We finally got to play a game after 394 days. We made it the senior day, and celebrated the 9 seniors on our team. I’m really fortunate to play with all of the girls on the team – everyone is so supportive of one another.
I’m happy to say that we won!! The final score was 24-6 against Curry. It felt amazing to take to the field again. It was a beautiful day, and we ended on a great note. I’m looking forward to the next game.
Since this pause on in-person classes and athletics has happened, we’ve had two zoom workouts as a team, and lots of team game nights!
One of my teammates, Jozie, actually made her own workout for the q. Our zoom workout tonight unfortunately was shifted, so some of us decided to join a zoom and do one earlier together! We talked for about half an hour before we got to the workout, but we were all sweating by the end.
I honestly haven’t been thinking about my ePortfolio lately in light of recent events. I can’t believe campus was put on lockdown again. I thought that everything was contained in athletics, as I knew there were some covid breakouts among the sports teams, but apparently it was worse than that and the “regular” student population had a lot of pockets of covid cases as well.
Well, here we are, about 5 days into the pause of in-person class, athletics, and of being able to have a more normal school year. I think half the school left as soon as it was found out. Our first three games were canceled, I was so disappointed.
The entire team was actually. We’ve had team meetings since the lockdown happened. All of us did everything we were supposed to – we all kept the team safe, so it was really a heart breaker for us.
On the bright side, we were cleared to go for runs/walks outside today. I went for about a mile run which felt good to be outside. On Tuesday, yesterday, we had a team zoom lift! It was mostly core, and I definitely felt it today 🙂 Being flexible to what’s going on and adapting to it is extremely important right now.
It’s official! I am on the roster for UNE lacrosse this year. I was so excited to see myself up on the screen. I’m hopeful for games, hopefully soon there will be some stats up!
In order to complete the Level 2 Cultural Humanities Tutor Training here at UNE, I listened and participated during a Training meeting with Allison Neeland. There were many other tutors there for the training, from math classes to Portland Graduate classes. The second part of the training was to go to an event on culture, diversity, bias and/or equity and connect it to the presentation as well as our own personal tutoring abilities. The event that I attended was the Women and Activism 2021, A Conversation About Leadership, Courage, Accountability, Equality, and Hope.
This event was focused around the activism of women in today’s society, what is lacking from our current take on situations and how we can be more aware of those around us. I related a lot to some of the women on the panel, as I am not only a tutor but also on the Women’s Lacrosse team here at UNE. The conversations about how women are paid less in sports, as well as that we get less media attention than ale athletes is something that I have known for a while.
However, panelist Alyssa Ehrenfried opened up my eyes to more of the intersectionality that happens in women’s activism. Alyssa is on the women’s rugby team and is also a woman of color. She opened up my eyes to see how race can affect people of color, as she mentioned that sometimes in high school she played softball and she had felt as though people didn’t look at her for her skill on the field, but that she could be used to show diversity. She went on to explain that on the UNE Women’s rugby team it’s a little different, as there are more people of color on the team than any other on campus and she knows that she’s there because she can play rugby well.
This opened up a topic of discussion on intersectionality between women in sports and women of different races, as many of the other women on the panel have been primarily focused on “white women issues” such as abortion. It’s opened up my eyes to see that intersectionality is extremely important, and that as women, we need to look out for all women, not just the issues that benefit ourselves.
I can apply what I have learned to tutoring by being more open to listening to students and knowing that their struggles will not always be the same as mine. I’ve never always had to look at the fact that I am a female athlete, however I have never had to worry about my race or why Coaches wanted me on their teams. It’s good to know and really understand that people have struggles that are not the same as mine, even if we do relate in certain ways.
Another topic that was brought up in discussion was the LGBTQ+ community. This was touched upon in the sense that certain sports, such as softball, have been deemed the “lesbian” sport. It brought up stigmas that women didn’t want to play the sport because they didn’t want to be seen as gay. Having played softball as a young girl, I grew out of it quickly and wasn’t introduced to this idea until high school when I heard some girls using slurs against themselves of looking gay. I now know that this stigma is still around, and am aware that there are stigmas for other things that I need to look out for.
This is a concept I can bring into my tutoring ability to stop negative connotations from forming. I know now that I need to be mindful of not only those who look different from me, but also those who look like me as well as there are students that I work with who will belong to the LGTBQ+ community. I think that overall, this meeting opened my eyes to a lot of different cultural aspects that I otherwise wouldn’t have known if I were to solely go to the meeting without having a specific outlook on what to focus on during the event.
We’ve been practicing lacrosse since the second week of this semester. It’s been about two months. I’ve gotten to know all of the girls and love the team here!
Today we found out some big news. Coaches and administration have been on the fence about us playing games, so we haven’t know for two months whether we’d even be playing against other teams this year.
It was decided today that we’ll be playing Conference Games!!
While these games won’t count for anything, it’s definitely boosted everyones spirits on the team. We have an actual goal to work towards and are no longer practicing just to practice. We’ll have a set schedule by the end of the week.
I’m so excited to play again.
I had thought that I was no longer going to play lacrosse. I thought that the I was done with the sport for a while. While my lacrosse team had helped me a lot at STAC, there were some things that weren’t so great about it. I didn’t want to go through the same thing again, and I was scared. Yet, I had felt like I was missing something the entire Fall 2020 semester.
My dad pushed me to join the team. “It’s okay if you try it. If you don’t like it, then you can be done,” I remember him telling me over the Christmas Break.
I had a meeting with Coach Estabrook during that break, and then things started rolling from there. The women on the team were so friendly to me, as everyone was so accepting. I’m so glad that I joined the team. It keeps me active and busy.
While we aren’t sure what’s going to happen in the future the women have all shown great strength. Their attitudes are always positive and inviting. The team embodies an outlook on the Pandemic of being safe, so that we can play the sport that links us all.
One of the main reasons I chose STAC was to be on the lacrosse team. I wanted to get away from home, but I was worried I wouldn’t have anyone to fall back on – and that I wasn’t going to make friends as I was starting new, completely on my own.
But I wasn’t completely alone. I had my lacrosse team, even if I wasn’t close to them. We were together almost 24/7 due to our strict schedules – as I had mentioned before, Division 2 took everything seriously.
During the fall semester, we had practice from 7AM-8AM in the morning. The rule of being at the field 15 minutes before practice meant that I was up at 5:45 and out the door by 6:15 three days a week. I would go to practice, go to 4 classes back to back, shower, do homework, and go to sleep.
The other two days were spent lifting in the afternoon, after classes, with our strength and conditioning coach.
The spring semester brought more challenges. During the long three weeks of preseason, we had double practices 6 days a week. Conditioning would be taken care of in the morning, doing different running styles in the gym. After classes we would have practice, which involved a lot more running than lacrosse.
My start did not begin at UNE, or even in Maine. It started in Upstate New York.
During high school I was extremely devoted to lacrosse. I’ve been a Goal Keeper since 8th grade, and have played since 5th. I was on travel team called the Central New York Elite Lacrosse Team, or CNYELC for short. I played for three years on the team and it helped me get recruited in college.
This lead me to the St. Thomas Aquinas College Women’s Lacrosse team. This division 2 program was very rigourous.
I quickly learned that STAC wasn’t the place for me – so put in the time and effort to find the right school for me – UNE!
Find out more about:
