Katie Donovan

Past Entries

Entry 1

Entry 2

Entry 3

Entry 4

March 22, 2004

Last week we had plenty of tough competition between our games against Illinois Wesleyan and the Bridgewater Tournament in Roanoke, Virginia.

On Wednesday, though, we got to relax and enjoy celebrating Wald's 19th Birthday at Los Loros. Of course, Tracey made us all cupcakes for the bus ride. Ali's mom also blessed us once more with goodie bags for the eight-hour trip.

On the bus we kept ourselves mentally sharp by playing Catchphrase, and learned a lot about how everyone's brain works at the same time. For example, for some people, tuba brings to mind scuba diving rather than musical instruments. Apparently France is the opposite of England, as well. Who knew? In a further attempt to procrastinate studying we also got on the scary topic of post-graduation, and attempted to strong-arm Myers into "not being a doormat."

The upperclassmen were all very excited that the need for the "puffy" (a jacket that doubles your body size) was minimal last weekend because of the good weather. Perhaps that was the reason the weekend saw several outstanding athletic feats from so many of the girls: we could move!

Between Kovski's perfect game, Jen's amazing dive to catch a bunt, Liz's double play of "revenge," Haag's slam-dunk worthy jump, Sunshine's game-winning hit with the bases loaded in the eighth inning, and one great catch by Mary in left, the Eagles made quite an impression at the tournament. Also, G-Wack really stepped up on Saturday after Ali injured her knee in a game the previous day.

In order to get the dugout more involved with the game, we started listing three pros and three cons for both the opponent and our own team. The Emory nerd came out in each of us as we pulled out pen and paper in order to write down all our thoughts! In the end, though, it was a great catalyst for conversation at the end of the game.

We also started mentally choosing someone else on our team for whom we wanted to honor with our play: someone that motivated us to step up the intensity defensively or start a rally offensively. The end result - second place out of 16 teams - was very positive.

Perhaps the scariest moment of the entire trip was on the way home when we all burst into softball cheers but with different words so that they were cheers about studying. I'm beginning to think we've all been a bit brainwashed!

Overall the team had a strong showing last week (and by strong I mean we DOMINATED), and all of us feel as if things are finally beginning to click into place. Our next games are Thursday against Ohio University, and we look forward to the continued competition.

Katie Donovan is a junior from Littleton, Colo. She would love to answer e-mail questions from Emory recruits and fans.