Brandi's Blog
My First Game Back!!!: Part 2
It has been great getting to know all the players. I have teammates from Japan ,California, Oregon, Alabama, New Mexico, Arizona, and other places. We have been tearing each other up during training because each and everyone of us is battling bravely to make the squad, but never forgetting we are a team. That became apparent last night when we had our first scrimmage against someone other than ourselves. Everyone loves to scrimmage at training because it is fun, but when you do it for 15 or 16 trainings in a row, you want to take it out on someone else. We traveled by bus from our home office in Sunnyvale, CA north to Danville. Our 45 minute bus ride was fun. We laughed, especially over Eriko’s pocket translation computer. I know what it is like to be the only one in the group that is from somewhere else, having played in Japan for a year. So I felt the need, along with Tiffany Milbrett, to make her feel at home. We talked of our experience in the L League (ladies league in Japan), how much we missed it. When we got to our game location, we were early, and told to stay on the bus for another 20 minutes. That may have been the toughest 20 minutes of all. Seeing the field, the people that had come to watch, being in our team sweats, was like dangling presents in front of a kid and telling them not to open then for 20 minutes. NOT COOL. But it passed, and we made our way to the make shift locker where our coach gave a speech about the necessity of playing hard on defense and the need to enjoy possessing the ball on the attack. We then made our way to the field for warm up. Since the game was still apart of the tryout period, we had a ton of players warming up. Sissi, our well respected assistant coach ran the warm-up. We danced and clapped our way across the field in the true Brasilian style (well, except for Liz Bogus, she is still trying to figure out how to skip and her hands from side to side. She’s going to get it soon) The warm up was a bit accelerated, which for me was good, as I don’t need to expend any extra energy in the warm-up. And besides, it didn’t give us any time to become nervous (YES, I said nervous. I say I get nervous because it is my way of showing that I care about what I do, but not anxious about what I can literally do. Training has taken care of that part). So Leslie Osbourne and I were called to the midstripe to be the Captains for the game, which I secretly felt humbled by. The other team won the toss and we got the ball. Our line up was (and I am going to use the names I know, not full names, because I don’t know them all, I promise to know them the next time I write).
Whit
Leigh Ann Kristin Marissa Lindsay
Leslie Carrie
Brandi
Liz Eriko Tiffany
none.