It is hard to believe I am already a junior and halfway through conference play. We have had some great times together this season already. One of the highlights so far has been the basketball trip to Georgia. We stayed in an amazing Hilton hotel one night and got spoiled. We always have fun in the hotels. Our team has gotten along extremely well, so hanging out with each other has been fun. Of course there are always crazy things that happen like ice fights or trying to take an ice bath in the hotel bathroom (that didn’t turn out very well with me being one of the ones that tried it) just to name a couple things. Coach likes playing hard teams because it makes us better and challenges us. We didn’t have the best outcomes down in Georgia but they were extremely close games and we grew a lot as a team. The trips we have around Christmas always have fun built in too. We got to go see an Atlanta Hawks game and meet some players and the assistant coach for NJ Nets that used to be a Milligan student. It was definitely a fun time.

One of the most anticipated games of the season with our rival, King College, was on Monday. Walking into their gym always gets me pumped. Although it is definitely one of my least favorite gymnasiums, it makes me so excited to play. The crowd was basically packed for the game which was not unusual, but having a huge crowd is what most basketball players thrive off of.  The ride over seemed to be a little bit more quiet, besides the very random CD that our assistant coach put in of Michael Jackson. I think she was the only one jamming out to it. I think a lot of us were just ready to play instead of having to wait several hours. I know personally I would rather just jump right into the game, but of course that wouldn’t be the best idea. The game was definitely an intense one as it always is against King. It seemed like we were having an extremely hard time finishing our shots, but we still kept up our defense. We had players constantly coming in bringing more energy which was very important because that is what gets our team going. We have been focusing a lot as a team on bringing more energy and intensity, whether it be by having more cheering coming from the bench, more encouragement coming from players on the court, or just a simple thing like clapping and getting each other up before and during the game. Although we struggled to hit shots, we were only down by 1 at halftime. We definitely knew we were not out of this game, because we had come back from a 15 point deficit against Fairmont State earlier in the season. Although we fought all the way until the end of the game, it wasn’t enough to pull out the win. I hate losing to King, but we had a bigger game coming up that was a conference game that we needed to focus on and we did just that.

With us leading the conference, we are playing every game for first place and there are 8 other teams trying to take that from us. With our conference being so competitive, we knew the game against Tennessee Wesleyan wasn’t going to be easy. One thing that everyone was so excited about was playing at home again! We had not played at home since December 5th! The one thing about playing at the Steve Lacy Fieldhouse is that we have some hardcore loyal fans for women’s basketball! When we ran out on that court they were right there cheering for the starting line-up and going crazy cheering and yelling the whole game! I LOVED IT! It was good to be playing at home again that is for sure! I am one of only a couple players on the team that live far from home, but when I step on the court and play at the Steve Lacy Fieldhouse it is like I’m playing in my hometown again. We didn’t start the game with our best performance, but after a timeout we got ourselves composed and came out hard to take the lead and never lose the lead the rest of the game. The energy was overwhelming from the crowd and the team, and we just pushed through and finished strong. Our shooting percentage and free throw percentage was both up this game and it was a hard fought win! Now it’s time to prepare for the next battle at Montreat College.