The fall semester is over and DCFH
has officially completed our very first season in the A-10! It is unbelievable
how fast the season flew by, and here we are already five weeks into the
spring! My name is Connie Cape and I am a junior goalie happily here to give
you an updated behind the scenes!
Now before I get into our spring updates, a huge congrats to the awesome Charlotte DCFH alums that won an adult team tournament over the winter break! Definitely made all of us who couldn’t go even more excited to come back and start playing with the whole team again.
What a spring it has already been! After just a week of coming back to school, the team jumped right into our first weeks of conditioning and lifting to keep us distracted from the fact we were not allowed to start practicing yet. Instead of going back to the monotony of 4:30 workouts, we decided to change the schedule up a little bit. We all split into two to three groups for each day and ran our four miles on Mondays, our agilities on Wednesdays, so we would all be done with our workouts by 4:30pm everyday. Some groups were smaller than others but still just as fun. I was in a spin group on Tuesdays that would vary from four to five people so needless to say we had some great bonding time jumping and climbing hills will jamming to Ginny’s awesome spin playlists. I personally spent more time in the pool or using the versa-climber in the training room since I am still recovering from surgery in December, but I definitely had some great company with Becky Johnson as a fantastic swim partner and few others who would come back and forth getting to do some seriously exciting versa workouts that definitely showed your level of coordination. Being separated into smaller groups made us miss the girls we didn’t see, but it always made Friday boot camps that much more enjoyable, since these were the days we all got to be together and battle through some challenging circuit workouts. Even Becky and I got to be a part of the Fridays by making playlists for workouts or playing last years warm-up track. Even though these conditioning weeks were hard and exhausting, we still found some entertainment in them all, and we have already seen improvements in fitness and strength!
Even though players have been able
to do an individual workout each week, all of us were so excited to hit the end of the
straight conditioning period, and finally start practicing with
the whole team! Low and behold, the week we were going to start our time up on
our turf, North Carolina decided we hadn’t had enough winter for it to be
considered February yet. So Davidson College welcomed a few icy snowstorms that
delayed our chances to get up to the field for a week. That week could have
turned into a grim one for all of us, but we pushed through the last few days
and had one of the greatest opportunities to talk to two Davidson alumnae and
hear about their experiences.
Heather J. Mckee, a DCFH alum, and
Jane Campbell, a Davidson alum who was a huge DCFH fan during her time at
Davidson, both graduated in 1987. It was such a great pleasure to listen to
Heather’s stories of leading the team as a captain and handling tough
situations that occurred, while also hearing Jane’s incredible story of persevering
and excelling in the Navy as a high ranking official coordinating operations.
These two amazing women gave the team great advice on leadership and how to
work together with respect and commitment. For me, this was one of the highlights
of my Davidson Field Hockey career. The ability to meet these great alumnae
from Davidson inspired me to reach places I didn’t imagine I could go in terms
of leadership and communication within the team and on the field. Another huge
bonus is these two have moved back to Davidson so we are all hoping to see a
lot more of them during the spring and next fall!
Even though the snow has gotten in our way, we have still been able to practice a few times before we all go on spring break, and boy have they have felt amazing! It has already been so great to put our shin guards on and start building together as a team. Nothing has made me happier in the last few weeks than standing in cage and getting shots from each player including a few from Ginny and Catherine. Once spring break is over we will all be more than ready to really get into practice and prepare for our spring games.
What would the spring be if we didn’t have some play days to get all of us back into gameplay and build momentum for next season! We are so excited to start the spring March 21st at home, hosting Appalachian State and Limestone for a play day. Then it is off to Winston-Salem April 2nd to take on Wake Forest in some friendly competition. I am extremely happy to finish the main spring season travelling to Richmond on April 11th, where we will go against some A-10 teams Richmond and VCU. Nothing like playing conference teams to bring some drive into the fall season! This play day isn’t the end for us though, for we have our annual Alumnae Game April 18th. This is always an entertaining way to end the spring playing with old teammates and Davidson field hockey players from long before we were here representing the team.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I will be counting down the days before I can come home to Davidson after spring break and put my gear back on with everyone else. As I close this new entry, I wish for warmer weather for all reading this blog. I’m hoping wherever you are, you get to relax as much as we can during our spring break! Hope to see anyone and everyone at our first play day of the spring!
Until next time,
Connie
