North Carolina State University Athletics
What is she THINKING?!?!
2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Feb. 21, 2006
Weekend in Auburn, Alabama, Feb. 10-12 - Smooth sailing getting to Atlanta, as coach Jay and I flew out earlier than the team to have dinner with two of our incoming freshman. It was nice to spend the time with Claudia Cooper and her mother, and Lauren Peters and her father. We now had to meet up with the team in Atlanta, so it was back to the stress of carting 25 people around. Coach Jay and I drove around Atlanta airport a few times as we wanted to pick up 25 people and the cops keep making you circle. Everyone can now relate to my stress level when we travel!
E.J., Patrick and I went to rent our other vans. We tried to get another 12 passenger but they were rented out, so we settled on three minivans and a 12 passenger. I thought I purchased some nice bags from NIKE with wheels for the kids, but little did I know that they were huge and we needed another van just for them. Tess told you the story of Mac's bag being filled to the brim, which says it all.
After finally getting all of the kids and luggage into the vans, we had a 1.5 hour drive to Auburn. Oops, I forgot the kids needed to eat. Coach Michelle and I stared at each exit making the tough decision, "where to eat?", as the other three vans followed with stomachs' growling.
Wendy's it is ..... Wendy's or any fast food restaurant is an experience. They are never happy that a team walks in and we just want to eat, especially when it is late at night and they are trying to close down the place. Yes, I ate again. I'm sure it's either a nervous habit or a never ending stomach.
Back in the vans now, coach Michelle and I were in the van with all the bags. It's great they don't speak and I get to pick what music I want. She called the hotel to double check the exit and we managed to find it without getting lost.
What a great hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn. They had nice big rooms, a fridge and a fruit basket for me. It made the trip more enjoyable, that's for sure. I did share the fruit with Brooke. Her eyes just light up when she gets fruit.
The first game: A slow start but we had some highlights. Jess Willems made a great slide at home to score our first run. It was just beautiful, I had to calm myself down because I tend to get excited, contrary to popular belief. I guess the only down part of the game is we didn't hit as well as I expected but it will come around and we won 4-1.
For our first night game... IT WAS COLD. The running joke with the team is how many layers I have on each cool or cold day. Well I have four on top and four on bottom for the night game. We had our sporadic hits but couldn't put anything together to get things rolling.
Long night in the hotel, I didn't sleep much. Realizing it was just the first day, I worried even more.
Now to Day Two: Playing Auburn, I'm a bit nervous but up for the challenge. Auburn has been scoring 6-15 runs a game, we were not. I was proud of the fight in our kids for the game. Our mistakes were ones we could take care of so it gives me hope for the future and we lost 2-0.
My vivid memory of the Auburn game was the devouring of the brownie's before, Blair told you about that one, you can read about it on the player's diary page.
Our game with Miami of Ohio was unreal. I now went to two sets of gloves on the hands and another jacket for record breaking five layer day. It started snowing during the game and kept coming down for most of it. We again did not get the offense going but we only lost 1-0. Shaina pitched well but the bats were frozen.
Sunday morning I had a nice conversation with one of the baseball coaches from Florida State. We played Minnesota and had not thawed out from the night before. After a couple of wake up call with the bats we finally strung something together to score four runs to win, but we are freezing. We found out later that Auburn and FSU did not play baseball that day because it was so cold... but we did!!!
I think one of the best parts of our trips is the amount of parents that attend the games. I felt bad to see them in the stands freezing. I wanted to go up and take a few blankets away from them. It was good to see everyone.
We had our usual quick drive to the airport because I was a bit relaxed at lunch not remembering the hour time change. No problem we made it in one piece.
