…Seven hours later, it’s time to wake up for practice. Thanks to the lovely Spring showers Kansas has to offer, we were unable to practice outside the entire week. Luckily, Coach Babs reserved ninety minutes of practice time at the same complex we will be playing at all week long. I want to personally thank Bri for warning us about the hot Alabama weather. I think it was 75 degrees at 9:00 this morning. I can only imagine how hot it is at 12:00 when we play Thursday and Friday. I’m definitely planning on a nice farmer’s tan by the end of this weekend. I wish I could say we got to come back to the hotel and sleep after practice, but some of us (Laura, Caity, Jen, Kalee, Leslie, Becca, Jess, and myself to be exact) were forced to evacuate our suites for water damage and foul-smelling mildew. Thankfully no personal items were damaged. Now, my suite is on the third floor while everyone else is on the first floor. Oh well, it makes for a good story, right? After repacking, moving, and unpacking again, we were finally ready to eat lunch at Logan’s Steakhouse. They had loaded mashed potatoes—we were so excited.
Tonight we travelled to a nearby city called Huntsville for the Banquet of Champions. It was held at the United States Space and Rocket Center, which had a museum, two amusement park rides, and lots of rocket ships inside!! Most of the team took a ride on the Space Shot—an enormous tower that shoots you into the sky, then drops you to the ground. I admire their bravery, but I decided to stay back and take pictures and videos for them. Heights aren’t exactly my thing. We sat with players from Shorter College, the school we play tomorrow. They were very nice and we loved listening to their Southern accents. We also met our Special Olympics supporters, who medaled in various sports and will be supporting MNU Softball for the duration of the National Tournament. I am so excited to get to know them better and learn from their character. They appear to be great people. We were treated to a delicious meal, which included grilled chicken sandwiches, potato salad, baked beans, and my favorite: brownies. With full stomachs, we listened to Don Stanford, the Mayor of Decatur. He welcomed us and gave us the usual “you are all winners” speech. It’s neat actually hearing it in person rather than in movies, though. He reminded us that there are plenty of other schools in the country who would love to be sitting in our places right now. Wow, we are one of thirty two teams who can say that we made it to the end. That’s amazing!!
Leslie Jones deservingly received the Champions of Character Award for MNU. She was so scared to go up on stage in front of everyone. I would have been too. Lesley Miller was also recognized as a Scholar Athlete. The best part of the banquet was the induction of Cheryl Schaefer, the interim head coach of Point Loma Nazarene University. She had an amazing story as to how she got to where she was in college, and where she is today. Not only did she excel as an athlete, but she surrounded herself with people who brought her closer to the Lord. She was very inspiring, and we have the privilege of competing against her squad on Friday at noon. It was a great evening overall, and now that it’s over, we can focus solely on our game tomorrow against #10 Shorter College.
Coach told us before we left that if there were no upsets, we would go 1-2 in the tournament, and be eliminated after Saturday. He went on to say, however, that it wouldn’t be a National Tournament without some upsets. We may be the #22 seed in this tournament, but we believe we are the best #22 seed any team will ever face. When we play Shorter tomorrow, they are the ones who will have the pressure. They are the ones who will have more to lose. They are the ones who are supposed to win. But like Coach Babs said, only one team gets to end its season on a win. Why can’t it be us? Tomorrow is where our journey begins. We were the underdogs at the beginning of conference play, and now we are the underdogs in the National Tournament. We’ve surprised people all season. There’s no point in stopping now.
I hope you can find some time to listen to the game on KMNU or watch the live video streaming on mnusports.com. I will continue to update this blog as often as possible. Thank you for your love and support. Everything we do is for MNU!! HOLD THE ROPE!!
Love Always,
Taylor #21
Coach told us before we left that if there were no upsets, we would go 1-2 in the tournament, and be eliminated after Saturday. He went on to say, however, that it wouldn’t be a National Tournament without some upsets. We may be the #22 seed in this tournament, but we believe we are the best #22 seed any team will ever face. When we play Shorter tomorrow, they are the ones who will have the pressure. They are the ones who will have more to lose. They are the ones who are supposed to win. But like Coach Babs said, only one team gets to end its season on a win. Why can’t it be us? Tomorrow is where our journey begins. We were the underdogs at the beginning of conference play, and now we are the underdogs in the National Tournament. We’ve surprised people all season. There’s no point in stopping now.
I hope you can find some time to listen to the game on KMNU or watch the live video streaming on mnusports.com. I will continue to update this blog as often as possible. Thank you for your love and support. Everything we do is for MNU!! HOLD THE ROPE!!
Love Always,
Taylor #21
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