Season Opener

Keeping Up With the Martlets

Team Journal

Season Opener!

Monday, September 21st, 2015
Location: Guelph, Ontario

For the past week, the Martlets have been anxiously awaiting our first weekend away. Returners would run into each other around campus and break into huge smiles, knowing just how precious these weekends become to the team. To quote Julia, “You struggle through pre-season, you start off the school year waking up at ungodly hours every morning, and then you get to the first weekend and you remember why you love being on this team so much.”

The team competes in the OUA League, which means our weekends are spent travelling throughout Ontario.  This sounds slightly more exciting than it actually is— travelling as an athlete really just translates into spending hours on a bus and sharing a hotel bed with a different teammate each weekend.  Nevertheless, the time spent with the team helps bring the girls together.

This weekend, the team’s destination was Guelph, Ontario—a 7-hour commute from Montreal. By 6am Saturday morning, the bus was already packed and on its way. The girls arrived at the field around 1pm, and planned to watch the York vs. Waterloo game before warming up for their own game against Guelph.  Unfortunately, the teams were interrupted by a sudden torrential downpour. Both York and Waterloo ran to their busses for shelter, but the Martlets, whose bus had already left, scrambled to find shelter under trees, benches, and anything else that could keep them dry.  Julia spotted a storage shed in the wooded area surrounding the field, and noticed that one of its doors was slightly ajar. She hardly finished her sentence before the entire team sprinted inside the shed, carrying as much equipment and clothing as possible.  Although thoroughly soaked and dripping wet, the girls embraced the situation with a sense of humor, and recognized the moment as a key opportunity to document our weekend.  If there’s anything we’ve taken away from spending extensive amounts of time with the same people, it’s that there is always time for a selfie.

After some time, Laurent and JP found the girls huddled inside the storage shed and informed the team that the York-Waterloo game would be delayed until further notice, and consequently so would McGill’s game.

The downpour was short-lived. As the sound of raindrops pattering on the outside of the shed gradually subsided, Laurent and JP discussed game tactics with the team. When the game was called back on at last, the team salvaged what warm, dry clothes they could find in their bags and began to warm up.

The first game was against a tough component.  The Guelph Gryphons, who currently claim the second place position in the league, came out fast and strong, overwhelming the Martlets with a game speed unlike any that the new team has experienced up to this point.  The Gryphons played an offensive-heavy game with an overwhelming press on the defense.  Under these pressures, the Martlets’ trusted tactic of defensive transfers crumbled, leaving the midfield empty-handed, and the defenders utterly confounded. By the end of the second half, the Martlets were finally able to maintain a presence on the opponent’s half of the field; unfortunately, this adjustment came too late, and the team walked away with a painful score of 10-0. The weak point came down to a lack of communication in the face of an entirely new style and speed of play, a point that was heavily addressed in the post-game discussion with the coaches.

The second day showed some improvement.  After a solid night’s sleep and a complimentary breakfast at the hotel, the Martlets returned to the Guelph field refreshed and ready for another day. On the way to the game, Kylie encouraged the team to look at the next two games as a blank slate and an opportunity to capitalize on the strengths we had noticed from the day before. Today the team would be playing the Queens Gaels and the Western Mustangs, two much more evenly matched games.

In the first game against Queens, the Martlets started off on a strong foot. Within the first few minutes of the game, senior player and center-midfield Kylie Nabata scored the first goal of the season.  After this initial goal, the Gaels kicked up the speed of their own play, and the game quickly developed into a fast-paced and well-played match.  The Martlets maintained composure and shape, establishing a dominance on the field that lasted throughout the majority of the first half.  Near the end of the first half, the Gaels scored a goal, tying up the overall score. The Martlets came out just as strong in the second half, and returning attacker Alison Ross reclaimed McGill’s lead with a second goal.  The remainder of the game was a passionate and determined struggle to maintain this lead.  There was a constant switching of fields and possession; the Gaels pushed hard on the offense, and the Martlet defensive line pushed forward to put an even greater pressure in the midfield.  Returning goalie Katie Friedman played one of the most intense games of her career.  In the end, the Gaels scored one last goal in the last ten minutes of the second half.  It’s truly unfortunate that the game had to end in a tie—the Martlets played one hell of a game, but so did the Gaels.

In the second game against Western, the level of intensity from the previous game seemed to have dwindled.  Neither Western nor McGill played a particularly impressive game.  Western scored two goals early on the in the first half, and the Martlets struggled to get a stick on the ball in the Mustangs’ defensive circle. The majority of the game was played at the midfield, featuring tons of transfers from the defense to the midfield and back again, but producing few defining plays.  One strength that came out in this game was in the defensive corners; rookie goalie Hannah Moore successfully defended a string of consecutive corner shots.  The game ended in a 2-0 loss, a disappointing way to end the weekend to say the least.

After a final post-game recap of the weekend, the Martlets quickly cooled down and made their way toward the bus.  Kylie’s family was kind enough to provide food at the end of the game: tortillas, chicken, hummus, fresh vegetables, fruit, and even some homemade cookies and scones—basically everything and anything a hungry athlete could ask for after a rough weekend of games.  The team happily devoured as much food as they could muster before finally saying their goodbyes, boarding the bus, and heading home.

On the long bus ride back to Montreal, the team captains handed out small pieces of paper to the team.  Earlier in the weekend, Alice had asked each player to write down one fun fact about themselves.  These papers were originally meant for a team-bonding activity that would have happened at Saturday night’s dinner.  Unfortunately, due to the rain delay and a time constraint at the restaurant, it never ended up happening.

The bus, however, proved to be an even more opportune moment to bring up team-bonding.  Each player was handed someone else’s random fact.  The girls went around in a large circle, reading each other’s facts aloud and trying to guess who had written what.  The coaches even joined in!  Facts ranged from interesting to funny to downright bizarre.  Did you know that one of our Martlets is a black-belt in karate?  Or that one of us has to throw away toast if it’s not buttered within 10 seconds of leaving the toaster?  Or that one of our coaches almost died at a One Direction concert?

The activity quickly turned into a hilarious game, and the perfect emotional release after a physically exhausting weekend. A happy atmosphere settled over team for the remainder of the trip, and the Martlets returned in home good spirits.

A note to our readers:

If you’ve been following our progress so far, we’d like to express our deepest gratitude and appreciation.  It means so much to share our experiences at home and on the road! The aim of this blog is to shed light on the humanity behind the scoreboard and the efforts shared by our captains, coaches, and teammates as we develop throughout this season. We hope you find our stories entertaining and grow to love this team as much as we do!

Stay tuned as the Martlets travel to York for our next round of games....