Wolverine Spotlight Q&A: Jaime Dean
10/30/2015 12:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
Senior midfielder Jaime Dean has been a four-year mainstay in the Wolverine midfield, appearing in all 78 games since her arrival in Ann Arbor with 44 starts, including each of the last eight games. She owns six goals and five assists over her collegiate tenure.
With the Wolverines regular-season finale just days away, Jaime took some time after practice to talk about the emotions of the senior day, the strength of Team 43 and the focus on attention to details as the postseason approaches.
Q. What are your emotions going into senior day?
A. It's a happy-sad day. I'm really excited for it and excited to be enjoying my senior year with this team we have. It's a well-rounded team. We're all close and get along. What a great way to go out.
Q. What makes this team so special?
A. It think it's our closeness. We're united -- whether we're on the field or off the field. I think that's been our strong suit this year. We're all on the same page. I think it helps having a senior class that's close. We have strong leaders on the team, and everyone is a leader. We all came in with a really positive attitude, and it's only gotten better throughout the season. That's shown on the field.
Q. Do you feel like the team has a lot of momentum right now? Does that actually exist?
A. We talk a lot about not taking things for granted. We don't ever want to overlook any opponent. I think we're doing a better job with that year. We look at every game as a fresh start and focus on getting our minds set for that specific game. We've had a great season so far, but just because we had a good game the previous week, it doesn't mean anything for our next week. We need to be ready for each game. We can't take it for granted.
Q. With only one game apiece over the last two weeks of the regular season, the team is getting a little more time off. Is that helpful late in the season?
A. Yeah, it is. It keeps us a little fresher. But at the same time, sometimes you have extra days off and it's a little harder to get back into the swing of it. I know from past seasons that the Big Ten Tournament can be exhausting playing back-to-back days. We need to be ready for that and find a way to overcome it.
Q. What is the training like as you approach the end of the regular season and postseason play? Is it a lot of fine-tuning, or is it never too late to implement more?
A. The coaches are really empathizing attention to detail. That's what we need to really focus on -- the little things, like receiving the ball, footwork, playing the simple passes and just executing. That's the most important thing right now.
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