming freshman can do and what they can offer to the team.

Please support our men’s basketball team in the NCAA tournament this year, as well as our Men and Women’s lacrosse team, who seem to be doing extremely well so far! Also, thank you for supporting the Loyola Women’s basketball team this year and please continue to follow us in the future!

End of the Regular-Season

Hello all!

Everyone knew this week would be an exciting one. We were given the opportunity to face those who are considered to be the two best teams in the MAAC right before going into the MAAC tournament; Fairfield on Friday and Marist on Sunday. Almost every day at practice Coach Logan mentioned the fact that he wouldn’t want to be playing any other teams this time of year and that this was a privilege and a great opportunity.

On Thursday night, we left for Bridgeport, Connecticut, home of the Fairfield Stags, who we would face Friday night. We wound up getting to the hotel pretty late and tried going right to sleep because we had shoot around early the next morning. We faced the Stags at 7pm Friday night. It wound up being a close game throughout, but the Stag’s were able to pull away with a victory, beating us 44-42. We had many key turnovers and did not shoot well from the free throw line, which is somewhat frustrating since we only lost by 2.

Sunday afternoon was both our Senior Day and our Women in Sports Day. Overall it was an extremely exciting day with a fantastic atmosphere. Hundreds and hundreds of young female athletes came to support us during our game against our rivals, the Marist Red Foxes. It was so sad to think that this would be our last home game of the season, and our seniors would soon be leaving us. No one will be able to replace the outstanding people they are and they will always hold a special place in my heart. I’m sure everyone else on our team would say the same. Everyone but the seniors spent the night before senior day and senior day morning making posters, printing out pictures, and decorating the entire locker room for the seniors on their special day. I think the seniors really liked what we did and hopefully it will be a day that they will never forget.

Sunday morning before shoot around, the coaches got posters made of the heads of the seniors and walked into the locker room holding the heads in front of their faces and acting out Kat, Miriam, and Kiara’s actions and personalities. It was absolutely hilarious and everyone thought it was a great idea. After watching a little more film of Marist, we went up onto the court to walk through some of the plays and concepts of what we would see that afternoon. After shoot around, we had a pregame meal, where we watched our senior goodbyes video. All of the non-seniors were filmed saying goodbye to the seniors and wishing them luck in the future. The freshmen wound up making skits and pretended to be the seniors, which made everyone burst out into laughter. They definitely win the award for most creative and funniest.

Unfortunately we were unable to defeat Marist on such a special day. We ended up losing the game 67-60. In order to win this game, we needed to play to the best of our ability, and I don’t think we did so. Winning games come down to what team has the least amount of turnovers, who capitalizes on all of the fundamentals, and who has more heart. We needed to make foul shots, win every loose ball, and want to win more than they did.

We have officially ended our regular season of basketball on Sunday and will be heading to the MAAC tournament in Springfield, Massachusetts on Wednesday afternoon. Because we wound up placing 4th in our conference, our first game will be held on Friday afternoon against the Niagara Purple Eagles. Hopefully there will be a video blog, so you will be able to get the full experience.

Video Blog from Saint Peter’s/Iona

Racing Towards The End of the Regular-Season

Hello everyone!!

I am sorry to say that we wound up taping our whole weekend trip to St. Peter’s and Iona, but during the last day away from Baltimore, our flip camera broke, so we won’t be having a video blog this week. And I apologize for this blog being a little late. I have been pretty swamped in homework and studying the past several nights.

I was especially excited for our game against St. Peter’s because Jersey City is only about an hour or so away from my home, so my family made the trip up to our game to watch us defeat St. Peter’s 61-54. We had a guest visit from Patty Stoffey Edelman, who is Loyola’s all-time leading scorer with 2,467 points in collegiate career. She helped her team make it to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history back-to-back years during her junior and senior year. It was so cool getting to meet the best basketball player in Loyola history after our game and hear what she had to say.

During one of our media timeouts, my 10-year-old sister Natalie participated in one of the media timeout challenges. My brother had recorded her performance and showed me after our game. Natalie had the opportunity to win a hat, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt. Her challenge was to take a layup (if she made this, she would win the hat), then she would shoot a foul shot (if she made this, she would win the t-shirt), and finally she would take a three-pointer (if she made this, she would win a sweatshirt). Natalie wound up going 3 for 3, which is the first time in St Peter’s school history that someone did so. I’m so proud of the little baller she has become.You can watch the video of her at the top of the page if you would like to see for yourself.

The following day, we had an extremely light practice. A lot of people needed to rest their bodies and heal any injuries before our game against Iona the following day. After practice, Coach Logan surprised the team with allowing us to go go-karting. Of course, me being the competitive person I am, I took the race seriously and tried so hard to win. Some people might say Nai beat me by passing me during the last lap, but she actually started a car ahead of me, so we actually tied for 1st place.

Our game against Iona wound up not going the way we had wanted it to go. We ended up losing the game 72-65. Our shots were not falling in the first half, shooting 0-6 from 3-point range. We also did not play defense to the best of our ability. We may very well see Iona again in the MAAC tournament, which is next weekend. If we do see them again, hopefully we will get some revenge and defeat the Gaels.

Well I’m off to do some more studying! Tune into our games this weekend against Fairfield in Bridgeport, CT on Friday at 7pm and our final home game against the Marist Red Foxes on Sunday at 4pm in Reitz Arena. Sunday’s game happens to be our senior day and it is also our Women in Sports day game, so come out and support us Hounds and our seniors during a game against our rivals!

Five In A Row

Hello again!!

After our win against Rider last Saturday, Coach Logan gave us both Sunday and Monday off to rest our bodies and catch up on schoolwork. It was nice being able to get ahead on the workload I had to do this past week and it was really nice being able to relax. Our starting five have been playing a lot of minutes, and it wouldn’t be natural if their bodies weren’t hurting them, so I think the couple of days we had off allowed them to recover and heal all of the bumps and bruises they had gotten in the past couple of games.

We got back to work on Tuesday; starting to prepare ourselves for the two new teams we would be seeing on Friday (Iona) and Sunday (Fairfield). Because we had never played these teams before this year, we needed to really focus during practice and work hard in order to prepare ourselves for the two great teams we were about to face.

Going into Friday’s game against Iona, my teammate Katie Sheahin was only 8 points away from reaching 1000 and only 1 steal away from being the all-time leader in school history. Right away in the game, Katie was able to get the one steal she needed to beat the school record, and not long after, she was able to reach 1000 points. We were all so excited for her amazing accomplishments. To be a 1,000-point scorer and hold the steal record as a junior is amazing. We wound up beating Iona’s strong team 66-60. Not long after our game, our men’s team also faced the Iona Gaels. Loyola and Iona were both tied for first place in the MAAC going into the game, and this game would decide who would be in first and who would be in second in the standings. Reitz arena was packed and our men’s team gave quite the performance, beating Iona 87-81 and taking 1st in the MAAC.

We only had Saturday to prepare for Fairfield, who is also a very strong team, like Iona. We spent a lot of time watching film of Fairfield, learning about personnel, and walking through a lot of plays. We knew that we could not back down and had to leave everything on the court in order to win this game.

On Sunday morning we had 7:30am shoot around before our pregame meal, which was at 8am. As college students, we didn’t like the idea of having to wake up so early for shoot around, but it was necessary because we needed to learn more about Fairfield’s many plays and we needed to start mentally preparing ourselves for our 12 pm game.

Sunday was our Play 4Kay game, where we wore pink uniforms for breast cancer awareness and in memory of Kay Yow, who was the head coach of North Carolina State who passed away from stage 4 breast cancer a few years ago. It was great to see a lot of people come support the cause and support us during our game.

We were successfully able to defend our home court and defeat Fairfield 55-48. Overall we played very well as a team and played our hardest despite the fact that we had another game only two days before and everyone was banged up. Our defense was our main strength during the game. Fairfield’s team averages 6 made 3-pointers per game, and we were able to hold them to only 3 3-pointers and forced them to turn the ball over 12 times in the first half.

This weekend we are on the road again. We will be facing St. Peter’s on Friday and Iona on Sunday. I believe we will be doing another video blog this weekend that I think you will enjoy!