A Return to The Glory Days . . .

By Courtney Tobe

Belk Turf Field. There is no place like home!

The Davidson Field Hockey team met up with an old friend again this past week, grass.

A surface that most of us haven’t played on since our high school glory days came back into the picture this past Wednesday evening as we traveled to Radford, Virginia for our first conference game of the season. In order to prepare for this match-up we abandoned our extremely nice and extremely fast turf for two days of practice on the grassy knoll behind Baker. Although the change of scenery was nice, it only took a couple of hits and missed stops before we were begging to go back to the turf and wondering how on earth we ever played on such an awful surface.

Playing on grass is a completely different game. The skills and strategy that we practice on turf is often ineffective on grass because it is a much slower paced game that is much more unpredictable. You never know when a perfectly hit ball is going to hit a ditch and pop over your stick, or a ball that looks like it might be going out of bounds decides to stop right on the end line, or even worse, when you are dribbling the ball and it just decides to stop instead of staying on your stick like it’s supposed to.

Despite two extremely frustrating days of practice, our hard work paid off when we beat Radford 1-0 on their home field. The trip to Radford has normally been a struggle for us as we couldn’t get past the frustrating surface to carry home a win, but this year it was different. We hope to carry the excitement of our win into this weekend as we return to the turf (thank goodness!) to face Richmond and Georgetown. Both of these games will be great matchups as we look to extend our record to 8-2. Keep following along for more behind the scenes D.C.F.H. action. Go Cats! –Tobe #7.

Battle Wounds

By Courtney Tobe

A broken nose, a busted lip, a bruised chin, and scarring turf burn were just a few of the products of two intensely fought games this past weekend at William and Mary. It is part of the DCFH culture to take pride in our battle wounds. We don’t typically mind a decent bruise from a tough practice or a black eye from an intense game because it illustrates a dedication to our sport and a sense of fight. Junior defender Steph Meador is a prime example of someone who loves the fight. In our practice at William and Mary on Saturday, Steph took a ball to the face while defending a penalty corner. The result was a broken nose and two very swollen black eyes, but the pain didn’t stop Steph from playing in our game on Sunday. She played the whole game - start to finish - without even wearing a mask.

Sophomore midfielder Annie Evans also had her fair share of battle wounds this past weekend. In our game against William and Mary on Friday Annie got hit in the mouth with a ball and developed a very swollen lip, so swollen in fact that assistant coach Catherine Somits decided to give it a name because it appeared to be taking on a life of its own. “Toni,” as her lip came to be called, lasted for a few days and has now developed into a nice bruise.

Our accumulation of battle wounds was not the only adventure we had in William and Mary. On Saturday, we had plenty of time to explore colonial Williamsburg. Several DCFH members toured the colonial shops, chatted with colonists, and took their pictures in the stacks. We also had a nice lunch at The Cheese Shop, one of Ginny’s favorite restaurants at her alma mater.



Even though this past weekend brought us our first loss it was still very successful. We learned a lot from our game against William and Mary and we finished out the weekend with a win against Penn. We hope to take what we’ve learned from this past weekend and apply them in our game against #7 Wake Forest on Friday. The game is home at 6 p.m. We have an extremely good chance against them this year so please come out and show your support! Keep following along for more behind the scenes D.C.F.H. moments! Go Cats! – Tobe #7

Commitment, Opportunity, Heart

By Courtney Tobe

The tears in senior Clare Perry’s eyes said enough after we defeated Lafayette 3 to 0 this past Sunday.  Two weekends into our season and still undefeated, something that Clare and I and the rest of this year’s senior class has never experienced before.  In our four years of Davidson hockey we have been through some difficult seasons.  Seasons full of tough losses and great successes, but we have never experienced anything like this, 4-0.  If I’ve learned one thing from DCFH, it’s that winning isn’t everything, but our recent success has brought a new sense of confidence to our team that didn’t exist before.  We finally believe in ourselves and are realizing what we are capable of, and we won’t let anything stop us from reaching our potential.

This past summer, Ginny and Catherine came up with three core values for our program to focus on: Commitment, Opportunity, and Heart.  The goal being that these three words will embody the spirit of D.C.F.H. and reflect the attitude of our program.  Wednesday evening, Sandy Helfgott, Davidson’s Director of Physical Education and Recreation, came to talk to us about the importance of maintaining these three core values and living them out throughout the course of our season.  Sandy’s speech was extremely motivational and a good thing to hear leading up to our weekend at William and Mary.  We are in a good place right now, especially after receiving 4 votes for the top 20, but we need to make sure that we don’t let up and this weekend will be a good test for us.

Keep following along for more behind the scenes D.C.F.H. moments! Go Cats! – Tobe #7

D.C.F.H. Season Underway

By Courtney Tobe

As I took to the field for our first game of our 2010 season this past weekend I could not help thinking about preseason. The 9 days of intensive conditioning, three a day practices (yes that’s right … 3 a days), sweltering temperatures on the turf, cold whirl pools, and a soreness that can’t fully be comprehended unless you have experienced it. Everyday tasks like getting out of bed, getting dressed, and even sleeping all felt impossible, and yet even while our bodies were in such intense pain, we somehow found a way to make it back out to the field for the next session. Our fans didn’t see the hard work that we put in during camp and neither did our opponents, but together we worked, struggled, and survived all to make it to this moment, when the referee blows the whistle and our season begins.

My name is Courtney Tobe, and I am a senior from Louisville, Kentucky, on Davidson College’s field hockey team. I have officially survived four D.C.F.H. preseason’s (something I never thought I would be able to say), and I have never felt as proud of the work that we put in during preseason as I do right now because we had an amazing opening weekend.

The weekend started out with a seven and a half hour long bus ride to our nation’s capital. Seven and a half hours is a long time to be on a bus, but we managed to pass the time pretty easily with an impromptu J.Lo movie marathon, good conversation, and a lot of snacks. Although there were moments when the bus ride felt like it would never end, the trip was definitely worth it. We brought home two wins, a 5-0 win against Bryant on Friday and a 5-0 win against St. Francis on Saturday, and we had an amazing crowd turn out for the games.

One of the great things about D.C.F.H. is the amount of support we get from our fans. We had several parents make the trip to D.C. and two D.C.F.H. ’09 alums, Sara Stevens, and Tyler Kirkland came out to show their support. To top things off, Darrel Young, a RB/LB for the Washington Redskins made an appearance at American University to watch our games and cheer for the Davidson Wildcats (all of the Davidson Dad’s were extremely excited about this one). The weekend was a great way to kick off our season and has really inspired us to work hard this week in practice.

We have a lot of potential as a team and a lot of goals that we have set for ourselves this season. The next step we have to take toward reaching them comes this weekend with two games. We open up at home on Saturday against Towson at 12 p.m., and play Lafayette at Wake Forest on Sunday. These are two really good match-ups for us and we can’t wait to hopefully add two more W’s to our record.

Throughout our season, I’ll be checking back in with game updates, funny stories, player interviews, and much more. Keep following along for more behind the scenes D.C.F.H. moments and please come out and show your support on Saturday! Go Cats! – Tobe #7