Since the last posting, Autumn has thrown all of its weather our way. We have had temperatures in the 80’s and the 30’s. We have had long stretches of dry sunshine and as many periods of soaking rain, usually with high winds and usually on the weekends. The Lady Lions have been out practicing in all of it.
Fortunately, we were blessed with sunshine on both of our final two competition days of this Fall. Two Sundays ago, we travelled to Dominican University in Blauvelt, NY (Rockland County) for three shorter than regulation time, games. Our first opponent was East Stroudsburg University, a team that has been highly ranked in Division II for at least the past five years. I think we surprised ourselves by playing them very closely.
After a three hour break between games (yes THREE HOURS!), next up was the University of New Haven, who we had played earlier this fall at their school. That previous meeting, seemed like years ago. After a slow start, we gained our footing and finished strong against the Chargers, who are a perennial top 20 team (we will play them for real in the regular season).
With only two minutes between our second and third games, we had no time to worry about fatigue, as we took on Dominican. We played our best game of the fall against a very good host team. It was great to see the progress we have been making in practice, show up in competition. Of course, it was not perfect, but I think we all left feeling pretty good about the whole day.
Then it was back to practice for a couple of weeks before our final, Fall Ball Game at Division I, Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ. I thought our practices during this time, were lackluster for the first few days, but then began to pick up again. As we approached last Saturday, I felt like we were primed for a strong showing.
Of course, the 32 miles between Molloy and FDU, took an hour and a half to drive. Nonetheless, we were there with plenty of time for a good warm up, and though it was unseasonably warm (low 80’s), we seemed ready to go. In the first half, we picked up right where we left off at Dominican, two weeks earlier. We were firing on all cylinders, dominating the Draw, playing strong team defense, clearing the ball and executing well on Offense. We led 4-2 at the half, and all was well.
The second half was a different story. We could barely win any Draws, we were beaten repeatedly on Defense, we failed to clear the ball a number of times and on the rare occasion we had an offensive possession, we turned it over. The final score was 12-6. I am not sure how to explain the contrast, but have to give some of the credit to FDU, as several of their players really asserted themselves changing the pace and complexion of the game.
The next day, as I walked through Eisenhower Park with Debi, I struggled to process our collapse.
Being our final competition of this Fall, that was certainly not how we would have liked to have finished up. But, we have made great progress toward becoming the type of team we think we can be this season, and demonstrated that we can play at a high level against strong competition. One poorly played half does not wipe all of that progress out. I think we can learn a lot from that second half and become a better team, as a result. We just have continue to focus on getting better, each and every day.
Go Lions!
A New Season 