Dear Diary,

Last Sunday was the start of our journey to the conference tournament. With nine games under our belt (6-3-0), we were ready for whatever Nicholls was going to throw at us. Sunday finally arrived and we came away with our first conference win (7-3-0)! With the rain pouring from the beginning of the match to the end, our field became a mine field of puddles and was all around muddy. Let’s just say that our white jerseys were no longer white. But that didn’t stop our lion pride from stepping up to the challenge. Nicholls came out hard the first ten minutes of the match but we counter with two goals in the first half. Second half we came out with the fire we gained from the first and had several close misses. Although Nicholls did score we held them to the one goal for the rest of the match. The final score was 2-1.

Since the rain was relentless and made our field a mess, we had to change our practice schedule around, which isn’t a big deal when you’re dealing with Louisiana weather year round. We had to do this several times already this year but instead of practice at night due to class conflicts, we had it in the morning before the sun was even up and for most of the team. We managed to get our bodies to moving at such an early time, I mean 4:30am is early for us to get up to get treatment or taped (if needed) then warm up for practice. You would be surprise at the level of intensity we had so early in the morning, even though some of us don’t remember practice because we weren’t all fully awake. It was like we were on auto-pilot.

With two high intensity practices this week, we hit the road to Texas to take on Sam Houston and SFA. I’m looking forward to our usual bus sing-a-longs and random dancing. As for now, we are ready as we will ever be for this weekend.

GO LIONS!!

Lacey GK #8
P.S. SQUIRREL!

Dear Diary,

Other than a success, I think you could classify this past weekend as EXTREMELY wet. The little rainfall on Friday, September 11th during our game against Grambling would in now way prepare us for Sunday against Louisiana-Monroe.

Grambling gave a tough game and made us play hard and quick. They were aggressive with good speed, but we were able to shut them down and capitalize on 3 goals.

Sunday brought about a very interesting game. We came out strong the first half and got two brilliant goals. However, the second half provided us with a big challenge. Heavy rain pelted the field and turned it into a small river. It was so difficult to kick the ball, especially in our defensive end with static water everywhere. Despite the frustration that resulted from our inability to dribble the ball (there was that much water on the ground). It gave us a new obstacle that not many of us have encountered. In fact, I found it pretty fun to play in the rain.

With twom more wins under our belt, we are now looking forward to the new and exciting challenges that will be thrown at us during this weekend's games!

-Dana Mayer #20

(9.17.09)

Dear Diary,

We knew the game against Troy was going to be a bigger challenge than the previous weekend. Our effort and work had to be top notch in order to achieve the positive result we all wanted. Unfortunately we fell short losing 1-0 and we did not end up achieving our goal. However it was a learning experience that we will carry through with us for the rest of the season. We went into practice on Saturday morning looking to work hard and prepare for Sunday's game and have a much better outcome. Although we lost on Sunday to Southern Mississippi 2-0, we had the potential to win. Our work rate had improved greatly from the Troy game, however as a team we were unable to find the back of the net.

We knew from our two losses on the weekend we had to put our best efforts into training for the entire week in order to win against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks. We had one week to prepare, and training every day helped us to fix what we needed to work on. Sunday came soon enough and we met in the locker room before the game to get ready. The atmosphere in the locker-room was filled with energy and enthusiasm, and it carried out onto the field for our warm-up. We knew we had to come into the game with fire and intensity, and it showed the minute the whistle blew to start the game. Within the first 3 minutes, we were creating great combos and running well of the ball. Our quick start paid off with an early goal which set the momentum for the rest of the game. We kept up the hustle for another 30 minutes before the storm took over. It was raining hard, and the clouds were booming with thunder. The game was put on hold as both teams ran into the locker-rooms. We waited for over an hour for the storm to pass, however we kept each other entertained and energized by playing music, singing along and dancing around. It was a great team bonding experience.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the game was called off. The field was completely soaked, and some streets were even flooded. The field hasn't had a chance to dry completely since it has rained all week. Training in the rain was a nice change from the heat, however it was hard to run in the wet grass. The change in the weather was helpful in motivating us to keep working hard for the upcoming games. This weekend we play Grambling and Louisiana-Monroe, and are looking to come out with two great wins. We leave tomorrow on the bus for our first team trip and we're all looking to have a great weekend!

GO BIG GREEN !

-Karly Dagys #2 & Samantha McNally #17

Dear Diary,

Unfortunately, our game was "rained out" last Friday and postponed until Sunday. Fortunately for us, we were able to get in another great day of practice before we took on Southern University on our home field. After our practice on Saturday morning, we all made our way to the beautiful town of Covington in order to put on a clinic for children ranging from ages four to ten. The clinic consisted of different stations including heading, dribbling, passing and shooting. The shooting station was the most successful for OBVIOUS reasons ;-). After the clinic, all the children and staff were able to enjoy a delightful snowball!

On Sunday morning, the team met in the locker room in order to discuss the team objectives for the game and relax with some pre-game "festivities"!! Once game time rolled around, our warm-up CD was not playable due to surprising technical difficulties. Luckily, we were able to quickly throw together a live band performance and warm up to "Black Betty" like we usually do.

We ended up beating Southern 8-0 with an outstanding performance by the baby freshmen. It is clear that our hard work and dedication in practice is going to make a tremendous effect on the result of our season. Also, we had great fans that flocked from all over the world, including Canada and Europe, who were there to cheer us on!

This week, we have been working hard to execute in practice. After coming together and realizing that we needed a tremendous effort, we were able to step it up in practice today which is crucial for us considering we will be taking on Troy tomorrow at 4:30.

Let's keep it going strong ladies!!

-Jenna Oney #13

(8.27.2009)

Dear Diary,

We all reported here two weeks ago and we have been working extremely hard getting ready for our 2009 season! A lot of girls on the team are from out of state and it seems that the most difficult thing about preseason is adjusting to the climate of southeastern Louisiana. Preseason has been filled with 3 a-days and 2 a-days, which at times were very hard to get through but we all pushed each other and got through it as a team.

All throughout preseason we have been trying to put together a warm-up CD. This has been quite interesting as all of us have such conflicting music tastes. I’m not going to mention any names (you know who you are) but a few girls wanted to put a Disney song on our warm up CD. That didn’t go over to well! Anyways we finally got it done, of course with our two favorite songs on it, ‘black betty’ and ‘don’t stop believing’.

Lately it has been raining and we are hoping that it will stop before Friday so our game doesn’t get rained out! We have been pushing ourselves physically and mentally all preseason and we are ready to get our season going!

Go Lions!

-Candice Wallace #21

(8.20.09)