Parker Procida: Inside Michigan Field Hockey
9/12/2014 12:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
• Wolverines to Continue Homestand vs. Providence, VCU
As we slowly departed Northwestern last Easter afternoon, marking an end to our 2014 spring season, it seemed as though fall, preseason and our regular season were years away. However, the summer months once again flew by, and after countless attempts at the beep test and 100-yard sprints, August finally rolled around and we could feel preseason looming.
But on the afternoon of July 30, Marcia left our team a surprise in our email inboxes -- due to an unexpected construction delay in our amazing new facility, we would be traveling to Virginia Beach for the duration of preseason. We arrived in Ann Arbor on August 13th and departed for Virginia the following morning. Once the plane landed there was no turning back.
Looking at our provided itinerary, the trip itself appeared dauntingly impossible, and we were pretty convinced some of us wouldn't survive or make it to our opening weekend at UNC. We faced new challenges every day: the humidity, the weird bugs that inhabited the swamp next to the USA Field Hockey Training Center, ice bathing in kiddy pools, Uncle Lew [Porchiazzo] and Mount Trashmore to name only a few. It would have been easy to complain about our sudden adventure, but as a team we decided to be as positive as we could and not let any little mishaps come between us. After our scrimmage against Old Dominion, we could really see the drastic improvements our team made over the first week in Virginia, and although we lost in a shootout, holding a skilled team to a tie was definitely something we were proud of. Our team was quickly faced with another daunting task -- training with the Navy Seals. When we arrived at Mount Trashmore (a massive landfill) early Saturday morning, we had no idea what to expect. After a grueling three-and-a-half hours, we learned a few things about Team 42 -- our pushup form needs some work, bear crawling uphill is extremely difficult, the benefits of counting in unison and the consequences of failing to do so and how to carry our teammates on our backs. HOOYAH.
We used the momentum from the scrimmage and Navy Seal training in practice and really went hard every time we stepped on the field in order to best prepare ourselves for our games against UNC and Wake Forest at the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. We had high hopes heading into the weekend and went into our first game with a positive mindset against two of the country's best teams. Despite a nail-biting overtime match against Wake, were unable to finish the weekend with a W. But we did not let it overshadow the hard work we had put in.
With our return to Ann Arbor also came the first day of classes, as well as the 21st birthday of yours truly, so needless to say the team was extremely busy, but our morning practices definitely keep us on schedule.
We were excited for our home-opening weekend and for the fans to see not only the incredible new field and facility, but also how connected and cohesive our team has become. What better way to do that by giving them back-to-back shutout victories? On Saturday we battled William and Mary to a score of 2-0, and on Sunday we defeated Central Michigan handily, 6-0. It felt pretty awesome to win both games our opening home weekend, and that has definitely been a morale booster for our team.
We carried that positive energy into practice this week and since then have been preparing for our upcoming home games against Providence on Friday (also our first night game, woop woop!), and VCU on Sunday. Last weekend we had a lot of fans at both games, and we are hopeful to get an even larger crowd for the games this weekend. So, we hope to see you there!
You're now caught up with our season. That's all I have for now. Oh and by the way, my name is Parker Procida (commonly referred to as Pam), and I'm a junior.
As MP always says, champions press on,
GB,
PPP
