Hey all you out there!
It's Kristen here, bringing you the latest and greatest of the Cajuns Soccer team this past week. With a great effort against Auburn under our belt and a new level of confidence, we packed up our bags and headed out at 4 a.m. on Thursday to catch our plane to Denver. It's amazing how even at the crack-of-dawn you can still hear teammates chatting away the entire bus ride to the Baton Rouge airport as well as on the two and a half hour plane ride. I, however, missed all of the chatting on the airplane since, like many of my teammates; I passed out face first on the tray table in front of me ? talk about exhausted!
Waking up to a crick in my neck and a chill in the air, Denver was a very welcomed climate and scenery change for the entire team (no humidity there!). After checking in at the hotel and resting for a few hours, we all hopped back into the vans and drove to the Saffers' house, where both they and the Jestes' were nice enough to cook the entire team dinner! Talk about fantastic home cooking!
This has become a tradition with traveling for our team this year. Considering that we're all from varying parts of the states (and countries) it feels as though no matter where we travel to, someone is always welcoming us into their home. It's especially nice for those of us who don't get to see our parents too often ? I feel like I have surrogate families! Thanks Moms and Dads!
The morning of the Denver match, there was electricity in the air. Everyone was familiar with the fact that Denver beat the #1 team in the nation, Stanford, the previous weekend, and not to mention that their team has always been a very strong contender for the Sun Belt title. I don't feel as though it fazed us at all as a team, if anything, it drove us more to prove to everyone and to ourselves that statistics mean nothing. With 110 minutes of scoreless play under our belt, we walked away with our heads high knowing we played with an immense amount of heart, leaving everything behind on that field.
Our devoted Cajun fans, which outnumbered Denver fans, by the way, followed us all the way to Denver and our appreciation for their support and dedication can never be fully expressed in words. We love our parents, friends, families and fans! Without ya'll, we wouldn't be where we are today! Thank you for everything!
Saturday was travel day, leaving Denver behind for the all-too-familiar humidity of Texas. Since about three quarters of our team is from Texas, we again were lucky enough to enjoy dinner with many families. The Ulliman's were nice enough to welcome us all into their home this time.
One thing we did not expect was that: a trampoline + Jen = great footage of her falling and doing a tuck and roll! Everyone will definitely get to see THAT one again, since Kat caught the whole thing on film (maybe a $100,000 winner on America's Funniest Home Videos?).
However, Kat couldn't catch Courtney leaning back in her chair and falling off the patio, or Steph pulling her chair out from underneath her! There's not enough FILM in the world to catch everything funny that happens on this team!
Also, Kat doing a fake-trip-and-fall in the terminal of the airport was possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen and she even re-did it since I missed it the first time! Thanks Kat! We are such characters and we always have a good time!
The North Texas match was a battle and we fought hard throughout the entire time. Maybe we didn't get the result we wanted to this time, but there's no looking back now, only toward this upcoming weekend at home against the two Arkansas teams.
That's it from me. Oh, one last thing; I'd like to shout-out to Taunya!! You're an inspiration to me! And to all my girls on the team, you rock!
Ta-Ta for now!
Kristen
