UW Lax Goes To Winston-Salem

This quarter was BUSY with lacrosse, but I wouldn't have had it any other way!  We won our regional championship game, which qualified us to travel to North Carolina to compete in the national tournament.  The only problem was the cost of getting 20 girls across the country for a week...  BUT never fear, our community is absolutely amazing and between the hard work of our team and the amazing support from family, friends, and lacrosse lovers throughout Seattle, we raised the money to be able to travel across the country to compete!  We arrived in North Carolina late Tuesday night...the other captains and I just kept saying to each other "We're actually here.  I can't believe this is actually happening."  

The tournament was held from Wednesday - Saturday and we played one game each day.  The first team we played was Georgia...they absolutely creamed us.  It was very sad.  But they were a fun team to play and I felt better about our loss when they won the entire tournament.  We played three more games and won only one of them.  However, because we came into the tournament ranked 16 out of 16, we ended up climbing the ranks and ended in 14th.  Yay, not last!  Our team realized that East Coast lacrosse is much different than the lacrosse we are used to playing.  The teams we played challenged our physical endurance and intensity as well as our mental stamina.  I spent many hours each night with our coach and JoJo (aka my lax soulmate...see picture below) analyzing our games, what we did well, and how we can improve.  We left the tournament with many ideas of things we want to practice and implement in our play next year.  I intend for our team to make it to Nationals again next year and really show the country what UW Lacrosse can do :D 

Up, up, UW!!

Being interviewed by King 5 News.

Thank you, Kristina, for letting us adopt Mowgli as our own while we fundraised...he sold
us 10 Jamba Juice cards!  People will do anything to pet a puppy.

Our cute freshies (and Ally) working the campus ice cream shop!

Clara and Maike

Coach Durbo PUMPED for our game!!  We almost had to travel to NC and compete without a coach, but Durbo rearranged
EVERYTHING to come out and coach us...we love her!!! 

Let's just say the fields were a bit muddy.

Assuming my role as lax mom in the drivers seat of the mini van.

Headed to play our last game together... JoJo is my fellow defender and lax soulmate.  I have never played with someone
else so fluidly...all it takes is a quick look or small push and we know exactly what the other player is thinking.  I will
miss you next year, JoJo!!

Look who came and watched me play <3 <3

Team breakfast.

One day, JoJo and I were sad about our two losses and decided we needed a win.  We splurged and bought the hotel's
all you can eat breakfast meal.  We won our game that day and I credit that partially to our amazing breakfast.