Women's Soccer Blog: Ali Ohashi Recaps Last Week
10/24/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Each week a different Gonzaga University women's soccer player will recap the week prior. This week Ali Ohashi, a sophomore midfielder, shares the highlights from the past week.
Hey Zag fans!
We're down to our last few conference games and are motivated and determined to pull away with some W's despite the two losses to Pepperdine and Santa Clara.
We started the week off on Monday with a lifting workout and training session. The lift was a lighter body weight session with one very strenuous mini band rep, which left our hips and legs very sore. After the lift, we headed out to the practice field for training. We worked on passing to the correct foot and then turning with the ball the right way. After we started to get a rhythm, we moved on to a possession drill. We had a rough start to this drill, but eventually regained our composure and got the hang of it. We ended the training session with an 11-v-11 scrimmage focusing on set pieces.
Tuesday was our day off as usual. The team values time off and takes advantage of it by resting our bodies, keeping up with our studies, and mentally preparing for the rest of the week.
On Wednesday we had another light lifting workout to maintain our strength through the season. We followed the lift with a training session in which we focused on keeping the ball and working it up into our attack. We played possession games and ended training with an 11-v 11-scrimmage. Training stressed the importance of being able to possess the ball because we knew we needed to play our style of possession in the upcoming game against Pepperdine.
On Thursday we had an early morning training session before our flight to California. We played a possession game with three grids, 8-v-8, and ended with an intense game of flying changes. We had a solid training session and were ready to take on the Waves! Once we landed in California, we had a delicious dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Unfortunately, we didn't go to the Cheesecake Factory for their famous cheesecake. We knew that cheesecake was probably not the best pregame meal, but enjoyed the entrees we ordered. After dinner, we relaxed in our hotel rooms preparing for the game tomorrow.
Game Day! We woke up very excited for our game against Pepperdine. A short while after breakfast, we had a video session and discussed the scouting report. Before heading to the game field, we ate lunch and mentally prepared for the game. Finally, we arrived at Pepperdine's campus; it was game time. The first half we battled hard keeping the score tied at 0-0. We knew we would have to pick up our game in the second half, so we came out with even more intensity. We continued to fight for the W, but unfortunately, Pepperdine scored in the last minutes of the game making the score 1-0. The result was not in our favor, but we couldn't let the loss get us down because we now had to focus on our next game against Santa Clara.
On Saturday we were back in Spokane ready for a quick recovery that would reenergize us for our game on Sunday. Some of our players had a pool recovery workout, while some of us had a short training session. Then we watched video on Santa Clara and went over the scouting report. After analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of Santa Clara, Coach Edwards gave a very motivating pep talk that gave us the confidence we needed to head into our last few conference games.
Game Day and Senior Day! Sunday rolled around and it was time for us to take on our opponent, the Santa Clara Broncos. We honored our seniors: Sarah Rhodes, Caitlyn Salo, Casey Gould, and Katie Spagenberg, before the game. It was emotional knowing that our seniors were playing one of their last home games, but we didn't let our emotions get to us. We had the mindset of any other game: the mentality to play our game and win! Santa Clara scored early on with a PK and scored shortly after that again taking the game to a 2-0 lead. We retaliated with a goal in the 26th minute. Emma Dolcetti scored a perfect header goal off of a free kick assist by Cricket Harber. We battled hard for the full 90 minutes hoping to pull out a win, but the game ended in a 4-1 loss. We kept our heads up and knew we could learn a lot from this game.
We move forward each game whether the result was a win or a loss. We will take this next week to prepare for our game against San Diego on Thursday. Go Zags!
Thanks for your support!
