Today's post is written by freshman forward Kalie Lucas:
As we got ready for our first road game at UA-Ft. Smith last week, I experienced something completely new for me...a college road trip! With the game being our first real game and our first road trip, I was in for a lot of new things. The biggest difference I have noticed so far from high school to college is the preparation. Whether for the game, the trip, the pre-game meal, post game meal, or even how we pack for the game...our coaches make sure we are prepared for everything!
The scouting reports that our coaches make are like nothing I have ever seen. The scouting report was full of information about the players on UA-Ft. Smith's team, all of the plays they would run and how they would guard our offenses. In high school we never had anything like that!! We spent so much time in the practices leading up to that game covering everything about their team. I loved knowing what they were going to run and seeing all of the things on our report actually happen during the game!! Another new thing for me was the pre-game shootaround. In high school, if we did shoot it was on our own, not organized or dressed out in practice gear like we do here. That was really different for me but it helped me begin to focus for the game several hours before we were supposed to actually play.
Once we were on the way and headed toward Fort Smith we stopped for a pre-game meal at Applebee's in Rogers, AR. The day before we had already given our food orders to Coach Jones so that when we arrived our food was coming out of the kitchen and headed for the table. It was crazy to be able to sit down with that many people and be in and out of their in 45 minutes! Because of that short meal, we got to Fort Smith in plenty of time to walk around the gym, relax and get ready for the game. I liked having a chance to really get a "feel" for the gym and the rims and the environment. The intensity was high all around and we seemed very focused and ready.
We struggled offensively from the start of the game. We turned the ball over too many times and didn't convert on our free throw opportunities. We dug ourselves a hole heading into halftime that had to find a way out of. The second half told a different story as we scored 8 straight points right away to put us where we needed to be to have a chance to win. After several runs by both teams, we finished the game on a furious comeback and fell just 2 points short. I was so proud of our fight at the end of the game. We played so hard the final 5 minutes and showed a tremendous amount of heart by the way we finished the game.
After the loss to Fort Smith, we have really focused on getting better in practice. I feel like we have had a very good 4 days of preparation for nationally ranked Northeastern State University (OK) who we play Monday night! Once again, the coaches have prepared us for everything that NSU is going to do, now we can't wait to go out and execute the gameplan!! Please come out and support us in our first home game of the year!!
Until next time...It's a GREAT day to be a LION!!
Kalie Lucas
Freshman Forward
