100-Percent Cotton
9/23/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Sept. 23, 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 ... starting today.
So it has been quite some time, and a lot has happened since my last entry. This will be my best attempt at recapping practice before a hurricane, surviving Hurricane Ike, getting back into soccer and school with no power, and, finally, the full weekend in Nebraska!
Last time, we had just come off a Monday morning win against Arkansas State, and what a feeling that was. Then we went into practice thinking we had a full week to prepare for Arkansa. The Tuesday practice was more of a recovery practice, to give our legs a rest from the game. Wednesday, however, was given the name `Winded Wednesday' because we knew going into practice that it was going to be a tough fitness day. We were correct, but survived with flying colors.
It was Wednesday night and Thursday morning that we started realizing Hurricane Ike was headed straight for the Gulf Coast. Nacogdoches had already started housing evacuees, and we were now starting to wonder how this would affect the weekend. Come Thursday, we were living moment to moment, on what was going to happen. We had practice at the scheduled time, but found out it was going to be our last for the weekend. We were advised to leave Nac., but there were a few who were going to wait out the storm.
The first wave of Ike hit extremely early Saturday morning, but to my shock, I didn't lose power until mid-day. What I could see out of my front door step was not bad, but the wind was starting to get the best of the trees, power lines, and everything else in its way. The second wave came around four in the afternoon, and what an impact it made. Trees were uprooted, mainly causing minor damage, except for the select houses, garages, and cars that were unlucky. Having no power was quite fun at first, but after a while it started to remind me of Whispering Pines (refer to my first blog)! School was canceled Monday the 8th, but by this time I was living on campus with some of the girls in Lumberjack Village. It was quite an experience and also extremely fun!
Although school was canceled, we started practice on Monday looking forward to a tough weekend against Creighton and Nebraska. Since this was going to be our toughest practice of the week, we tried to name it, but could not find anything good enough to go along with Monday. The practice was extremely intense and made us kind of wish the hurricane was still around, but we were also glad to be back into our normal schedule.
Tuesday and Wednesday practices were lighter days, with much more focus on how we would play in the upcoming weekend. Thursday was the big travel day ... well, big for us. It's not every day you get to ride Special Jack to the Airport, find your own food, get to the correct gate on time, and ride on a Continental Express plane with your teammates. All went well, and we landed in the much-less-humid air of Omaha late in the afternoon. We headed straight for a light practice, then off to Harrah's Casino for dinner. It was a buffet, and we all found out a secret when Barker hysterically yelled, "I LOVE BUFFETS!!" There is always a surprise with us.
Friday was game day, and we were extremely excited to play in such a state-of-the-art facility in downtown Omaha. The first half was a hard-fought battle that would end in a 0-0 tie. However, the second would not go our way. We did not play as well as we did the first half and Creighton went ahead by two goals. It was enough to send us out on losing end. The game did not go the way we planned, but we had to look ahead to our next game.
Saturday we made the short trip to Lincoln. I believe the only things of note we passed en route were cornfields and streets and highways that were named "Cornhusker." It felt like they had a million streets named the exact same thing! Once in Lincoln, we had a short recovery practice, went to Qdoba for lunch, then down time until dinner. Dinner was at Spaghetti Works (we knew it as Spaghetti Warehouse). It was a great carb load for the next day. Then it was time for bed, and last preparations for Sunday's game.
Sunday rolled around, and we were ready for some redemption from Friday's game. The first half seemed to be promising as Summer (Bradfield) scored off a corner kick. However, Nebraska answered to tie the score at one, and that's how the first half would end. There were no signs of us letting down in the second half, but, after a series of unfortunate events, Nebraska took a 2-1 lead, and it would be just enough to overcome us.
After the game, we made the drive back to Omaha, and ate dinner, once again at Harrah's Casino. We would have nothing else to do that night. Out flight was Monday morning at 7, so we had to be up and at breakfast by 5:15, out of the hotel by 5:30, through the airport to our gate. However, the Omaha airport is quite a bit smaller than the large Intercontinental in Houston. Security check took the longest time, and it was new for me, because I was randomly selected to be spot-checked behind the glass. Every time I had been in the airport, I had always wondered why those certain people were checked, and I finally realize, there really is no reason. I was just the lucky one on Monday morning!
We landed in Houston, stepped out into the Texas humidity, but to our surprise the coaches let us stop at Whataburger. A happy ending to a not-so-happy weekend. To say the least, the weekend did not go as we had hoped, but conference is only two weekends away and we are looking forward to being back on top!
-- SFA --
