Inside The Circle - Week 4
9/27/2001 8:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
Sept. 27, 2001
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Welcome to this week's installment of "Inside the Circle," an inside look at Maryland field hockey. Each week throughout the 2001 season, junior Kateri Simon (Fallston, Md.) and senior Autumn Welsh (Macungie, Pa.) will combine to bring you the latest Terp happenings from the student-athlete's point-of-view.
Use Kateri and Autumn's journal to follow the Terps' 2001 campaign all season long. If you would like to submit question to our authors about field hockey, the Terps or anything (within reason!), send us an e-mail.
This week, Autumn recaps Maryland's solid performance against Wake Forest and how the team is preparing for its big upcoming matches against No. 5 Princeton and No. 11 Virginia.
Hello again from down in College Park. Sorry for the delay in your weekly update of "Inside the Circle." As my homeless fellow co-writer could tell you, there's been a little bit of drama for Terps lately. Monday, the 24th, a tornado winded its way through campus and headed directly for Kateri's apartment building. Fortunately, everyone with the team is okay, but many students, including a couple of our teammates are temporarily being kept out of their homes and away from their belongings. Angie Klingerman, #20, has become my new roommate. Besides the fact that she's overflowed our freezer with all of her food, it's nice to have her around. We've all tried to be really supportive of each other during this time. So many tragedies lately have brought us together. But after every rain there is a rainbow, and ours is brightly colored!
Any way, I should probably give you the recap from last weekend's game. We were all really anxious for our first ACC match. Wake Forest gives us a good fight every year. It was neat for the new players to experience the emotion of playing an inter-conference competition. They handled the pressure, and the aggression quite well. My favorite new fullback Sara "Betty" Silvetti gave the crowd a great show with her stupendous one-on-one tackling skills (I taught her everything she knows-ha ha). Kristin Harris was subtle, yet sharp in her attacking transitions up the right sideline. And once again, our strength from the backfield, Kateri Simon, shut down many Deacon threats to keep the Terps on top.
It's funny how everyone questioned our potential for success this season because of all our new players. Not to take credit from my fellow veterans and I, but the new kids are awesome. They're all our secret weapons!!! Lucy "Deuce" Morris struts her Aussie bum all over the field with those amazing stick skills. I don't think there's anything left to say about Colleen Barbieri other than what is heard so often from the sidelines, "Holy cow she's fast!!!" Kerry Hearsey, a.k.a. "Chief", backed us up quite well in the cage too. She may come off as a sweet little English girl, but playing against her ain't no cup of tea! I hope you're all catching on to my point...we may be young, but you don't beat Wake Forest 4-1 without some serious skill and heart like all our new players have.
Since the game last Saturday we've all been hard at work on and off the field. Missy has kept our legs moving, to say the least. I know many of the newer girls have a hard time adjusting to the type of training we do at such a prestigious Division I hockey school. As an older player I try to help them realize that when we work hard for each other at practice, it shows how devoted we are to the team.
Missy has started this new idea where we race each other to the back of the line after each drill. At first we would take it easy and run next to each other, but lately it's become an all out war to finish first. It's like we're back in grade school racing at recess, and it's actually fun. With all the chaos on campus, and in the world lately, it's really nice to have such a great group of people to come together with and run around for a couple hours a day. It makes life seem so simple and innocent, even for that short amount of time.
Well, that's all for now. We're really looking forward to our weekend games. I hope Princeton and UVA are ready for some incredible hockey!
Oh-great news! Coach Andrew is finally off his crutches! Haven't seen him smile so big since he found out that he got to coach me, ha ha, just kidding.
Hope to see you all this weekend, and if not, we'll be back with the update next week on Inside the Circle. Later Terps, Autumn
