Sept. 19, 2006
Throughout the season, junior Maddie Senkosky will provide a behind-the-scenes diary of the Missouri soccer team. The first entry gives a glipse at the preseason, Mizzou's exhibition game against Vanderbilt and the season's opening weekend.
To put it lightly, this season has been nothing like the rest. Our teamwork, style of play, ambitions and accomplishments are following our plan of action rather than the fate of our opponents. We are finally experiencing the payoff from the death sentences we put ourselves through in the off-season. The break down:
Preseason
It seems like the scariest time of the season. For some programs these are the hardest days the team faces. For us, it is just a time for adjustment and learning. We train our hardest over the summer in order to focus on the soccer/technical part during two-a-days, and "do our fitness on the ball," as Coach Blitz said. Each of us passed a fitness test before starting the two days on, one day off schedule. We would train hard in the mornings and typically scrimmage each other or the boys club team in the evenings. By the end of the 10 days, we were itching to play a real game so we could go up against people we didn't know rather than beating up our friends.
Vanderbilt
Our trip to Vanderbilt was the beginning to a new season. We had new roomies, new people sitting next to on the bus and new people to play next to. Different from last year, WE now got to plan what we do and where we go on the road. Since it was the first trip, the seniors planned it all out.
We start each game day with breakfast and writing out our personal goals. After we eat, we head up to our rooms, do whatever each of us needs to do to prepare for the game and then head down to watch video. To get our energy going, Amy (Edwards, Assistant Coach) and Randy (Hall, Volunteer Assistant Coach) cut game tape and/or film from the field to put together a blooper-type video. It gets us all laughing and excited to head to the field.
The actual game was frustrating. The weather was really humid and hot, making our play sluggish and slow. We felt, as a group, we had shown much more in scrimmages than the way we played in the game. However, we did a lot of good things and finished on opportunities we wouldn't have in the past. The game finished 2-2!
Iowa and Illinois
The next week of training flew by because it was the first week of school and we were finally out of two-a-days. Everyone was adjusting to our new schedules but really excited to get to the weekend. We knew we had two hard opponents ahead of us and we wanted to see how we would play out in real games.
Iowa's game brought out a good crowd and it was nice to play at home again, winning 2-0. Saturday we recovered with an hour of stretching, a 15-minute massage and mentally prepared for Sunday's game. We have always had a rival with Illinois. After all, they were ranked in the preseason rankings and we weren't. We thought we were good enough to beat them but we had to prove it first.
Game day came and we played with a lot of energy. We scored on easy opportunities as well as taking advantage of our chances. We played well as a team by stretching for balls we wouldn't have gone for in the past outworking them for a 5-0 victory.