Orange Beach Preseason Diary by Katie Holtzapfel: Day One
8/14/2003 12:00:00 AM | Soccer
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Well, the first day is officially over, and, for us seniors, it’s our last first day of preseason camp here at Orange Beach. It’s so hard to believe this is the last year for the seven seniors. From here on out, everything we do is for the last time—the last time to run fitness tests, the last time to go through two-a-day practices together. But, as far as this upcoming season is concerned, it’s definitely not the last time we’ll visit Orange Beach and the wonderful people here. The SEC Tournament is being held here for the very first time in November, and, being that Orange Beach is our home away from home, we have made it this season’s goal to make a return visit at the end of the season. We practice twice a day on the very field that the tournament will be held on, and besides the playing surface being nearly flawless, it’s such motivation to think that we’re starting our season on the very same field we’ll be finishing our season.
We spent the first part of this morning’s session watching the game film from our spring game against Ole Miss. Afterwards, we headed to the field to run our first fitness test, one 1100-yard shuttle, with Jesper, our strength and conditioning coach. Everyone ran so well, and every last one of us passed. No matter if you’re a freshman or senior, the fitness tests always make us so nervous. In years past, we always rely on Rebecca Baker to pace us through the fitness tests, but this year she’s cheering us on from the sidelines. Baker had surgery early in the summer, so she won’t be joining us until October, just in time for our first SEC game against Florida.
In between sessions, we all head back to our condos for a few hours to relax, and being we’re staying in oceanfront condos, relaxing really isn’t that tough. I’m not at all exaggerating when I say that the people here at Orange Beach treat us like queens, and they accommodate to our every need. Preseason camp is tough, don’t get me wrong, but we are seriously in the best situation possible to go through two-a-day practices.
Our second session starts at five o’clock, and most of the time, we scrimmage. Everyone loves the evening sessions, usually because it’s much cooler in the evenings. Today, that wasn’t so much the case, because it rained throughout our entire morning session, and as a team, we definitely weren’t complaining that the sun never came out all day. I’m sure now that I’ve said that, we’ll have steaming hot weather the rest of the week. There’s so much nervous energy in the first intersquad scrimmage. Everyone’s so excited to play, and especially to see our incoming freshmen play for the first time. Unfortunately, this preseason, we have so many injuries, and there are lots more people than usual sitting on the sidelines. Now we don’t have quite enough to play eleven against eleven, so tonight Coach joined a team. He always tries to talk trash, and he thinks he’s a master of cheating. You can always count on Coach to call a foul and give his team a free kick to tie or win the game. But, things didn’t work out so well for him tonight, and we came away with a win, thanks to Libby Probst’s two goals.
After practice we head off the field and straight to dinner, which is waiting for us. I mentioned the people here at Orange Beach, Danny Martin, Preston Poozer, and Don Brewer, and I couldn’t say enough about them. I walked into dinner, and they had tables set and ready for us. We ate salad, baked potatoes, steak, chicken, and bread. We almost feel guilty for being treated so well. We absolutely love having preseason here, for the obvious reasons.
Well, day one is over, and I’m going to rest up for day two. Tomorrow is yet another fitness test and two more practices. If the rest of the week goes as well as today, I think we all should make it just fine.
Roll Tide!
Katie
