April 4, 2008
California junior midfielder/forward Andrea Lo, a product of West Vancouver, B.C., Canada, wrote a weekly blog during the field hockey team's 2007 season, which ended with a Nov. 3 loss to Stanford in the NorPac Championship final. A two-time NorPac All-Conference first-team selection, Lo ended the season as Cal's third-leading scorer with 16 points. She tied for the Golden Bears' lead in game-winning goals (3) and also collected six assists and five goals through 18 games.
BERKELEY - It's great to be back writing the blog after a short hiatus. We've already been in school for several weeks and our spring training started up in full swing heading into our final weeks before Spring Break. I love those two words: Spring Break. An image of the beach always comes into mind; a time of absolute relaxation and mind drifting which, unfortunately for me, always seems to start that last week when I have multiple midterms. But I really can't complain right now because classes are going well and I've finally managed to find a way of completing all my assignments in an orderly manner where the S word (stress) is not apart of my vocabulary.
On the hockey side, things are going pretty well with practice and the sides of extra we just love...that being weight lifting and conditioning. I speak for myself and I'm sure the rest of the soon-to-be seniors when I say that we are taking in as much as we can this spring because it's our last one of our careers! The best change this spring has definitely been the practice time change from 6 am to 4:30pm. Of the years I've been here, waking up at an ungodly hour of 5 am made me realize how many times I was actually conscious during practice, and then afterwards at class. I hope the freshmen don't have to experience that at all...or maybe I do....
Our new addition to the coaching staff has been a great fit as I think Niall Murphy is definitely well-suited for this program and he brings along experience and enthusiasm that will be very beneficial and crucial to our success. Since our head coach, Shellie Onstead, has been commuting every week to San Diego for her duties with the women's national team, she can only be with us once a week. At first, we all didn't know what to expect of the dynamics of how this spring would be because of that, but after our first week with Kelly Knapp, Niall and volunteer coach, Peter Milkovich, we knew right away that this was going to be a very exciting and productive off-season with endless possibilities.
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One of the crucial points of this spring will be our participation in the Sony Field Hockey Challenge, April 5-6 at Stanford. It was held for the first time last year also at Stanford. It was great to have foreign competition from the Japanese squad as it opened our eyes to the level of international play. They ended up winning the tournament last year and we didn't fare as well as we had hoped. This year, the addition of several top teams including Wake Forest and Penn State, to the tournament will definitely raise the level of competition and give us the opportunity to see how far along we are as a team. It will especially be exciting to have a rematch against Wake Forest after our heartbreaking but valiant effort during regular season play last season.
