Hello Everyone!
Here at Hartwick, we are back to classes after our brief October Break. It’s time to wrap-up everything that happened this fall! Time flies during fall ball so we have a lot to tell you about, highlighted by our Play Day at RPI and our first annual Team Olympics!
The rain didn’t stop us on October 14th as we travelled to RPI to take on Oneonta State, Union, RPI and Skidmore in a round robin tournament. Given our low numbers this fall ball, it was the first time we were really to field a full team and face new opponents. After 14 practices, you’re dying to take on someone other than one of your teammates! The girls were excited and ready to play together as well as see the strides we made this fall.
We saw some things we liked and a few things we need to work on. Some highlights included seeing the freshmen step up and have some strong performances in their first ever college games and seeing how the units played as a whole. We used our play day as a means for experiential learning, trying new combinations of players, switching around positions and testing out offensive sets. It was important for us to gauge all of these in a game setting to see how our girls could respond to the challenge. We certainly have a lot to learn but I believe we have great potential to get better this year and to do some really nice things. The play day fueled the fire to work hard this off season because we all saw in bits and pieces how we can play and everyone is now determined to make that happen. We learned from our mistakes, took note of our successes and learned from our opponents what works and what doesn’t. Now, we just have to make the changes and stay focused on the ultimate goal by getting better each and every day.
We ended our play day with a feast at Dinosaur BBQ with the team and our families. We celebrated our hard work this fall, our hopes for the spring and Selena’s 18th birthday with more food than one can imagine!
To conclude our fall ball, our team took part in Team Olympics, in honor of the Olympic Games this summer. The coaches designed 12 different events, mostly lacrosse related and divided the team up into 4 smaller teams. At the end of each practice, we held trials for the event for that day, giving the teams the opportunity to strategize and decided who they would like to put forth for the actual Olympic games. The events ranged from more trivial categories such as best team name and costume to team trivia and Wick Lax history trivia to quickest first step and stickwork challenges. Everyone had at least one event they could shine in and some of the events required the collaboration of all of their teammates.
Finally, on October 15th, it was time for the Team Olympics to get underway. The girls did not disappoint in their costumes and proved to be very clever in their team names. It was a tight race in the beginning but, ultimately, one team ended up running away with it- congratulations to Doug, Kia, Selena and Steph Luce on your win! Team trivia was a favorite in the Olympic games, as teammates were put on the spot to answer very random and seldomly known fun facts about their teammates and coaches. Other events showed some great speed in the 40 yard dash and impressive stickwork in the very difficult stickwork challenge. Overall, the games were a great success and something we’d like to make a part of the Hartwick Women’s Lacrosse tradition. Who will win it all next year??
Thank you again to all our supporters this fall! We can’t wait to see you all at a game our two this spring; it should be a year to remember! For now, it’s back to work in the classroom and on the field.
