Rookie Corner - Missy Lucus (#22)

Missy likes to make my life difficult and apparently yours so good luck reading this (but its ok, she is SOOOOOOOOO HUNGRY! she can't even stand! see picture above)

Also, Missy is my swimming buddy! She taught me how to almost enjoy swimming laps over and over again in a pool...oh and how to put a swim cap on! And apparently, really enjoys ice bathing for some reason. I mean it makes her legs feel really good I guess but its sooo cold.

What is your favorite dinosaur? friends. -animal stuffed best still are They Steg. named stegosaurus a had he and Bronty named brontosaurus a had I fact); …fun them collect to used (I dinosaurs baby Beanie -sized large matching had I and brother my little was I When though. too neat pretty are Stegosauruses them. eat to try or them on pick to dinosaurs other most for big too are and food, of lots eat tall, They’re dinosaurs. coolest the of one are brontosauruses that thought always I’ve

Would you rather be a supermodel or a cheerleader? Ere’sthay onay estionquay aboutay itay; Iay ouldway efinitelyday ebay ay eerleaderchay. Everyonay owsknay atthay upermodelsay areay evernay alloweday otay eatay anyay oodfay ecausebay eythay avehay otay ebay asay innyskay asay ay ickstay! Onenay ofay emthay ouldcay urvivesay inay ethay ealray orldway—Iay ouldcay obablypray alkway ightray upay otay emthay anday eakbray eirthay onesbay. Atay eastlay eerleaderschay ancay ebay athleticay anday appyhay anday oday oolcay ickstray!

What is your favorite throw? (for example, IO flick huck to a fast receiver, OI around break to the dump, etc.) second. last the at just it onto running and it towards sprinting receiver the with air the through fly disc the watch to great so it’s and wrist the of snap a just It’s best. the are receiver fast a to hucks Flick

Would you rather be a Jedi knight or an elf from Rivendale? ahA hatw a ardh hoicec! t’sI asicallyb a rawd, os a andomr hoicec ’llI ays ’dI atherr eb a ediJ nightk. ightL aberss rea os oolc, nda I ouldw ebb lea ot od os anym sefulu hingst yb eingb a asterm fo het orceF. ndA I ouldc unr os astf nda umpj os ighh!

What is your ideal first date? (i.e. romantic outings on the beach with the sun setting, a glass of wine, etc. We need details!) J peelsa llaf ylbaborp dluow I ,hguoht seivom oN .dnuora klaw dna hcaeb a ekil ytterp erehwemos og tsuj dluoc ew sdrawretfa nehT .stibag gnitae evissecxe yna htiw etad ym yawa eracs ot ton sa os oot dnaherofeb tae ot evah dluow I ylsuoivbo tub…doof nailatI ylbaborP .rennid suoiciled a revo gnittes lausac tub ecin a ni tnaw uoy revetahw tuoba klat tsuj nac uoy esuaceb laedi si rennid ot tuo gniog kniht I

If you could have a torrid affair with anyone from past or present, who would he/she be and why? mmH…I evah on adei. eaybM nragorA mrof dorL fo eht singR? se’H yrettp looc dna sinw sattleb dna ftufs, dna eh si hotb a eisw readel dna a loyal drienf.

Would you rather layout D or sky someone? _ thnk skyng ppl s rlly cl bcs jmpng hgh nd grbbng th dsc frm abv smn’s rch s jst wsm. Bt n nswr t ths qstn, _ thnk ’d hv t sy tht ’d rthr lyt D smn bcs t sms hrdr t d; ls, t’s sch _ bg mtvtnl bst fr yr whl tm bcs t dns th thr tm th dsc nd gvs yr tm _ chnc t b n ffns nd hv th pprtnty t scr.

Conference Championships

This weekend was quite a roller coaster. Surprisingly, playing on home turf in the Houston heat and humidity was really tiring and if you don't use something called sunscreen, you get burnt! It's rather fascinating...

To start off the weekend, we had a really great game against Texas. Having just recently learned bracketing, we did a really great job of shutting that offense down. It was some of the best defense we have ever played this season. The offense looked very chilly especially near the endzone. The wind was a factor but not significant enough to affect the way that we played. It truly was a tremendous game that was fun to watch and more fun to play! We finished the game 7-8, losing on ultimate point (which we really should have scored, a few times at least!).

The next two games, I will bracket together because they were sort of a blur in my memory. We let both teams get a run on us for no reason...just lazy defense and poor execution. Run. Catch. Throw + D is really all there is to it. Either way, we won both but its not a pleasant memory. Just something to motivate us to push harder at practice to make sure that doesn't happen again. But I would like to give a shout out to Kayla for tearing it up on the field!

The 4th game of the day was against A&M. It was a good game. We played solid defense and had some great offensive flow. Saw a lot of great things - Edith and Fran had some great upwind hucks. Both had phenomenal defense on some of A&M's key players. Wheeler had some great grabs and Ds. Kathleen of course was running all over the place and shoutout to the Tall One for skying some people (without trying really). We also some lapses in defense and some poor endzone execution. Again, something that we need to be 100% focused on whenever we get close to scoring - because you have to score to win. We lost this game 11-7. Definitely an incentive to work really hard these next 1.5 weeks!

Last game of the day, we picked up the efficiency a bit. Had a few handler/cutter swap lines (which I think went very smoothly from a handler --> cutter perspective) and some great rookie performances. I'd like to tip my hat to Missy for playing well whenever she was on the field. She's got some great ups and once everything clicks, you'll be tearing up the field! Won this game 11-3.

Saturday Sideline Talk Winner: Rebecca Smith

Shoutout to Toni, Sarah, Evi, Kate, and Fran for always having our back in the game. We should live by their example at Regionals!!

Sunday for seeding!

We played Texas B again. Unfortunately, we started off sluggish but slowly got our cabooses in check. Somewhere in those first few point exchanges we decided to pick up our feet and starting running them - "legs feed the wolf." With some helpful poach defense and efficient downwind points, we finished the game 13-5 with plenty of time to prep for the next game.

Our next game was for the 2nd seed from our section against Texas again. Having just come off a demoralizing loss to A&M UT was unprepared for our intensity and strength. Once we had figured out their offense yesterday, we shut them down. The first half, we came out on top 7-2. It was a great feeling but we had to keep the intensity up the next half. Having played many games yesterday, we were regretting our inefficiency. Our marks let up a few breakside throws and they scored a few points this half. Our endzone started getting a bit sloppy but we played hard, really hard! Effort and intensity was not the missing factor. Just a few mental errors. We finished the game in hard cap 9-6!

FIRST TIME WE HAVE BEATEN TEXAS IN 5 YEARS!!!! YEAH RICE!

2nd seed going into Regionals!

I don't know about you but I am thinking about eating, sleeping, and Rice Ultimate.

Last Day before the Conference Championships!

Sorry this post is so late.  It has been a stressful day.  The only words of advice I can give now is:

Delete “can’t” from your dictionary.  Even saying the word “can’t” will put a mental block on something you may be able to achieve. 

See you on the field teammates!  Looking forward to it!

Two Days

1. Drink more water. If you can't drink any more water, go to 13th street and buy some gatorade/vitamin water/powerade and drink it.

2. Work on the mental imagery that was posted yesterday. Truly envision greatness, if you can imagine it, you can become it. Take 10 minutes where you stop freaking out about work, elevate your legs, close your eyes, and envision your favorite part of ultimate frisbee. It is important in those 10 minutes you avoid thinking about the paper you have to finish, the final next week, blah blah blah. No excuses, just get it done.

3. Find personal zen in the next two days. As Ziperstein said himself: "30 April 03: before a tournament - before you play in a big tournament come to terms with each aspect of your life. schoolwork, friends, jobs, women...be happy with wherever you plan to leave them and then do just that. this is the final weight that needs to be lifted from your shoulders." When we step on the field Saturday morning, we all need to be there ready to play. For the few hours we are playing ultimate this weekend, we are there to play ultimate. There should be one thing on your mind: "run. catch. throw."

Respect: One more little thing...

Intensity and dedication has been significantly higher than previous practices but in our quest for perfection we have set higher expectations and expressed disappointment in our teammates for missed throws, poor spacing on cuts, incorrect timing. This weekend, we should work together to play the best Ultimate we have this season. In order to do so, we must show great respect for our opponents and even greater respect for our teammates.

While I am equally, if not more at fault than many of you, of getting frustrated and making direct, accusatory comments towards people - it wasn't until today at practice I realized many other teammates have been doing the same thing. This is not an example I want to set, nor something that is beneficial to our team. This weekend, I ask that you make an effort to communicate with your teammates rather than command them. By no means does this excuse you from not knowing the force, the play, who to mark, etc. It has nothing to do with that - if you have no idea what the force is in April...you should not be on the field. This means, if someone makes a bad cut, picks in the endzone, cuts at the wrong time - we make an effort to talk to them after the point ends on the sideline in a constructive manner that falls in line with team love and chemistry. i.e. "Hey ____, let's talk about that endzone. I think that I should have made that cut because I had better positioning. What do you think?" And as a recipient of such advice, don't get so defensive. Yes, it is possible that everyone will make a mistake (surprise!) so if you happen to mess up, accept it and do better next time. Together we can be the underdogs that win it all, but only if we stand together on the line - so pull your own weight, respect your teammates, and play balls out.

“If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes.” - Wooden

Three Days!

Hey all, the theme of today is HYDRATION! Grab a water bottle as you read this post with a good amount of H2O in it! Everytime you read the word "the" take a sip of water.

Now to the juicy stuff, here is an e-mail my sister got from her rugby captain:

Hey RAD [Harvard women's rugby team]-

First of all, sorry to Ali and Xanni who I somehow didn't add to my Rad contact list. I swear I copy and pasted the entire list of emails... Regardless, you guys are on it now, so all should be good.

Second and most importantly-
We have all taken some time to soak in the feeling of beating Norwich (as we should), but we need to put that aside now and keep moving forward. We must remember that was not our final goal. That was a stepping stone towards achieving what we have ultimately set out for, #1 in the country.

With that said, we do not let up for a moment. Now that we have experienced this success it is even more important for us to work harder, stay focused and not be satisfied. We can not be satisfied with that win.

Last weekend was a taste of what this team is capable of. Our goal is in sight, but there is still a lot of work we have to put in before we reach our fullest potential, in Pittsburgh, at the Final Four....

On a side note, Dowty and I are working in NYC this week. She was just watching Wheel of Fortune as I was composing this email, and the phrase to be solved on the show was "Striving to be the Best". Ironic?

I hope you all feel more determined than ever. Settling is not an option. It's time to raise the bar.

Mel

Hey girls! Don't settle. We [the] only have one more practice left and so [the] I am going to challenge you to stop making excuses for yourself. It is less about letting the team down, letting the coaches down, disrespecting the captains - fundamentally girls, you are the only one who can push yourself to that next level. We have 2 more prep days left so the best way to spend these is to go for an easy jog, stretch plenty, and drink more water than you thought you ever could.

Zips tip of the day: MENTAL Prep!

19 May 03: mental game [from Paul Greff]
The physical preparation is over. Other than eating and sleeping well, you're not going to improve your physical status. Now's the time to work on your mental game. The mental preparation during the 10 days prior to nationals is, in my opinion, just as important as the previous 10 weeks' physical preparation. If you care, I'll share my pre-nationals "mental workout" with you before age takes it's toll on my memory and I'm content to pick lint from my navel.

1. Take a physical inventory. Are you in the shape that you wanted to be in at this time? If not, then figure out a strategy for maximizing your output over the 3 day tourney and make peace with yourself. Whining to yourself (and heaven forbid, to your teammates) b/c you're not in shape is an awful distraction. You cannot have any mental distractions at this tournament. Pure focus. If you have an injury, then figure out a game plan to avoid aggravating it BEFORE you get to Austin. I can't offer much more help with injuries. I played over them. Learn how. If you're content with your level of conditioning then polish that porksword and get ready to do some damage.

2. Take a skill inventory. What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? Define ways to exploit your strengths and simply leave your weaknesses behind. If you don't have a particular throw, don't use it. Someone else on the team has that throw. I guarantee it. One of my weaknesses (that's a relative term btw) was always breaking the mark. I found it helpful to identify certain game situations where it would be important for me to force that throw and in all others I would probably fake the throw and try to go to the strong side. Again, this exercise reduced the number of mental distractions and removed the guesswork while in the heat of battle.

3. Set personal goals. This is purely subjective but it's important to set personal goals to help you stay focused every game. My goals remained fixed over 20+ years: no drops, no throwaways. I know they weren't realistic over the course of the tournament (although no drop tourneys weren't uncommon) but I set out to accomplish those goals every half of every game. It gave me a sense of accomplishment during the game and strengthened my confidence. Other goals included shutting a particular opponent down, never being beat deep in the zone, etc. When the tourney is over you'll be able to look back and evaluate your own performance b/c in the end the only person you need to impress is yourself.

4. Visualize greatness. This exercise yields the most benefits. But it is also the most difficult to perform correctly. Visualizing greatness does not mean picturing which clothes would look best while standing on the victory podium. It has two levels. The first is to visualize yourself executing the team's playbook in various roles. For example, on defense I would picture myself playing different positions within the zone moving as one with the rest of the team while the opponent moved the disc around the field. Kind of like those skiers who picture the course before the race. The second level is all about Glory. See yourself shutting the best player down, staying with him cut after cut after cut until his teammates stop looking in his direction or until he puts his hands on his knees to catch his breath. See yourself getting open at will and delivering every pass on the mark. Imagine it's game point and you're down two goals at the cap. One of your teammates lays out for a diving D and we score. You can feel the opponent tighten up. We come down hard on the pull and they have to work for every inch of soil. Another teammate gets a D and we score. There is fear in their eyes and nothing but hunger in ours. Now it's your turn. You shut your man down the entire length of the field and then you set him up. You let him and the thrower think he's got a step on you and as the disc is released you burst forward, leave your feet and watch your hand sneak in front of his to snatch the disc away. No time for Glory yet. You stand up, take one deep breath to collect yourself and then you're an offensive machine. Untiring and unstoppable. You help work the disc down the field until you throw or catch the final goal. Game, set, match, Glory. The championship has been won and you contributed directly.

This is the sort of stuff I still fall asleep dreaming about. If you visualize these things, you'll believe in yourself when it counts, you won't be nervous and you'll want to make the big plays. You'll want to be called in to receive the disc for the final point of the tournament. You will have hunger, not fear. Champions attack - they never protect. If you do this, I guarantee at some point you will be the difference.

Four days until Sectionals!

I only have two things to say:

1. Drink at least 2.5L of water today
2. Do some Ultimate visualization (during class, while you’re napping, eating, listening to your boring roommate talk, etc.)

ZIP TIP: SLEEP!  I thought my guest zip tip would have been on the value of laughter, however all that needs to be said on that subject is it has value and if you need to laugh just read Kevin's e-mail, I know I'm going to keep it some place close when I need a chuckle. But Kevin does bring up an interesting point, sleep is important, college does not provide the best environment for sleeping, here are some sleep facts which you can use to adjust your respective sleep situations.
People need sleep - everyone needs between 6 to 9 hours of sleep a night, individual variation for what this number actually is is great, so know thyself and try to hit it.
In order to fall asleep quickly - during the day, don't drink caffiene after 5 pm, and do your pushups and crunches at least half an hour before planning to sleep, in bed, assume the most comfortable position as possible, and stay absolutely still. Every time you move you have to start falling asleep all over again, so get it right and stick with it.
Sleep in a large block is better than napping - Due to the structure of sleep cycles (which are ~ an hour and a half in which you go through all stages of sleep, from NREM to REM), a full 8-9 hours of sleep gives you more REM sleep/min than a 3 hour nap, which has to be good for you.
I would personally recommend trying to get to bed by 1 am every school night, guaranteeing yourself at least 7 hours of sleep a night (exceptions for nights before exams are acceptable, but if you have some reading you "should" be doing, put it down and hit the hay, your teacher will thank you for staying awake in class).
If your situation (i.e. hockey player roommate) prevents you from going to sleep by one, comfortable ear plugs are available, and you can wear one of those airplane masks to block out light.
One last addendum, and it has yet to be scientifically proved, but empirical evidence leads me to believe - time lost to sleep by hooking up with women or men is not actually lost to sleep, in other words, getting busy for three hours and sleeping for four is as good as sleeping for seven hours.

Keystone Classic–East coast ultimate is…different

April 2-3, 2011 – Manheim, PA

So it has taken me awhile to get to this post.  Keystone Classic, a renamed version of Philly Classic, turned out to be a much more pleasant tournament than we had last year.  The weather was in the 50s or so, we had plenty of parents come visit (with Evi’s parents coming to the rescue with the rental cars, the Marriot, and the hot tub experience), and the best part was Panera was not freezing (unless you are Kathleen and for some reason going indoors makes you shiver uncontrollably).  Once again, our freshmen had some parental representation and each contributed to our success – with oranges, pretzels, nutella, and sandwiches (including veggie).

On a more serious note, we started off in a DII pool.  Our first game was against Brandeis.  Needless to say, we were expected a less spirited game.  Fortunately, despite the “cold” weather and the 5 hour delay, we had a great game.  While our intensity level never really matched Centex on Saturday, we played hard, executed as efficiently as possible, and distributed playing time well.  I can’t really remember this particular game that well except I was slightly annoyed at the constant calls and the need to argue everything (mostly directed at Brandeis…cough) – and that Buttercup threw a nice floaty pass to Kate in the endzone in her first point since November!!!  That was pretty awesome.  I believe there was a great freshmen point in there where Kayla caught some swill, threw it to Missy, who then threw it to someone else?  We won this game 15-5 and then had a bye.

Following the bye, we played the weakest team in our pool, Northeastern-B.  This was relatively uneventful as well.  We had a lot of all freshmen points with 1-2 returnees to help get the disc moving.  Endzone looked pretty good this entire game which was refreshing.  It was getting slightly windier too.  In the end, our defense looked pretty good.  I think we threw zone a lot to just ensure that we stomped this team as efficiently as possible.  Also, we needed to work out some of the details in our cup.  Game ended 15-0.  I’m sure the fans were sort of bored…

Next game was against Dickinson.  I’m not really sure where Dickinson is from but they were an interesting team.  I think they had a conflict of interest on the field…We played well though again.  Once again, our intensity was a little low but we were efficient.  Man defense looked a little sloppy – which is hard when the competition is not entirely challenging.  We are working on those details, of always playing our best regardless of who we are playing against.   Nonetheless, we finished the game 12-2. 

Our last game on Saturday was much more intense.  Swathmore was the #1 seed in our pool.  Having been a little sloppy all day and playing at a subpar level, we were caught off-guard when Swat was able to complete passes.  With a pretty strong upwind-downwind in this game, we came out trading points.  Eventually, we got one break through their zone using a 4-3 formation and they decided to stop throwing it (which is weird, because we definitely had a bit of trouble with it).  Of course, we stopped throwing zone too because we were tired.  I guess that was the reason that both teams stopped throwing zone.  Then, we started getting 1-2 more breaks.  Started using smarter match-ups. Finished the game at 9-5.  So we finished first in our pool and moved into the DI division. 

We were lucky enough to play Ottawa our first game in the DI bracket on Sunday.  They were a very aggressive, which really wasn’t that new to us by now, and competitive team.  While we played hard, we were lacking some little things from some key players (catching and throwing).  Defense started looking better and better as the day went on.  As the point difference got higher, we opened up rotation and saw some great things from freshmen.  We also saw someone’s shoulder pop out while cutting and some heard some French.  Kim was really cold during the morning.  And the FRESHMEN line scored!!!  It taught us that we still need to work harder to get ready for the Series.  Even when we are tired, cold, or hurt, it is important to be able to complete the little things.  Putting all of those little things together, will make everything else work smoothly and ensure we remain competitive as things get harder.

Again, we had another bye.  Scheduling must be rough and I am unsure if we will ever be heading back out to PA ever again but everyone squeezed into my parent’s room and ate plenty of food!  We would only have one more game today so might as well recharge and come out hard.  Warm up for this game was definitely hard though, maybe we were just really sick of warming up (which was probably the cause).  People seemed really drained and low on intensity.  The wind was a lot stronger too and it was going to be really hard to throw upwind at all.  Downwind of course would be a lot easier.  So highlights from this game, Wheeler scored plenty of downwind points.  We had a few upwind breaks, well judging by the score we had quite a few upwind breaks.  This large girl on NYU steps on all her marks feet because she seems quite clumsy or just very large.  We learned that once again, we are not very good at running diamond cuts which is so sad because we have worked on this for a really long time.  Also, we should huck a disc downwind at stall 8, 9…10 even if you have some misleading faith in your teammates that maybe just maybe someone will set up the breakside—> deep cut.  But if people don’t pay attention when the coaches are talking at practice its unlikely it will happen.  So anyway, we finished that game nicely despite the increasing number of injuries among the top 7. 

Wrap-up: Middlebury forfeited and UPenn was nice enough to double forfeit with us.  It was a fun tournament – especially the coach v. player game where somehow the coaches still beat the players being outnumbered 3-6. We saw some great plays from Kayla, Rebecca, Missy, and Sarah.  Freshmen defense looked very good and there is definite improvement in offensive “chilliness.”  It’s an exciting thing as we come into the last week of preparation for the series.  Ruthie also played exceptionally well this weekend with some great defense, cutting, and some very, very nice dump throws.   Hopefully, the team will continue/has continued to fine tune some of the weaknesses we saw at Keystone and improve in team chemistry.  Each player’s continual development is very important the team’s overall success!

Women’s College Centex–March 26-27, 2011

Rice received a DIII bid for this year’s College Centex – which we quickly stomped and gross over into DII bracket play.  As our third tournament of the year, we were a little nervous since it would be the first time we would have a nearly full squad playing together.  With the help of our three coaches: Kim Breese, Eric Leonard, and Jay Dunlop, the weekend fulfilled its promise of exciting upsets, epic plays from unexpected players, and great team offense/defense.  One of the greatest highlights from this weekend was the incredible success of our endzone play.  We look forward to see how this continues to develop as we enter the series in a few weeks. 

Most important thing to notice here is that we are on the rise.  We are still climbing and shooting for our goal to peak at Regionals!  Also, our Centex dance was really quite impressive, no matter what the judges say.  A great method of team bonding, in addition to ice bathing and chilling in Marie’s awesome house in Austin. 

Check out our impressive record from the weekend: (6-2) We finished 10th in the DII bracket.

Opponent	Score (Rice – chumps)
Stanford P’teryfly	15-6
Tulane	15-5
Texas Mayhem	14-4
UCSD	15-9
UCLA	8-10
CSU-LB	10-8
Arizona	15-9
Wash U	5-15 – just wait ‘til Regionals

Centex Dance Practice:

Working on finding a way to upload the entire video so that you can take a quick glance at it.  It was pretty awesome, not going to lie – especially as someone who does not like dancing.  We even EXCEEDED Eric’s expectations of our dancing abilities.

Rookie Corner–Johannah Horn (#10)

She is the really tall one….

Q: What is your favorite dinosaur?

A: Tyrannosaurus rex are the best to imitate, however I would never want to be one because they can’t give legitimate hugs. I suppose I wouldn’t enjoy the carnivorous lifestyle either.

Q: Would you rather be a supermodel or a cheerleader?

A: Neither. I’d prefer to be a pageant queen a la Olive Hoover.

Q: What is your favorite throw? (for example, IO flick huck to a fast receiver, OI around break to the dump, etc.)

A: I’ll receive anything.

Q: Would you rather be a Jedi knight or an elf from Rivendale?

A: Jedi Knight. The sound effects trump even Orlando Bloom.

Q: What is your ideal first date? (i.e. romantic outings on the beach with the sun setting, a glass of wine, etc. We need details!)

A: Start with a visit to the Menil, followed by a simple picnic on the lawn specifically including crackers, brie, and blackberry jam. Then some people watching coupled with frisbee tossing. Lastly ending with drinks in Montrose, Anvil or Poison Girl depending on the mood.

Q: If you could have a torrid affair with anyone from past or present, who would he/she be and why?

A: Socrates. He astounds me. Even if he weren’t good in bed, the pillow talk would still leave me with braingasms.

Q: Would you rather layout D or sky someone?

A: This is an incredibly difficult choice. Presently I would rather layout D since I have yet to do this successfully. Overall I prefer skying someone, all the glory and less likely injury.