The Yellow Armband: Bringing The Fight
10/5/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 5, 2011
Hello Fans!
This past weekend our team traveled to Iowa and Nebraska. I could make a "corn"-y joke about all of the farmland we encountered, but I will refrain.
For the first time since 2004, our team won both of our Big Ten games on the road in the same weekend. We brought a level of emotion and intensity to these games that I hadn't yet experienced in my four years of being here. Not only were we fighting for each other on the field, we were fighting for two of our teammates that couldn't play with us. Many of you have probably read the feature about Holly Hein's battle with thyroid cancer. Last Friday night at Iowa, our game was about more than just winning. It was our way to show Holly that we're battling with her. Unfortunately, our team suffered another emotional blow early in the match when Meghan Toohey went down with an injury. Our team responded with a lot of fire and Iowa couldn't do much about it as Nkemjika Natalie Ezurike nailed a "cracker of a shot" (as Coach Ryan called it) into the upper right corner of the goal to seal our 1-0 victory.
Nkem wasn't done yet, however. She scored two more beautiful goals against the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Sunday. Her second goal, from 47 yards out just seconds after the second half opened, punished the questionable judgment of Nebraska's sweeper/keeper and sealed our emotional two-win weekend.
I would also like to take this opportunity to credit the hard work of our backline. Despite our aggressive play and the fact that we yell at each other throughout the game, we might have the most polite defenders in the entire country. Tori "Tortoise" McCombs and Shelina "Queen of the Night" Zadorsky always make sure to accompany their suggestions to others with please and thank you. Often times, we wonder what the other team thinks of our courteous conversations throughout the course of the game.
Like always, we managed to have plenty of good laughs throughout the course of the trip. Some of the highlights involved fending off paparazzi while we boarded our chartered plane, hearing about Nkem and Toohey's late night run in with a rabid raccoon, and enjoying a team breakfast at our hotel on Sunday while Emily ate hers in a room full of strangers.
As we look to continue our success, we have a great deal of momentum to carry into our game against Northwestern this Saturday.
Until then, GO BLUE!
Kristen Goncalves
