with a Diving Catch

The focus of practice today was playing balls over distance.  It involved lots of ball striking reps and hopefully it will translate into match play.  The warm-up for today's training involved an activity with three players and one ball.  Players on the outside would throw the ball in to their teammate who would return it first time.  The player on the outside would then play it over distance to their teammate who was approximately 35-40yds away.  Once the girls had a chance to get warmed up it was turned into a contest where the player receiving the long ball had to catch it with their hands in order for the team to earn a point.  Yes, they were allowed to use their hands.  Some outstanding diving efforts to score and a couple silly drops makes the team VERY grateful that Zari and Courtney take care of the goalkeeping and ball handling duties on a regular basis.  After the warm-up another long ball competition was played that pitted freshmen against upperclassmen.  Two round were contested and resulted in each team with a victory.  Next up was a game involving services and clearances.  The freshmen would earn the win here as well as in the final scrimmage,  in which they prevailed 1-0.  They were give a scare late when junior forward Jackie Jessup railed a shot off the post with just under a minute to play.  A productive and competitive day of training would end with a touch of fitness. 

GO HORNETS!!!