Happy Holidays!

Well, that was the quickest semester of my life. Literally I don’t know where it went. And while the rest of you have been home for a few days cuddling with and posting countless pictures of your dogs, I’m still in the burgh until Sunday..SUNDAY. It’s alright though, it’s the life of being an RA, but I won’t have to stay to close the building for Spring Break because I’m going to Costa Ricaaaa. The Costa Rica countdown has officially begun and in 91 days we will be on our way. Here are some fun facts to enlighten you on our upcoming adventure.

1)      Costa Ricans refer to themselves as Ticos (males) or Ticas (females).

2)      Costa Rica has a population of 4.5 million and a life expectancy of almost 77 years, one of the highest in the world.

3)      There are 800 miles of coastline in Costa Rica between the Pacific and Caribbean coasts.

4)      There are more than 121 volcanic formations in Costa Rica, and seven of them are active.

5)      A soda is a small, informal restaurant that serves traditional meals like chicken, rice, beans and salad for $2-$3 a plate.

6)      A pulperia is a neighborhood store that sells essential foodstuffs like canned goods, eggs, milk, bread and some produce.

7)      For most of Costa Rica, the dry season runs from December through April. During these months, the Pacific coast and most of the Central Valley receive little rain, or the odd afternoon shower.

8)      Costa Rica's official language is Spanish, though a large number of its citizens are bilingual. English, due to its status as the international language of tourists, is the most common second language in Costa Rica.

9)      The Costa Rican government is democratic, with presidential elections every 4 years, and no standing army. Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla is the first woman president of Costa Rica.

I hope everyone did phenomenally on their finals and got home safe. My plans for the winter include working, interning and looking for a big girl job..ew. But I will be back mid-January to resume my true calling in life, writing this blog. But I will be updating the twitter so please follow us @PSUWomenSoccer1. Also, it was announced that we won the NSCAA National Team Academic Award for the fourth consecutive year! So proud of my little Cards. Seee all those hours in study hall really paid off. Good luck to all the winter sports that have to stay and brave the Plattsburgh winter. Happy holidays everyone! Have a safe and thrilling break!

 

 

Oh Oh Oh It's Thanksgiving

I know we’ve all missed these posts, so here is just a little fill-in on what’s been going on since the season ended.

With no practice to keep us all entertained and in shape the team has taken to different means of fitness. Monica and I have started to play racquetball, and by that I mean we went one time to play but the courts were all full so we went to the downer. Liv and I have started to work out with Michelle (our trainer from the Spring) only to need to take a week off after our first session because we were so sore. And Taylor and I went to the gym the other day and went on the arc trainers for 20 minutes and then laid on the mats. There are a few girls who have been better about their gym regimens such as Lalo who has made a few spin class appearances and Macee and the rest of the crew have been running every day, god bless them. Clearly we are all concerned about the upcoming break and the five pounds the average American puts on during the holidays. Nawt. My theory is that we’re all taking this time off and are going to kick it into high gear after the winter holidays because when we get back for second semester we start our spring workout program which is Monday through Friday. I don’t think anyone’s complaining too much about it though because we all need to get our Costa Rica bods.

K. Rab had her second knee surgery last week and we are all so proud of her and wish her the best recovery. We’re all pulling for her to be 100% by softball season. If you happen to see her crutching around campus, offer to pick her up or carry her bag or give her a Mountain Dew or something.

And for anyone who has been wondering where Buddha is, he has been living in Mason Hall with me. The only problem is we’ve been having a rough few weeks because a Buddha is not supposed to live in a bedroom, they are supposed to greet you in a foyer. Also, Buddha projects whatever feeling you project on to him. So when we loved Buddha, we gave us positive energy, and when we started questioning his love, his energy turned bad. I don’t think he ever forgave me for the bad energy, or for stealing him from Lalo for that matter, so we are working out our differences while he sits in my closet. (If Buddha has to be in the bedroom he needs to be in a closet and at night the closet has to be shut, I Googled it.)

Other than that were all looking forward to getting together after break to do paper plate awards and have the coaches present the team awards. We also have a tradition where each grade comes up with some sort of skit to act out for the rest of the team. The seniors last year acted out Wiley’s top ten best coaching moments, hilarious. Other than that it has been pretty quiet. Here are some pictures and music to keep you entertained until next time! Have a safe and great break everyone.

 

Thanksgiving Song

 

 

 

Schmitt and Marley (Wiley's Dog)

 

 

When Kalya was the backup goalie..

 

 

 

 



This is the last time you will ever hear my complain about this

This is an essay a wrote last semester for my sports writing class, and this is the last time I’ll bring up how much I hate when people spit on the turf, promise..

Spitting, hackin a lugi, blowing a snot rocket.

All things that in the heat of a game can be that second of relief the athlete needs to clear their airways and push themselves through. Something so miniscule, yet so dangerous. Not to mention gross.

Players are put at risk everyday because of the spit left on the turf that can enter the body through open wounds. In 2005, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that athletes who play on turf have shown higher rates of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. This is a type of staph bacteria that can cause life threatening infections.

When someone spits on the turf, they are putting everyone at risk for infection. Turf is rougher than grass and therefore it is easier to break the skin when you slide or fall. Turf burn is caused by the friction of skin and turf which generates heat and removes layers of skin. Also known as raspberries, turf burn is painful and a gateway for infection; perfect for saliva to seep into and make the raspberry look even more attractive.

Many communicable diseases find passage from one person to another through contact with saliva. Major diseases include the common cold, the flu, tuberculosis, mono, Hepatitis B and bacterial meningitis as well as many others. Anything that is in the human body that is subject to effect the immune system can find its way out through any bodily fluid, including salvia. All of these diseases could side line a player for days, weeks or even months.

According to LiveStrong.com, because a body in motion is under a variety of stresses during a workout, more saliva or mucus will be produced. The production of saliva increases when athletes begin working their lungs and cardiovascular system. As the body warms up, it will produce more saliva. There are many factors that effect this and sometimes make is necessary to remove the excess liquid from your system. When running outside in cooler temperatures,(a.k.a every time you step on the field in Plattsburgh)  your nose must warm and humidify the air you breathe before it reaches your lungs. This action produces mucus in your nose and throat, and the mucus acts as a humidifier to condition the air before it reaches your lungs.

The problem with spitting it out during a game however is that is it has nowhere to go but the top of the turf. Astroturf does not absorb liquid like a grass field. So when someone spits on the turf it sits right on top for the remainder of the game or until it gets swept away.

Ponder this for a second; if someone starts to bleed on the field or on their jersey, it gets cleaned right away because everyone is worried about the spread of disease. You are not even allowed back on the field until you have on a new, clean jersey and your cut is properly cleaned and bandaged. Yes, blood is a bittt more potent than spit, but shouldn’t the same type of precautions be taken? Many of the diseases that can be spread by coming in contact with blood, you can get by coming in contact with spit. Crazy right? No one wants to skin their knee on the field to stand up and find moist liquid mixed in with the blood and skin. That’s disgusting.

 

So pay attention the next time you’re playing a game on the turf. Watch for how many athletes relieve themselves on the turf you’ve come to know and love. Please think about this next time you want to have a spitting contest with your teammates during warm-ups. If you want to be the jerk that gives your team mono by hackin a lugi, by all means, be my guest.

 

Last away trip a.k.a best trip everrr

This was one of the best away trips I have been on and I am so happy that my last trip on the Burghy bus ever was such a great time. We left Thursday and stopped at Moe’s and Panera and it was delicious (duh). And for the next four hours we watched The Proposal and The Blind Side, yes both Sandra Bullock movies. The six hour trip, which everyone was dreading immensely, went by surprisingly fast and we got to the hotel around midnight.

Everyone got to sleep in on Friday which was a huge treat and at 11:30 we were up taking laps around the hotel. Wiley’s idea obviously but with subs and coffee in hand we walked around the hotel six times. It must have done the trick though because we did in fact come out with a win that afternoon vs. Geneseo.

 

 

 

 

I think the reason we actually won was because at half time Maddie got pooped on by a bird, right on the side of her face. It took us a little while to get back on topic because we were laughing so hard but you know what they say, it’s supposed to be good luck. We scored three goals in the second half sooo way to take one for the team Madds. Devon put a perfect ball on Em LaLone’s head off a corner for the first goal and Kristie got the next two. Even though it doesn’t change our SUNYAC fate it was still nice to get a win in before the end of the season.

After the game we got a real treat and went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. Most of the girls got wings-obvi-and instead of bread they give you chips and salsa, in which my table had four orders of. B-Mikes tried to get some free dessert out of it too, but they don’t give you ice cream if it’s your birthday, so we just tricked Kristen instead.
 

 

After dinner we had fresh warm cookies waiting for us in the lobby. I’m betting the hotel staff was wishing they put the cookies out five minutes later than they did because we took them all. The rest of the night turned into prank calls, painting our nails, stealing Taylor’s giraffe repeatedly and stacking furniture in front of Pat and B-Mike’s door.

 



Now, if I was to sit here and give each team we play a different award, Brockport would win hands down for best warm up CD. My favorite part of traveling is listening to what other teams put together and Brockport hit the nail on the head for pump up songs. I don’t know why we didn’t ask for a copy before we left, but I intend on emailing someone about that. The Brockport game was a great game, one of the best we’ve played all season and really enjoyable to watch. The crowd was super involved and pegged Ashley Pagano as public enemy #1. Our bench was loud and supportive and Grandma had a really nice goal. We played physical, smart and I think most importantly we had fun.

On the way home we watched Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks Notice, yep two more Sandra Bullock movies. And on Sunday the Gonyea’s had everyone over for a pasta party, it was delicious. Overall it was a great weekend with surprisingly beautiful weather unlike the torrential rain and hail that ripped through Plattsburgh. Luckily, my window stayed up while I was gone which was a fantastic surprise.

Wednesday (October 24) the men’s and women’s soccer teams are having cystic fibrosis games. The games are to promote awareness and raise money for the cause. The women’s game is at 4 and the men’s game is at 7 both at the field house. There will be raffles and food and games so please come down for a bit and support an awesome cause.

 

 

When you leave here, don't forget why you came.

I’m sorry if today’s post is a tad sappy, but I am a senior and I am allowed to have one sappy post in the midst of all of my team hilariousness.

I feel old. I feel like an old lady. I had my senior game for college this weekend and that means I am old. Below is a picture from my senior game of high school. I felt old then and look how little I was. What made the senior game this time around a little more special was the fact that I was actually able to play in it. (See below the knee brace due to an acl tear) But what made it more sad is that I’m not going anywhere to play for another four years. I had this realization as I was listening to B-Mikes talk in the locker room and it made me realize how important it was to enjoy these last two weeks and be thankful for all of these years I was able to play.  

My girls did a beautiful job of decorating the locker room and making the four seniors feel like it was, in fact, our birthdays. It turned out to actually be a pretty nice day and being announced with the starting line-up along with hearing my stats over the last four years read over the loud speaker made it very real. I didn’t feel sad though because it wasn’t our last game. I think that it was better we did it that way because we were able to just enjoy it and have fun, not be sad it was the last time we were going to hear our names announced or run out of the tunnel. Fun fact, we learned Liv has played over 3800 minutes of soccer since she’s been here - we did the math, that’s almost three days of her life she has spent in a cardinal uniform. (I know looking at it in days makes it seem less but that’s a ton.)

Buffalo was a solid game which went into a shootout and even though it goes in as a tie we really needed the win to stay in the running for SUNYACs. I will tell you there is not much that sucks more than your team having such a bad season not only your last year, but under your leadership. I cannot change how this season has gone. My girls can learn from it for next year and I know they will thrive because they will never want to feel like this again.

Back in the locker room, the juniors put together a wonderful slideshow which depicted the seniors last four years. And by that I mean, the worst pictures they could find of us from the last four years. Then, each junior gave a little speech about a senior, and Mon’s speech to Liv made everyone cry – it was precious. We then went up to the field house and had a delicious cookout put on by all the parents. It was an almost perfect senior day (would have been perfect if we had won) but I am so thankful for everything that my team, the school and the parents did to make us feel special. It truly was an awesome day.

This week at practice we are planning on working as hard as we can in order to have a blast this weekend on our last away trip as a team. We're even eating dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings so you know stuffs gonna get crazy. We are working on everything from fundamentals to shooting to combinations all week and plan on leaving this season as a solid starting point for next season. Below is a time lapse video of each senior, yes that is a brunette Olivia Hopeck.

Kizoa slideshow: soccer - Slideshow

Road Trip Video Blog

This is just a little inside look at what goes on when we are on the road and how we rely far too much on good luck charms and stuffed animals. Enjoy.

Almost everyone on the team has a nickname or goes by something other than their normal first name, M. Rod, Ashole, Schmitty, Willis, B. Mikes, Kady, Lalo, K. Rab, Livvy Love; well, this is why Lauren Gonyea’s nickname is grandma.

and this...

 

Schmitt wanted to give a shout out to her mom.

 

 

 

 

Picking the movie is always a pretty intense thing once we get on the road. Everyone fights about when to put it on, what we’re watching, whether we want a funny movie or not-and we always end up putting the same thing on.

When we drive through Saratoga on away trips we are allowed to pick between Moe’s and Panera for dinner. Half the team goes to Panera and the better half goes to Moe’s, and it’s the highlight of our trip. Expect for that one time Liv got sick off the queso, but she was fine.

My team is 12.

 

The next morning on our way to the New Paltz game (which was moved to Mount Saint Mary’s College because New Paltz’s field was too muddy to play on from all the rain) with no movie on, Mon and I felt like entertaining the bus.  

Em LaLone in a nutshell.

Pregame locker room nonsense, and oh yeah K. Rab was our backup goalie.

 

The next moring on the way to Oneonta, the bus smelt kinda bad. And by kinda bad I mean unbearably bad.

 

And then this happened..

 

 

And finally, a little locker room dancing to keep you entertained until the next post.

 



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Cortland

Oneonta

Brockport

New Paltz

Oswego

Fredonia

Plattsburgh

Buff State

Geneseo

Potsdam

       These are the current SUNYAC standings. This has us in seventh place, a.k.a not in a fabulous position. The only real positive thing I have to say about this weekend, besides how well the team came together and played, is how proud I am of Em LaLone for scoring on that free kick and not kicking it over the net. Ashley Pagano told me to have some faith and yell, “play with swagger Em!” because Mr. LaLone sent her an email that said we need to run with swagger or something, whatever it said it worked and she bombed the ball into the back of the net so keep those up LaLo. Otherwise we played some kick ass soccer on Friday and in my opinion should have come out of that with a win. Saturday, my feelings are the same and even though I, along with the rest of the team, am devastated about these losses we are dedicating our time this week to figuring out how to get the ball in the goal, period.

       It was baby Cassidy’s 18^th birthday on Friday, little guy won $5 on a scratch ticket. We did secret psycher in the locker room so it was festive and beautiful and a mess. We basically buy out the dollar store and get everyone candy, Gatorade and little gifts to celebrate our first home weekend. I gave myself a stomach ache before both games due to my lack of self control and now all my candy is gone. This weekend is our second away trip, last time I got bunked with Em LaLone and Danielle Schmitt, and because Schmitty physically is too tall to sleep on a futon I let her snuggle with me. This is going to be a tough weekend game wise but we are excited and ready to take on New Paltz and Oneonta. I’m also excited because its Columbus Day weekend and we all get to go home for a few days. I’m flying back to Plattsburgh from Boston on Tuesday so everyone say a little prayer for me and the only four people that fit on my plane.

       Sunday night was the annual SAAC event and all the teams got together for photos and activities. The activities I thought were a bit biased as I got killed by the baseball boys in dodge ball and run down by the track guys in duck duck goose, I think they need to add kickball next year for the soccer players. This year each team was asked to come with a theme prepared, the only teams that did something creative, in my opinion, were men’s hockey who dressed in head to toe neon and women’s basketball who dressed up in camouflage. I thought our idea was pretty cute, maybe because it was my idea, but we each taped a letter to our shirts and spelt out our motto, one team one heartbeat. For all of you that caught on to the fact that that is only 19 letters and our roster is 27 deep, I applaud you. With the remaining letters we spelt out, Buddha. Yes Buddha, and baby Buddha was present for the picture as well. (Yes I know that that is still only 25 letters, but we were missing two players, and they would have been exclamation points) And as a great way to end the event, after bringing shame upon herself and the rest of the team last year, Macee Maddock redeemed herself and only took one piece of pizza this year. Well done Mace, Bruce would be proud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet the assisstant coach

Patrick Michael Shaughnessy was born on April 27, 1990 in Plattsburgh, N.Y. He is a childhood education major with a minor in coaching and his favorite food is chicken wings. At the age of 22, Pat is in his fifth year at Plattsburgh State, has played baseball and soccer at Plattsburgh State (while thriving at both), maintained an awesome GPA and learned that he prefers Nike over Adidas.

Pat was the leading goal scorer in school history with 76 goals at Plattsburgh High School where he lettered in soccer as well as baseball and basketball. After high school, he moved up a level and down the street to Plattsburgh State where he played forward for the Cardinals and after four years ended his soccer career with 42 goals and 98 points. He received fall All-SUNYAC Academic honors multiple times, was named to the Commissioner’s List and named to the All-SUNYAC Second Team. So basically he’s alright at soccer and a good role model and we’re lucky to have him yeah yeah we know.

For baseball, Pat played second base and led the Cardinals with 21 runs batted in, was second among regular players with a .312 batting average and scored a team-high 26 runs his junior year. He was also named to the All-SUNYAC First Team, but this is a soccer blog so let’s stick with what we know.

Pat has been a great fit to the women’s soccer program and we really enjoy having him around. Pat redid our whole practice and pregame warm up, gives great advice and is really good at carrying the jerseys out for us before the game. He is positive, always friendly, has a great attitude and I speak for myself as well as the rest of the girls when I say we really like having him on the field with us. He stays after practice to help us work on stuff, he is a great listener and he is an alright ref when we scrimmage during practice.

Now, this wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t add something odd, so here it is. Pat is a Taurus and Wiley is a Sagittarius, so if you know anything about astrology you know that these are two very different personalities who are trying to work together. “Taurus are quiet and patient people while Sagittarians are loud and head strong. The professional compatibility of Taurus and Sagittarius is going to be promising. The relaxed and restless nature of Taurus will find right compliment in excitement of Sagittarius. In spite of radically different temperaments and approaches, Taurus and Sagittarius will learn to appreciate the benefits of their mutual efforts and work hard to bring stability to their work.” It also goes on to say both should avoid irking each other, but honestly you should avoid irking Wiley regardless of your sign. I’d say this looks like a promising relationship and so far we have no complaints. (All this information is brought to you by my good friends at mywebastrologer.com.)

·         What are your goals for the season?

I would like to win SUNYAC's and make a run into NCAA's.

·         How do you feel about Buddha?

Buddha is the man.

 

·         What is something that has surprised you so far?

How much the team hangs out and how all the girls seem to get along all of the time. That’s not the case with the guys’ team.

·         What is your favorite Gatorade flavor?

Yellow all the way.

·         Describe your coaching style in one word.

Fun.

 

·         What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten?

Don't let anyone tell you what you can do.

·         What do you want to take away from this experience?

I want to just become a better coach, see what works and what doesn't work. I want to take away some ideas for the future and hopefully coach my own team one day.


 

(Pats Favorite Pump Up Song)

 

 

 

 

Happy Conference Play! And may the odds be ever in your favor.

FINALLLYY, conference opener and we killed it, just like Buddha knew we would. This was just the game we needed to get back on our feet. The best part of the match was that all three of the goals were the first of their collegiate careers for Macee Maddock, Marcelle Shepisi and Taylor Florio. So proud of my little guys. We also had a big turn out including support from the PSU men's hockey and basketball teams so thanks for that boys. We chose to go against the wind in the first half because B-Mikes had a feeling the wind would be stronger in the second half which would ultimately give us the bigger advantage. Well, that feeling he had was rain - a cold, windless rain. Rain has become a bit of a staple in our games so it’s nothing we weren’t used to or prepared for. A little rain is nothing after the hurricane that danced through the Husson game or the downpour during the Middlebury game last Tuesday.

 

The Middlebury game started off with pouring rain straight out of your favorite romantic comedy. I’m talking torrential downpour that looked like it was created on a movie set, it made us all 5 pounds heavier and our hair 5 times curlier. This game was special in that it was the end of a tradition here at Plattsburgh State, we did away with the international walk out because Wiley said it was so boring it made her sick. We now form two lines creating a tunnel for the starters to run through. It is soo much better and a lot more fun. Then, after the new cool announcements, the national anthem wouldn’t play - and something happened straight out of Mean Girls. Both teams joined together and started singing, in the pouring rain, off key and I’m pretty sure we screwed up the lyrics. It was cute and funny but we needed to get down to business. At the end of the day we played really well considering the rain was so forceful you couldn’t see more than 3 feet in front of you and Middlebury is ranked 9^th in the country. They scored with eleven seconds left in the first overtime, which was a bummer, but we’ll move past it and learn from it.

This week Danielle Schmitt celebrated her 19^thbirthday on Sept. 21. WOHOO the big 1-9. Awesome. We had another great tailgate after the game on Saturday so special thanks and shout out to the parents that make that happen and give us a chance to actually get to know each other. And please pray that we make it through our first Monday practice of the season were we don’t have a game until Friday (a.k.a lots of fitness). We have two home games this weekend, the Cortland Red Dragons at 4 p.m. on Friday and the Oswego Lakers (whatever that is) Saturday at 1 p.m. Come down and show your support!

 

Bonus Question of the week: Do you know why Wiley will be cheering for both teams on Saturday? Come to the game and check back on Sunday to find out!

 

(how we feel about Friday's game)

Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha Rockin Everywhere

Hello everyone, welcome to the official blog of the Plattsburgh State women’s soccer team. We’re already a few weeks into the season so I’m going to fill you in as quickly as possible on the ridiculousness that is our team.

Preseason was a rough week complete with blisters, sunburns and ice baths. And as an added bonus, the captains got to participate in a boot camp run by ex-marine Eric Kapitulik. (The link about Eric and the program is at the bottom of the post I really encourage you to check out his story.) This included the girls having to carry each other on their backs during suicides, Em LaLone almost drowning, seriously, and a lot of other activities that taught the girls a lot about being there for a teammate and mental toughness. And after they couldn’t get out of bed for the next three days, we started off preseason with the mile run, the worst 6 minutes and 45 seconds of our lives. For Kristie, Liv Hopeck and I, we will never have to run it again, YAYYAY. And Kristie ran it in an unimpressive 5 minutes and 51 seconds. Only one second off the all-time record which is held by Emily Riley, or as Monica D’Ippolito would say future hall-of-famer Em Riley.

This year we had another record, the amount of freshmen that came to preseason and the returner/freshmen ratio. A totally of 13 freshmen graced our presence; I know that’s a lot. Our roster is now 13 freshmen and 14 returners, that’s pretty much half and half and it’s weird. No one is complaining though because this freshman class has a tonnn of talent, including a few starters. Some fun stuff that happened during preseason, well.. we adopted a new mascot this year, Buddha. He lives in the locker room and is already changing colors from everyone rubbing his big belly for good luck. We loveeee him. I brought my car to school for the first time and day two of preseason my back window stopped going up (see picture below). We also had our annual team hike were Wiley did her best to take pictures with her iphone and ended up taking more of herself. We ended the week with a cookout at Wiley’s house where her mom made us the best food we have all year, hands down the best cheesy potatoes in the Northern Adirondack Region.

In the actual soccer aspect of this post, our record stands at 4-3. After winning the Cardinal Classic and beating Castleton and Husson, Buddha decided we needed a little character building and our next three defeats resulted in 1-0 losses, two of which came from PK’s due to hand balls in the box. We play Middlebury tonight at home in the pouring rain, just the way we like it, and our SUNYAC schedule starts this Saturday at home vs. Potsdam. Let’s go Cards, one team one heartbeat.
 

 

 

http://www.theprogramathletics.com/about-the-ceo/