2017 Liberty Field Hockey Blog Aug. 11

Friday, Aug. 11, 2017

10:22 p.m.

Liberty field hockey practices and training started back up yesterday morning. There are 27 players on this year’s team, including 17 returners and 10 newcomers. I met most of the newcomers at Summer Bridge back in July but had yet to see them on the pitch.

I showed up to practice yesterday (Thursday) in the morning right as the girls were finishing up their run test. After the run test, I stayed for a short bit to watch them go through some drills.

At night, I came back to watch the team scrimmage. Kristie brought watermelon, like she traditionally does to the first night practice, so I helped her bring the cooler over to near the field. She cut up three large watermelons, and the girls got a little late night snack at the end of practice. It was good to reconnect with some of the returners and watch them play with the newcomers.

Today (Friday) was quite the busy day with morning practice, afternoon corners and scrimmage at night. Following morning practice, marketing and IT got together up in the press box for a systems test to ensure PA, music, etc. were all in working order for the start of the season (Aug. 26 at home vs. JMU).

During the afternoon session, the girls were split up and worked on corners on each end of the field. After practice, Nick and Tim did interviews with Coach Nikki, Alynn and Cass for a preseason update piece that I would post before I left work.

After the interviews, I got the chance to talk to a good amount of the sophomores and see how their summers were. They are now the “Crafty Sophomores”-we’ll see if the term and title sticks.

I came back around 7:55 to watch the evening’s scrimmage, which featured four segments (three 15-minute, one 10-minute). There was certainly some strong competition out there. It rained for some portions of the scrimmage and then would stop by a bit before starting back up. The girls are back at it again tomorrow for practice.

Last year’s mission for the team was “SOW BIG”, and this year it is “Just One”.

On Tuesday, we head to Richmond for a scrimmage against the Spiders.