Hello!
It's official, the Malley pool is finally gone! We are no longer practicing on campus. But, we couldn't go without a proper goodbye! We made sure that on Monday our team met to take pictures in the empty pool. I think we had a little too much fun because Coach kept asking us if we were done yet! Us girls can never have enough pictures. On Tuesday we had a ground breaking ceremony. Both the women's and the men's water polo teams attended, in addition to some alumni. Their were members of the administration and additional donors there as well. We gave a big thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan and watched Mr. Sullivan and Coach take the first couple swings at the pool to help begin the demolition process! We are practicing at West Valley College for the remainder of season. The sudden change in pool size has been killer! We went from our teeny tiny pool to the 25 meter court at West Valley. The scrimmaging has definitely be tough, but we know in the long run we will benefit tremendously! We are adjusting to having more time to develop our offense as we get to the other end of the pool. This weekend, we play Sonoma State at Sonoma, so we are going from a huge pool to an even smaller pool than our Malley pool. We always have a tough time against Sonoma at their home pool. We are getting pumped to take it to them in their home pool!
On behalf of the SCU women's team, we wish everyone and their families happy Easter! Stay safe over the holiday weekend!
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Monday, March 10, 2008
Hi everyone! This past weekend we traveled down to Los Angeles to playing in the LMU tournament, and we had quite a respectable weekend! We beat LMU, which although was not our biggest accomplishment, was a big deal. No Santa Clara Women's Water Polo team had ever beat LMU. We went into triple over time and ended up winning the game on our first possession during sudden death. Everyone played very well this game and you could tell that we wanted it. However, I must say the goal of the game would have to be Allie Lamb's tying goal in regulation time where she and coach had a synchronized fist pump and a little hop! Kendra Betke also had a big goal in the second overtime where she shot up a lob shot that went right in the high corner (beautiful Kendra, beautiful!) We went on to play Davis later that night and lost 8-5, but we put up a good fight in the second half. After our games, we went to Allie and my house in Long Beach and we ate pounds of pasta and cobbler! The next day we had our first game against Bakersfield. We lost in the last 40 seconds of the game and this was a very tough loss for us. As much as we wanted the win, we just could not find the back of the net, but this loss definitely fired us up for our last game of the tournament, which was against UC San Diego. I think we all sort of had the same idea of "we are NOT going to lose to San Diego." We opened up strong in this game, taking a three point lead at half. San Diego came back, making it game a one point game, but it was not enough and we took the game.
We had a lot of fun in Los Angeles, not only in the pool but also off the pool deck. Our first night in the hotel, Claire Linney, Taylor Harkins, and Wren White decided to toilet paper Rochelle Stowe, Randahl Capurro, and Kendal Hildebrand's room, I am almost positive room 419 enjoyed the extra paper they gained from this prank. Later that night we decided to short sheet Kendal, but accidentally short sheeted Randahl, which ended up being more entertaining! That night we also watched a movie in coach's VIP room, and of course the movie all the girls chose was Sydney White (coach won't admit it but I know he enjoyed it!)
When we got back in San Jose, we were abandoned at the airport for about an hour, and we finally made our friends all come get us (who knows where the school vans were?) Jeanine Strenk, a saloon housemate cam to pick us up and we had to fit five girls, coach and all of our stuff into Brianna Anderson's car (keep in mind, she drives a Honda accord coupe)! It was a very exciting drive!
The next morning, eight of us woke up at 6:30 (it was daylight savings remind you) to drive to Davis to watch the men and women crew teams, our brother and sister teams, race in a regatta. Although we had to leave very early, it was a lot of fun and a good way to finish off the weekend! Our next game is this Saturday, where we face Sonoma State for the third time this season! Wish us luck!
The water polo team's top 20 from the weekend
1. The man in the Enterprise with paper towels in his shoes
2. Kendal and Kendra's possum attack (Kendal confused the possum for a cat)]
3. Kendra singing to the gondolas from the Lamb's sidewalk
4. Tea time with Kendra (it was hot (in a Chicago accent))
5. Short sheeting Randahl
6. Toilet papering room 419
7. Quiet morning time in room 421
8. Beating LMU and UCSD (but DEFINITELY not the highlight of the season)
9. Sydney White with coach (best movie ever!)
10. Pedicure tips from coach
11. Coach and Allie Lamb's synchronized fist pumps
12. Randahl's definition of Brouhaha
13. The Flight attendant who claimed to play water polo in high school
14. The pilot on the flight who came back to talk with the awesome water polo team in the back of the bus
15. The Cobbler's made by Mrs. Lamb (the dishes were licked clean!)
16. The quiet Zone=coach's floor (yeah right)
17. Coach making a comment on how a Bakersfield player is the "Michael Jordan" of USA water polo (sarcasm of course)
18. Some of the players on the other teams trying to shave a few of our girls arms with her fingernail (awkward)
19. Getting left at the airport
20. Coach driving Bri's car home from the airport
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Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Hello Everyone!
Things are getting hectic on the women's team! We are wrapping up winter quarter and preparing for dead week and finals! I think all the girls are anxious for spring and a new course load! I know girls look forward to planning their spring class schedules around peak tanning hours (Bonk, Wren and Amy)! The slugfest tournament was last weekend and we won all four of our games. We had a "gritty win" as Coach would say, against Cal State San Bernardino. The final score was 5-4. We won our other three games of the weekend handily. This last weekend in Santa Cruz left us all with positive feelings going into the LMU tournament this weekend (March 7). We moved the ball around very well and found each other in the pool to convert on offense. Our defense was strong and we had steals from all over the pool. Our Tournament schedule this weekend is extremely tough. All four games are against conference teams, so it is vital that we come out on top because losses will effect our seating in the end of the year conference tournament in April. OUr first two games this Friday are against LMU and Davis. On Saturday, we play Cal State University of Bakersfield and UC San Diego. All the games are going to be exciting and we hope to pull out four "gritty wins!" Wish us luck!
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Monday, February 25, 2008
Hey everyone!
Sorry its been so long since we've written one of these, it's been a pretty hectic season so far.
Well, a lot has happened since the last time we wrote a blog, so we will try to update you all on what's been going on! A few weekends ago, we traveled down to San Diego for the Triton Tournament, where, although we did not finish very well we had a lot of adventures such as Claire's cookies and Kendal's 16 point turn in the granny mobile. Also, we learned a lot about coach and what he did before he started coaching at Santa Clara. And although we did not win the tournament, we were able to see what we had to work on for the rest of the season.
One of the things we needed to work on was learning to finish is pressure situations. This helped add to the competitiveness of our team because the Monday we got back from San Diego, coach told us that we were going to have game-like situations where there would be "consequences" if we didn't win. And since these consequences, we soon came to find out, were sprints, we all learned to play under pressure pretty quickly (no one wants to do sprints!!) The next weekend was Senior day (yes, it is a little early, but we're getting a new pool so we didn't have many home games left!) which was entertaining as always! We played Sonoma State, and in front of a crowd of Santa Clara fans, we let Sonoma take a three to zero lead in the first two minutes. Sonoma came out strong and caught us all off guard, but we refocused and came out on top with an eight to six win. Jade Look's parents surprised her by flying out here from Hawaii and brought lays for the whole team (Thanks Look family!) which was a good thing because since senior day was so close to Valentine's day, coach couldn't find flowers for the seniors so he bought them plants. We are all expecting to see those in your grown up gardens next year seniors!
The next morning, we drove down to Monterey Bay to play the otters. Although we had a little trouble finding the back of the net, our defense was spectacular. Randahl Capurro was a wall in the cage and Liz Perry played stellar defense helping us pull off seven to two win. That Sunday was Kendal Hildebrand's dad's birthday so the water polo girls threw him a surprise birthday party at Saloon house and I am pretty sure he thoroughly enjoyed it!
Last Wednesday was our last home game, and the last game ever to be played in the Malley pool (Thank you to all of you who came out to the game and thanks to the Sullivan Family for the new pool!). We played Santa Cruz and we beat them fourteen to five. I felt this was our break out game of the year. Not only did we play great defense, our offense also seemed to click. It was one of our best games so far this year. I think it had something to do with knowing it was the last game in the Malley pool, but whether or not this is the case, it was nice to see everyone playing well and running things correctly. It was a great win to lead us into this weekend's tournament, where we will face a lot of conference teams.
This past weekend was our alumni game, and although the alumni can talk a big game, we still beat them nine to three. However I must give a shout out to Kellie Dunn (class of 2007) who scored two goals for the alumni! (It's because she's a lefty and that's what we do!)
Sorry for the blog being SO long this time! We promise we will start updating it once a week from now on. This weekend in the Slug Fest in Santa Cruz! You all should try to come and support us!
Amy Lamb and Bri Anderson
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Monday, January 28, 2008Hey everyone!
It's definitely been a very hectic last few weeks. Practices have been tough, but we got through them. It all paid off in the end because even with all the rain and wind, we still defeated Cal State Eastbay this last Friday in our own pool. It was amazing to see all of the fans that still came out even though it was pouring down rain! Although we won the game 11-5, it was clear to see that Eastbay was not just going to hand us the victory. Claire Linney had a hat trick and Emily Bonk, Christie Miller and I scored two goals each. Brianna Anderson also had a goal along with Freshman Taylor Harkins. Jenny Knutson also played very well, leading in assists with four all together. In the end, coach must have thought we played well because he gave us Saturday practice off!
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We have had a few birthdays this past month! Kirstin Olson turned 21 this past week and Liz Perry turned 22 this month. Happy birthday girls! Because water polo season has officially started, we all are too tired to really do anything, so the girls of Saloon, Allie Lamb, Brianna Anderson, Claire Linney, Jeannine Strenk, Kendal Hildebrand and I have taken up board games. Most nights we sit around and play games such as Cranium or Scene It. We have all become experts at naming movies and acting them out!
This month we have had almost a dozen recruits, which is always fun! When the recruits get here on Saturday, most of the team gets frozen yogurt with them and then they all come over and we watch Grey's Anatomy and play a board game. Then on Friday, the Saloon girls throw a team dinner where the recruits get to meet the whole team. Although this dinner is mostly for the recruits, it is nice getting to spend some time out of the water with the team so we can sit around and talk.
Well our next game is this Sunday at 1pm at Stanford! Hopefully the weather will clear up a little before then!
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007Off season is finally over! As excited as we all are, I am positive that we will all miss it a little as the next few weeks go on. This past week of practice was not that bad. We were preparing for our big scrimmages that we had this past weekend. We also had our first Saturday practice which was a captain run practice (Those are always fun!)
The big news of the week was our games that we had on Sunday. We played three games at Stanford which were all pretty tough. We had to wake up and leave by 8:30 Sunday morning (which I think is pretty early for all of us!) All three of our Chicagians, Emily Bonk, Liz Perry, and Kendra Betke, were very much the water polo moms as they were the volunteer minivan drivers for the day! Although we had to leave pretty early, we did really well in the games.
Our first game was against UC Davis. Davis has always been a big rival of ours, and we have never beaten them, until Sunday!!! It was quite the game! We were down by three goals at one point, but some how we were able to tie it up in the fourth quarter. With a minute left in the game, we drew a kick out. We ran a timeout play and Taylor Harkins scored the leading goal for us. At the very end of the game, Davis also drew a kick out and had a chance to tie the game up, but Randahl Capurro was a wall in the cage and made a block that led to our first ever victory against Davis. I know it is only off season, but this win made us all feel very confident for the season ahead.
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After our first game we had a few hours to kill until our next two. The men's water polo team played Stanford on Sunday as well so we all hung out and cheered them on. Unfortunately they lost, but they played very well! Sunday afternoon we had two back to back games. First we played Cal State Monterey Bay. We were able to pull out another victory. Right after that game we went straight into our next game against Stanford. We lost to Stanford, however we all did a lot of personal things well, which was very good for us! Over all I would say that the weekend was a success. We won two out of our three games and that gives us a great amount of confidence going into our season this winter! Good luck to everyone on finals and we can't wait until season starts!
We also had another big birthday this week! Happy 21st Kendal!
Amy Lamb and Bri Anderson
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Sunday, October 28, 2007
Week four of off season is over!! We have exactly six practices left until our first scrimmages in Stanford and we are all really excited. This last week has been pretty hard. Emily Bonk seems to have this reoccurring dream where we swim a really hard swim set and she cannot make the time base, so coach cuts her. Well luckily for her she is fast enough to make the sets because we finally did that long awaited two hundred set on Thursday. It really was not as bad as we all thought it would be. Although we did do it after a really intense day at the gym! This last Wednesday was our first day of weight training and we have a much more difficult routine this year. Randahl Cappuro is definitely the strongest of the bunch. The next day it was not hard to spot the water polo girls because they were the ones who could hardly walk up the stairs to class!
This was a big week for the water polo team. This past weekend, we had a team dinner at Saloon (girls water polo house) because we had recruits again! We made pasta and salad. Some of the Alumni came over for the dinner as well!
October seems to be the month of birthdays for the women's water polo team. In the beginning of the month Allie Lamb and I turned twenty one and then Kendra Betke turned twenty two on the fifteenth. Then this week was also Christie Miller's twenty first birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTIE. I am sure she absolutely loved the birthday set of two hundreds we swam for her!
Well, thats all so far! Save the date of November 11 and come out and watch our first scrimmages!
Happy HAlloween Everyone! Amy Lamb & Brianna Anderson
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Monday, October 15, 2007
We're back!
There were two big birthdays on the team last week! The twins, Amy Lamb and Allie Lamb turned 21!!! Happy belated birthday girls! We would like to let everyone know that we made it through the first week of pre season alive! Our practices have consisted of basic conditioning and we were thrilled to already be scrimmaging at the end of pracitce! Coach is playing mind games with swim sets. It's really throwing us off! Usually, we are all pretty good at guessing what he is going to throw out there for us to "pound out," as he likes to call it. On behalf of the team, its safe to say we are nervous for the first 200's of the year! It's not likely we will not get out of week two without doing some 200's! We are currently focusing on getting ready for our end of pre season scrimmages on November 11 at Stanford! We are playing UC Davis, Cal State University Monterey Bay and Stanford! At the end of this week we have our first two recruits of the year! So we are planning a dinner to introduce them to the team! Hope they like tacos!
The girls water polo house is currently in a prank war with their neighbors. After working a long day at the winery event, Claire Linney, Kendal Hildebrand, Amy Lamb, Allie Lamb and Brianna Anderson came home to find the entire house filled with toilet paper! Yes... our kind neighbors threw the first prank! We didn't jump too quickly, we knew for a house full of girls to be in a war with a house full of boys, our come back had to be good! We are happy to announce that our first prank was successful! We decided to strike on Tuesday, when they were all in class. We took all the light bulbs out and hid them in odd places throughout their house! At first, they thought their electricity had gone out... until they realized that there weren't even any light bulbs to turn the lights on! It was pretty funny to listen to them try to find all the bulbs and put them back in the correct places before it got dark! In the end the boys laughed and commended us for the good prank... after they told us we were dead! Don't worry though we already have the next prank in mind! We will keep you posted on what happens!
Until next time,
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Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Hello everyone!
It's Bri Anderson and Amy Lamb. We will be the new bloggers for the Women's Water Polo Team this year! We are both pretty good at keeping people informed, so you will hear all about the adventures we are having! So, where to start? Well, the water polo team has been really busy since we've gotten back to school. We have had two team dinners in an effort to keep Mele's Friday Night dinner tradition alive! Its been a great way to get to know everyone! The food has been amazing thanks to our top chefs! The girls in our house are quite the pasta makers! We also got to work at the winery once again this year which was quite a bonding experience! We had to wake up really early on Saturday and Sunday and drive two hours so we could prepare and serve food! Amy learned how to make some pretty mean homemade cheese! It was actually really fun, minus the fact that we never really got anytime to sit down and rest!
Today was our first day of pre-season practice! It felt great to be back in the pool again with all the girls! We were all a little nervous of how the swim set would go (Especially Emily Bonk)! But if you knew Emily, you would know that she has nothing to worry about! Mele Rheder came back to visit us! For those of you who don't know, she graduated last year (and was the only senior who refused to play on the alumni team!) We decided to pull a prank on coach... we had her dress up in a swim suit and act like she was going to get in. Coach did not even realize she was there at first, but I am absolutely positive he was extremely excited when he finally recognized her! Well practice was not that bad, we all seemed to make it through alive! We actually got to get the balls in and pass around a bit! After practice, Allie Lamb, Liz Perry, Claire Linney, Kathryn Frasier, Emily Bonk, and the two of us, went to dinner with some of the alumni who came to visit. All in all we have been having fun as a team now that summer has ended and a busy quarter has begun! There are six freshman going out for the team this year! They are all full of personality! I am sad to say that are team isn't complete just yet, seeing as we have two girls abroad! Katie Gilmartin and Katie Moore are off on foreign adventures! We have already received one email update from Katie G informing us of all her latest gossip, so we don't feel left out. To say the least, we miss them a lot!
Well we have six weeks (twenty four practices) until our first scrimmages at Stanford...the count down has begun!
Amy Lamb & Bri Anderson
