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Hello and welcome to the 2014 Summit League Women’s Soccer
Championships! My name is Samantha Harder and I have the pleasure of recording
my experiences throughout the duration of this year’s tournament. I am a senior defender and I have to honor of
playing for the University of Denver.
This is my fourth conference tournament, my second Summit League Tournament.
This year at the tournament my team will be joined by South
Dakota State, North Dakota State, and IUPUI.
11/5/14
Today was our last prep day before the tournament begins and
we are all very excited. This morning we
trained at our normal time making some final preparations and working out some
kinks before the tournament begins tomorrow.
Training was good and the energy was high, as the team is getting very
excited for the chance to defend the title that we won last year. In addition to training and classes, we had
the conference banquet this evening in which they announced the awards for the
year and we enjoyed each other’s company and a delicious dinner of pasta,
salad, and chicken, the perfect pregame meal!
After the awards were announced and the speeches were given we all went
our separate ways and began physically and mentally preparing for the games
ahead, starting with getting a good night’s sleep. Congratulations to South Dakota State on
winning the regular season championship, as well as a big congrats to all the
players and coaches who received awards.
Good night and good luck to all!
11/6/14
Waking up knowing it’s game day is quite possibly the best
feeling in the world. This morning we
had team breakfast in the locker room and sat around and chatted for a while
about the excitement of the game before people headed off to their first and
only classes of the day. Because we are
at home our preparations are a little bit different than they would be on the
road. When classes were finished at noon
we had a cardio spike, just a way for us to get our legs moving and our hearts
pumping to help prepare our bodies for the big game. Following the cardio spike, we enjoyed a
wonderful team lunch at Mod Market just down the road from campus and then we
all went on our way to get some pregame naps in. Upon arriving to the locker room for pregame
routines and prep, we all changed into our warm up gear and began listening to
music to get us pumped up. We engaged in our traditional pregame dance party
and before we knew it, it was ready to head out to the field and begin warming
up. Excited to play, we all were anxious
to hear the starting lineups. The game
began and was a battle from the very first whistle; neither team was able to
find the breakthrough and we went into the locker room 0-0 at halftime. We heard from our coaches on what we needed
to fix and headed back out excited to find a way to win the game. The game continued and we ended up winning
1-0 off a goal from one of the sophomores on our team. We were going to the championship!!
Additionally today, North Dakota State and South Dakota
State battled hard and South Dakota State ended up coming out on top with a 2-1
win. I didn’t get to see the game but
from what I heard it was a great game to watch!
11/7/14
The day after a game is never easy to wake up on. But feeling fatigued and sore didn’t bother
us much because we were still very excited to be moving on to the championship
game. We all enjoyed some down time on
our own and had to report to training at 1:45 p.m. Training was light as it was focused on regeneration
and just staying mentally sharp for the game tomorrow. Following our afternoon practice we had a
wonderful team dinner at the great restaurant called Steakhouse 10 in Denver. It was delicious and great spending time with
the team. After dinner, it was time to
head home and get some sleep. After all,
we have a rather big game to play tomorrow!
11/8/14
Championship Game Day!
The excitement on a day like this is incredible. We all had breakfast on our own and spent
some time getting our minds right and focused for the war ahead. As we reported to the Ritchie Center at
school to begin our pregame prep including rolling out and getting treatment
the nerves began to set in, as we all knew what was at stake today. We were playing for the right to play
again. The game began and our energy was
flying. Both teams came out strong but
we were able to find the back of the net about halfway through the first half
off a corner kick and header from the same teammate who scored in the first
game of the weekend! She was on fire and
we were all excited! We went into the
locker room at half time and again heard from our coaches. They were very pleased with how we were
playing and we all agreed our focus needed to be on defense from this point on;
if we didn’t give up a goal we would win the game. We thought we were on our way to being
crowned back-to-back Summit League Champions as the clock was winding down but
with 31 seconds remaining South Dakota State tied it up and the game
changed. We went into overtime and
double overtime and neither team could find the breakthrough, so the game would
be decided by a penalty shootout. Unfortunately
for us, SDSU’s goalkeeper saved our first PK while they scored theirs. We went back and forth until our goalie came
up with a huge save in the third round and we were tied back up. It went into sudden death; the first team to
miss would lose. Again SDSU’s goalie
made a save on the sixth round and then they scored their 6th round
shot. That was it, the game was over and
we had lost. With our hearts broken and
our season over we had to congratulate SDSU on a good game and battling until
the very last whistle.
Coming away from this bittersweet weekend it was a great
experience and we are so thankful to have had to opportunity to get to play two
more home games this year. On behalf of
my whole team and the University of Denver we would like to thank all of the
teams for coming out and helping make this tournament so successful. Best of luck to South Dakota State as they
represent The Summit League in the NCAA Tournament.
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Don’t forget to check out the next
edition of My Championship Experience as it follows the Men’s Soccer
Championship, Nov. 13/15 and throughout the 2014-15 season for coverage at each
of The Summit League Championships.
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