March 26, 2008

In the tenth edition of the Illini 2008 Blog, freshman Marisa Lambropoulos describes the Illinois women's tennis team's time in Puerto Rico and how having a little fun with each other can help bring in a win.

Illinois will return to action this weekend Saturday, March 29, against Wisconsin and Sunday, March 30 against Northwestern at the Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana, Ill. Both matches start at noon.

It started with a challenge: two teams, one resort, four judges, and nine fierce competitors. The first team, the Global Gladiators, consisted of Momei, Shivani, Tina, Christine, and Megan. The second team, the Percentage of Passion Stars, aka the POP Stars, included Alejandra, Leigh, Annie, and me. One of our challenges was the scavenger hunt, where each team had to run around the entire resort trying to find the most random things including a pizza box, a tetherball, a pink spiky flower, a floatation device, a toothpick, seaweed, coral, etc. I think you get the point. We had exactly 45 minutes to get all these things in any way we could, so basically we were running faster than I've ever seen any of us run just to win this challenge. In the end it came down to a tiebreaker. In the event of a tie, the team who brings back the most coconuts in 5 minutes wins. After this, the Global Gladiators ended up coming back with more coconuts, but more importantly we all smelled like monkeys or any zoo animal of your choice.

The last challenge, which decided the winner, was a 5-10 minute skit. The POP Stars went first with a dating show where they made fun of all the Global Gladiators and Shelly. Annie was the charming host, I was the belief-filled Shivani Dasso, Leigh was the studious Megan Qu, and Alejandra was the cheerful Kristina Stromberg. Next came the Global Gladiators, who also held a dating show, and made fun of Shelly, Steve (our very chill strength and conditioning coach), Phil (the men's volunteer assistant coach), and of course Dave. The coaches, Steve, and Karen then voted and the Global Gladiators had proven to be the winners.

After our amazing trip to Puerto Rico we went straight to Michigan State to take on the Spartans. While we were waiting for the practice courts at Michigan State, Shelly pointed out to us how she can't pronounce the "g's" at the end of words. For example, instead of saying "bring it in" she says "brin it in". Annie was the only one who had noticed it before we all started bothering her about it. Soon after, that karma came around and everybody realized that I can't say the word "statistics". The next day we took down Michigan State 4-3!!

Thanks for reading.

Marisa