TicketsThroughout the 2006-07 school year, select UC student-athletes will share their experiences on and off the field with Bearcat fans through CATSblogs. These student-athletes will take you in to the life of a Bearcat and share their struggles and triumphs. Fans can email their favorite CATSblogger here! Be sure to include your name and hometown.
Kim Sykes is a sophomore defender for the UC women's soccer team. She is majoring in psychology and pre-med and is a captain for the 2006 Bearcats.
August 31, 2006, 11:45 am
What a week it has been! Our season opener versus our rival Kentucky ended with us winning, 1-0. It was a great way to start the season by dominating and beating a team that always comes ready to play and we can expect a tough battle against! Thanks to all the fans who came out to support us, especially my old high school coach and high school soccer teammates. I must say the fans we have at our soccer game are the greatest. At our next game, which was on Tuesday against Purdue, the RallyCats were there which was pretty awesome and I hope they keep coming to our games.
Tuesday night's game against the Boilermakers was a double header game where we played after the men's team, (who of course won) so there was a lot of fun stuff going on at our game, which of course got our team pumped even more than we already were. Even though we went into overtime with Purdue and ended up with a tie, I think it is clear that our team is making major strides with each game. On the subject of our fans, unfortunately Tuesday night's game was missing one element that is normally there: we did not have Gigi' Ernst's mom in the crowd!! This was disappointing because we love the cheering from Momma Ernst but we know she will be at all the other games!!
I can't even explain to you how excited we all are about our season this year...you can just feel how excited everyone is, and it is evident not only to the players, but everyone I have talked to about our season can feel our anticipation and the excitement for what this season will bring. We have so much depth it is incredible; we are healthy; and not that we focus on the past, but we are more experienced than last year; and we are overall so much farther along than we were last year at this point as well.
Besides watching some video clips this morning, we don't have anything on our schedule today until training at 4. Then the other sophomores and I are probably heading out to Olive Garden to celebrate Kristin May's birthday this weekend. This weekend is another weekend that includes intense non-conference games: we play two of our rivals, Miami University on Friday and then Xavier on Sunday -- both away games. I am going to go get some lunch and probably take a nap soon, so I will check back in later...Now that I have a computer I will be sure to write again soon!!
Go Bearcats,
#5
August 23, 2006 5 pm
If you didn't already notice, the countdown until our first kickoff is gone - and we walked away from our first two (exhibition) games with two wins! Last Wednesday we had an early practice, then finished packing our bags, and headed off to for the weekend tournament. Thursday was our first game and we played , who of course had the home crowd being that we were at their place. We were ready, though, because we had just been able to listen to Lorrie Fair and Tony DiCicco tell us about leadership, accepting roles on your team, and just overall national team experiences they had. In the end, both JoJo and Lisa Clark had goals in the game. I was very proud of Lisa because she was my roomie over the weekend!
Friday we didn't have a game but we still had a day full of action. After a short and sweet practice, we were all extremely pumped because we were eating dinner at the May's house at night. But before this, we had an insightful speech about mental preparation given to us by Don Smith, who is our physical therapist/trainer, Rose Smith's husband. We were all glad he spoke to us and felt really lucky to be able to take away from the speech methods to mentally prepare for games.
Like I said, then we were off to the Mays! Besides feasting on the most amazing dinner ever, we watched a movie and played some of the game Catch Phrase, which our team loves. Saturday was game day, and we came out on top and learned a lot from our game versus . Since we won, we went away as the tournament champs! Even though these games don't count towards our record, we feel like this positive momentum will carry over into the start of our season which is this Friday against at home. We had a great weekend where we all really bonded as well as learned more about the game of soccer!!
I'm off to practice,
Kim Sykes #5
August 14, 2006 10 am
Countdown until first kick off: 3 days
Happy Monday everyone...these last few days have flown by. Last Thursday when sports psychologist Greg Dale was here we had a team activity where we first divided our team in two. Then, our task was - using one role of duct tape - to tape one of our group members onto the wall!! While we taped them up, they were standing on a chair, but as soon as the time was up, we had to pull away the chair and see which person stayed taped to the wall for the longest.
All I can say to try to summarize this is that it was hilarious to see Kristin May and Lindsey Noteboom taped up to the wall with duct tape all over them. It turns out my team lost, but the other team actually set a new record with Lindsey being held onto the wall for five minutes! After this, we thanked Greg Dale for helping our team with his knowledge and we went to lunch together.
On Sunday we had another two-a-day, one in the morning, and one at night. The focus of the morning was shooting and finishing, but we ended up getting a lot more than just that out of the session. At night we scrimmaged some and tried out some different formations. Afterwards, we headed to the hydrotherapy pools, showered, and then we went to Martinos for a late team dinner. Today the men's team is headed to to play IUPUI for their first exhibition game. Then on Wednesday we travel to and we have our first exhibition game, as you can see from the countdown. I'll be sure to write again soon!
Kim Sykes #5
August 10, 2006 230 pm
Countdown until first kick off: 7 days
The season has officially started! On Monday and then Tuesday some of the other sophomores and I moved into Dabney Residence Hall for the time being, while the freshman moved into Turner Residence Hall for the year. Then on Tuesday we had our first team meeting, where we basically filled out some compliance papers with Maggie McKinley, the coolest compliance personnel ever, who deals with all those papers for us here at UC. She is amazing at her job and also so great to talk to. We also had introductions to the staff that works with us: everyone from our trainers who are always there for us, to our sports communication staff who is always looking for ways to market our team.
After this, we had some individual meetings with our coaches and then a team dinner of course. We then had a meeting at 8 pm in our incredible, new locker room!! We went over some rules, but then afterwards we had some team bonding time when we played a game where we were in small groups and each group had to come up with a "starting 11," except the catch was that it was different breeds of DOGS starting. So of course my group was with people such as Kate Norton and Amy May who I am proud to say were extremely creative with our dog selection. It was pretty funny to hear everyone's lineup and the reasons why they chose their dogs! After this it was off to bed, because on Wednesday we had an early morning fitness test.
Besides the beep test, we also had training from 1-3 pm on Wednesday. We were all pleasantly surprised because the temperature was perfect for training. We divided into four groups and then played some small-sided games, a nice way to get right into playing some soccer! Then we showered, went off to our team dinner, and then the highlight of our day came around when we got to meet Greg Dale. He is a national renowned sports psychologist who has worked with players ranging from Duke Athletics, which he is currently working with, to individual professional athletes, to NFL teams. He even got the opportunity to talk about the importance of the mental side of athletics with Michael Jordan.
We talked about way too much to be able to describe here, but some of the things we talked about included mental toughness, having a purpose everyday when practicing, as well as visualizing with all your senses. Another thing we all took away from the meeting with Greg was the idea of having a high level of expectations. Our team all agrees that we have a high level of expectations for ourselves this year and we really know how every year counts.
In the meeting we also divided into small groups and told (as well as drew on paper) our most embarrassing moment in our lives. We also did this with the moment in our lives we were most proud. Amy May was in my group and it was hilarious to find out that she had been reaching for a graham cracker while driving to school when she hit a semi-truck stopped in front of her - but don't worry no one was injured and now she can look back with a good sense of humor about it. We also did "two truths and a lie," a game where you tell two truths and one lie, and the groups tries to guess which one is the lie. We found out that Chelsea Kindschuh was a ping pong champion in high school, and Erin MacDonald is related to someone whose name is Ronald MacDonald! Also, we got to know the freshman better which is one of our goals this preseason. I found out that my locker buddy (because she is #6 and I am #5 so we are next to each other) Heather Neiser is one of 7 siblings!!
Well, I am off to practice pretty soon. But check the website again soon because I will be telling how this morning we had an activity with Greg Dale that involved taping two of our players to the wall with duct tape and how we set a new record doing this!!
Go Bearcats,
Kim Sykes #5
August 3, 2006 12 pm
Countdown until preseason: 5 days
Countdown until first kick off: 10 days
This has been a great final week before preseason begins; I've been busy but I have also had an enjoyable time with my friends and been able to relax some. Sunday morning we had open field which was a good time because I was able to see some people I haven't gotten to see for awhile and practice some soccer with my teammates. Afterwards we all went out to lunch together.
In the mornings this week, my teammates (those in the `Nati) and I have been practicing our fitness tests for the last time before we take them about this time next week. I can't believe I'm saying this, but all those runs up the Nippert Stadium stairs were worth it. Then, on Tuesday night, I went to the Dave Matthews Band concert at Riverbend. Besides the fact that it was the hottest I have ever been, it was an amazing concert. Wednesday was another really hot day, but I ran in the heat because some of our games will of course be hot and I know I need to be used to it. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the coaches and then the coaches and all the captains are going out to lunch, so I am looking forward to that. I can't wait until I get to write about the games we've won....only 10 days! Check back in soon everybody...
Kim Sykes #5