Boston College Athletics
BC Weekly Diary With Lindsey Marshall
September 18, 2001 | Women's Soccer
September 4, 2001
We kicked off our official season with a game against UMass-Amherst. The team traveled to Springfield, Mass. on Friday afternoon. The game wasn't until Saturday night, but coach thought it was a good idea to take the team away from all distractions such as noisy dorms and the football game. Our mindsets were to be focused on only soccer.
Game day had arrived. We woke up in the morning and took a jog and stretch to loosen up our bodies. Following the jog was breakfast. Between breakfast and our pregame dinner, we focused on our team and the opponents. We watched a video of our opponents to assess them on an individual and team basis. The pregame talk placed some excitement and a few nerves in our bodies. Our team was pumped to play our first game.
The bus ride to the field was pretty quiet. People were either listening to their headphones or holding quiet conversations.
It was game time. Our first game, under the lights, in front of a large crowd, what more could you ask for? The warm up wasn't as intense as I expected. Some of the team was complaining about the length of the grass. I could tell that our minds weren't totally focused.
The game was full of emotions. Our play was dictated by our minds. After being scored on first, our level of intensity dropped. About 55 minutes into the game, we were down by three goals. All of a sudden the momentum changed. We tied the game up by the end of regulation. Never have we been able to come back from such a deficit. This proved that we had a lot of character to come back from being down three goals.
The first overtime was completely in our hands. We dominated UMass and had lots of incredible chances to score. We just couldn't put one way. The second overtime reverted back to play similar to the first half. Our intensity dropped, we weren't winning balls, and they took advantage of us. UMass scored seven minutes into the second overtime to take the victory. Our heads and hearts dropped as they celebrated like they had just one the national championship.
Well, it wasn't the result that we wanted, but we are lucky that it happened to us early on. We will learn from this experience and become a better team because of it. It is in the past and we are totally focused on our game against Georgia this coming weekend.
