Jan. 15, 2008

SPRING TRIP GALLERY 2

In the second edition of the Illini 2008 Blog, freshman Annie talks about the team's last days in Florida during Spring Training, as well as their first dual of the season against Florida Atlantic. Illinois continues its dual part of the schedule this weekend when it hosts Marquette on Saturday, Jan. 19, at noon, and Western Michigan on Monday, Jan. 21, also at noon.

As the temperatures soared higher (one might even say it was hotter than India) our team was back on the courts ready for another intense day of practice during Spring Training. After four hours of practice, and five more minutes of jump roping (guess who made it to 3 minutes without missing this time?), we were ready for some rest, and more importantly a good meal. The Cheesecake Factory was the unanimous winner, and so we began our 35-50 minute wait by calling our future teammate Chelcie. After only a few minutes of talking to her, everyone on the team was convinced that her sarcasm was going to fit in JUST RIGHT with our team!

The next morning we woke up early, with the promise of a surprise planned for that afternoon. Practice went well and were all hyped up with anticipation. When we arrived back at the hotel, we were told to make ourselves look presentable because we were going to visit the Evert Tennis Academy, and we would be receiving a tour from former men's tennis assistant coach Kent Kinnear, who now holds an illustrious job working as a coach for the USTA through the Evert Academy. Kent, Will Ferrell's twin, gave us a great talk on attitude and positive thinking, and gave us a little insight into the future of American Tennis.

After our visit to the tennis center, Kent, his wife Happy (and yes, her sister's name is Jolly), and his two unbelievably cute kids, Etienne and Anika, accompanied us to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Our team had previously come to the decision that instead of a team puppy, we would prefer a team baby, and Etienne was just the baby we were looking for! 19 pieces of bread, four strawberry lemonades and an endless amount of fights over who got to hold Etienne later, it was time to say goodbye to Kent and his adorable children!

Friday came, and you could tell that everyone could not wait for our match the next day. We practiced hard with promising plans to go to the beach for a game of ultimate Frisbee afterwards. However, all of our hopes and dreams were crushed when we reached the beach to find that there was nowhere near enough space to play. We did not let this dampen our spirits though, and we took comfort in the ocean waves. Most of the team went in the water, although some of us (who don't exactly care for the taste of salt water) decided to spend our time walking down the beach looking at the jellyfish, and an odd specimen known as the Man O' War. I just did a Wikipedia search for this creature, and have just learned that the venom has been responsible for many deaths, and can cause excruciating pain. It's a good thing these "Men O' War" stayed away from our team!

When the day of our first dual match came, there was a sense of excitement in the air. Everyone was a little bit nervous, especially the three members of the team who would be playing in their first college dual match ever. I am of course speaking of the freshmen - Marisa, our little redshirt freshman Leigh and myself! Once the matches started, the nerves immediately disappeared and it was clear that we were ready to compete and fight hard. In the blink of an eye, we had taken the doubles point, and a couple of winks later, all five singles players were walking off the court victoriously.

With a 7-0 win under our belt (and by belt I mean bathing suits), we hit the beach for what was supposed to be a day of jet-skiing, which somehow ended up going very wrong in very many ways. When our jet-ski plans were ruined, we took to beach volleyball, with Dave's team getting the win we were finally looking for! Once we were all worn out, it was back to the airport and back to freezing cold Champaign. After a layover in Atlanta, a talk on the phone to our other hilarious incoming freshman Amy and a rough realization that it was 20 degrees outside, we were back in Illinois to stay. Now our goal is to focus on staying warm and preparing for our match against Marquette this Saturday!

Well fans, that's it for this week's blog. Thanks again for reading, and until next time Illini fans,

Annie McCarthy, GO ILLINI!