Sept. 8, 2011
Senior Kelly D'Ambrisi (Trumbull, Conn./Lauralton Hall Academy) has been a vital cog for the Georgetown women's soccer team since her arrival on campus. The midfielder has earned All-BIG EAST honors and helped the Hoyas reach the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament last season. Throughout the year, D'Ambrisi will be contributing her thoughts for a blog on soccerbanter.org, which can also be seen on the Georgetown Athletics website. www.guhoyas.com. Her second post covers Georgetown's games against Towson and Stanford.
"This week of training ahead of us has to be sharp. We have played our first two games: GW and American and we handled both teams well. Beat GW 3-0 and American 4-0. This weekend we will face a strong physical Towson team and # 2 Stanford. Last year, we made the trip out to California and got the chance to play both Santa Clara and Stanford, lost both, but it was a great opportunity to be able to measure ourselves against the best in the country.
"Towson on Friday is a must win game. We can't afford to go into the Stanford game having lost to Towson. Playing Stanford on our home field is an opportunity I never thought I'd get coming in as a freshman. We have nothing to lose and it's our chance to find out how good we really are. This week at practice it's hard to focus on Towson because we are all so excited to play against Stanford. Unfortunately we have been unlucky with a few injuries making me now one of our taller players... I'm 5'4 and ¾'s. This week we worked on playing the ball out of the back and connecting with the defensive center mids. It is important that they are able to receive the ball from the defenders, turn, and connect with our attacking targets. If we want to give Stanford a game we need to come out flying and play at the pace that they play at. If we can't keep up it will be like the Maryland preseason exhibition match all over again. So each practice was geared toward speed of play, one and two touch games in tight spaces, forcing us to play quick little combinations. We had four sharp practices this week and we're confident going into our games this weekend.
"Towson: We came out strong against Towson. Our front four attacking players were unstoppable. This week of speed of play practices prepared us well. We combined well and Towson didn't have an answer for us. We won 4-1 and from the minute that game ended we were focusing on Stanford.
Stanford: Hurricane Irene was projected to hit on Saturday night into Sunday morning. This obviously put us in a bit of a dilemma when it comes to Sunday's 4 p.m. game. On Sunday morning, Dave (Nolan) deemed the field unplayable because of all the rain from the storm. We were rescheduled for Monday at noon. It was a perfect day to play soccer on Monday, about 75 degrees, sunny, with a little breeze. We were all fired up and ready to go. Going into this game I knew we had nothing to lose and out of my four years, this is certainly the year we have the best chance to give them a game. They had just tied Maryland 0-0 on Friday so they were probably not too happy with that result; they didn't come all the way out to the East coast to tie anybody. I was excited and very nervous at the same time. Before the game Dave said, it's just 11 kids versus another 11 kids. These are the same kids you've played against in club your whole life. Although on the Trumbull United Lazers, I certainly do not recall seeing any of those Stanford girls at JAGS or the Orange Classic... But Dave's right... these kids all grew up playing club just like us, they're very skilled players but it's nothing we haven't seen before.
"The moment the whistle blew I calmed down a bit, but I knew I wouldn't feel comfortable until I took my first touch. The first few times I got the ball I was too nervous to dribble at the Stanford defenders, instead I just focused on connecting passes... my first mistake. Once or twice I started dribbling and didn't have the confidence to take the defender on and I wound up dishing it off too early. Before we knew it they scored the first goal after intercepting an under hit square ball played in the middle of the field. Finally I realized I needed to step it up and that these girls were giving me space and time; I could dribble at them, beat them, and then slip balls through. Dave and my assistant coach, Mike (Calabretta), screaming it at me also helped me realize that... In the second half, I was pushed back to defensive center mid and decided to go at these girls. I love playing in the middle of the field... I really hate the boundary of the sideline ... it's like another defender always on your left shoulder. I'm very comfortable in the middle and I was able to split players through the midfield and join the attack. We played much better in the second half and even had Stanford on their toes quite a bit. We scored one goal, Sam Baker hit one in off a free kick and we went wild... we didn't care that it was 3-1 with about nine minutes left, we scored a goal on Stanford and it was awesome. After the game we were exhausted, I love the feeling of being on the field for the full 90 minutes knowing that you left everything on the field. As a senior, knowing that that was the last time I'd face a team like Stanford in my college career, I needed that feeling."
