100-Percent Cotton
9/11/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Sept. 11, 2008
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - "100-Percent Cotton" is the weekly blog of senior defender Jessica Cotton. The blog will give fans a look at the inner workings of the SFA soccer program and will be updated weekly on Tuesdays. Except in this case, when it comes on a Thursday.
What a rollercoaster of a week this was! Staring with the scare of Hurricane Gustav, continuing with a tough loss, then a postponed game, and finally ending with a great win, this week has shown how we respond to adversity. Practice was a day-to-day adventure, not knowing if Gustav was going to change our normal routine. Luckily, the only kind of weather change we got was a couple of overcast days. To our liking, it provided cooler temperatures and a much less dreaded practice in the heat of the day. This week's practices went great, with no cancellations and even a few faces back into the swing of things after injuries kept them out.
Our focus was on Friday night. We were scheduled to take on Louisiana Tech in Ruston, La. We had to keep an open mind about this, not knowing what kind of damage Gustav was doing to do to the entire state. Thankfully, La. Tech plays on an artificial turf field, and rain did not affect the game. The bus was scheduled to roll out of the commuter lot at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, but due to a small miscommunication about eating arrangements, we didn't leave until closer to 1.
However, that would be just the beginning to the bus mishaps for the day. As normal, we put in a movie for a little entertainment (this time it was "The Sweetest Thing"), but we had no sound. So most of the team just stayed up and quoted the movie for those who had never seen it. Once in Louisiana, we stopped at a small (and by small, I mean tiny, our whole team did not fit inside) Po' Boy shop to eat. To the team, it was surprisingly good, with some great cookies for dessert!
We had another short drive to the La. Tech campus, but then it was off the bus to scope out the playing field and into the locker room. Little did I know, I would learn a bit of history on the way. That day I learned that THE Terry Bradshaw when to school at Louisiana Tech (I guess you really do learn something new everyday).
The game kicked off at 7 p.m., and we seemed to be on the right track. Luck didn't strike our path as we came in at half-time trailing, 2-0. That would be all the Lady Techsters needed. It was the same old thing for us, as it was a story of missed opportunities. We had chance after chance and just could not seem to capitalize on any of them. The bus ride home didn't help much either, as the bus driver could not defog the windshield with the air conditioning on. The air was out in the bus and we were now hot as well as mad at the loss. It was not a good combination.
Saturday morning practice was fun and a nice recovery from the night before. Once done with practice, the rest of the day was ours. A few chose to sleep, others chose to just rest, but there were a few of us who chose to tye dye. When I was younger, I never thought I would be into tye dyeing T-shirts, and for sure not at the age of twenty-one. However, now I am kind of looking forward to doing it again!
Sunday was back to business. We had pre-game meal at the Fredonia Hotel, in downtown Nacogdoches. It was a great buffet, and we enjoyed the change. Once at the field, the warm up was cut short due to missing referees. We sat around while the coaches and administration tried to find some fill-in refs, but it didn't work out. Eventually, an hour after the scheduled start time, the game was canceled for the day. It was rescheduled for Monday with an early start time of 11:00 a.m.
Monday finally rolled around, and it just felt a little weird to be playing a soccer game that morning. Monday is normally our day off, and this was the complete opposite. At the start of the first whistle it seemed to be our day. We were playing well together and were creating opportunities left and right. We finally got on the board with a little help from Arkansas State. They scored an own goal and it gave us the lead. We went into the half leading, 1-0, but we weren't finished. The second half brought us two more goals, and we had finally capitalized on the chances we were creating. State would get one goal in the second half, but it would not prove to be any threat. The game finished with us on the winning end of 3-1 score.
-- SFA --
