The Worst Weekend Ever

The following is an example of how hard it is to complain about our lives.

Us Foresters attend school in a beautiful suburb of one the country's greatest cities. Our campus is less than a mile from one of the world's largest lakes. We live with our best friends, have food prepared for us in an above-average cafeteria, and we don't have to do our own dishes. We attend small classes of our choosing taught by excellent (and occasionally amusing) professors. And with our free time we get to play a game. To help us out the school gives us uniforms and coach buses and pretty great fields.

But sometimes we have to take long bus trips...like to Grinnell, Iowa.
Caroline Stearns catches up on sleep

We had to take one such trip over the weekend. A scheduling quirk meant that we had to travel to Grinnell Friday night, play a tough conference team Saturday, travel back home, and play another conference team Sunday afternoon. Not easy.

But it worked out. We won our game on Saturday and then cheered the boys to victory as well.
Watching the Men's game

Yay! Molly's brother Max scored a goal!

Okay, so it isn't all sunshine and pancakes. We had to eat dinner at a truck stop twice in 24 hours. Our muscles were sore and our legs were tired for our Sunday game and we certainly didn't play the best soccer of our lives against Beloit. But two weekend victories means we are guaranteed a spot in the Conference Tournament.

This upcoming weekend we get to host two games at home, so no bus trips or truck stops. Whew!

Three Priorities, a Fun Hobby, and Two Endorsements

During the season we like to say that our kids have three things that take precedence over everything else. The first, of course, is family. The second is academics. Lake Forest College is an academically demanding school. The Conference, the Athletic Department, and the coaches try to make it as easy as possible for our kids to do well in school in (and out) of season. Finishing a strong third is soccer and the team. In season, all of those priorities mean that there isn't a ton of time for other things. Still, our student athletes seem to find plenty of time for napping, socializing, and watching Grey's Anatomy and Jersey Shore.

Over the week of homecoming a few players competed (I use that term VERY loosely) in a Intramural volleyball tournament. Pretty sure they had fun dressing up and playing even if we learned they aren't terribly good at volleyball.
Rocky spent quite a bit of time on the floor

They might have had a better chance of winning if they could stop laughing for 5 seconds
Rocky takes Webby out. And they still lost the point.


Two extremely unofficial endorsements:

If you see a Forester chewing gum during a game or practice it is most likely Extra peppermint flavor. Coach Geiser provides the gum and prefers Extra peppermint for its long lasting flavor, general chewability, and breath freshening capabilities.


Since our season takes place in the autumn months, many of the Foresters favorite things are associated with apples, pumpkins, apple cider, and changing leaves. A beverage that seems to encapsulate all of those in one warm, yummy package is the Pumpkin Spice Latte. Alumnae who are feeling a little homesick for Forester Soccer have been known to drive far out of their way to pick a PSL up as a spirit-boost.

Playing Our Game

This week has been pretty fun for a number of reasons. Tops on the list has been the weather. Practice is always more fun when the sun is out, the air is crisp, and the grass is green.

The second has been that this week we have a singular focus: Play well against Carroll. "Winning" is something that we can think about, but mostly, if we play 90 minutes of our soccer: smart, hard, skilled Forester Soccer, we will have put ourselves in a position to come out with a victory. We can go into Homecoming Weekend feeling good about ourselves, our effort, our intensity, and our week of practice.

Not to say that we aren't pretty focused on doing all that AND winning. Just saying "victory" is sometimes out of our hands. All that other stuff we can control--effort and heart and soccer smarts, while occasionally elusive, are still more more tangible than a goal of "let's win!"

If you want to see us open up Lake Forest Homecoming Weekend with our best effort against our toughest Conference opponent, please tune in at 4:30pm tomorrow. The game will be available for viewing on the internet here

Wish us luck!

Falling Behind and Staying Ahead

Whew.

A whirlwind week last week for us. Two weeknight games on the road means late nights for both players and coaches. Eating dinner at Taco Bell in Kenosha, WI at 10pm on a Thursday certainly leaves a little something to be desired...

A few positives from a two-loss week: we tried a new formation, had some excellent moments against a skilled team, improved our soccer IQ a bit, and enjoyed a much-needed weekend off.

This week our focus is on one thing: picking up a victory at home against Carroll University to open up Homecoming Weekend at Lake Forest College. Our current seniors have not beaten Carroll in their career and it is beginning to feel like it's time.

Happy Monday! The countdown to Carroll is at 100 hours...