Michigan State University Athletics
Welcome To California!
12/1/2006 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Dec. 1, 2006
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -
Thursday, Nov. 30
We were definitely a sleepy bunch of girls arriving at our hotel at 11:30 p.m. PT last night and ready to get to bed and start getting acclimated to the time change. With a great night's sleep, we woke early Thursday morning ready to eat breakfast at our hotel, The Westwood on Wilshire. It was strange waking up to palm trees and sunshine out our windows!
After eating breakfast, we got our gear and headed off to practice. An hour of practice at the UCLA Recreational Center gave us a chance to work on our defense against Utah and offense before our actual open practice at Pauley Pavilion. The practice definitely helped get our legs jumping and warmed up after a long day of traveling. We were able to do some practice drills to work on our strategy for our match versus Utah. The competitive game helped us regain our "killer" instincts. As soon as practice ended we gathered on the bus ready to get back and enjoy lunch.
 Nicole Colaluca  | |
After the light lunch of fruit, granola bars and turkey sandwiches, we went to our rooms to study and prepare for the rest of our day. The bus left for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen with all of us very excited for the time to sit down together and enjoy the meal.
After dinner we were able to take some time to walk around the Westwood Village area and see the sights. The area is absolutely beautiful!
Getting back to the hotel around 7:30 pm, everyone tried on new items they bought in the Village and focused on getting energized for our favorite team activity - film study! After watching film on Utah, we bid everyone a good night and went to bed to dream of beating Utah on Friday!
Friday, Dec. 1 - Game day!
Good morning California! Friday morning, game day! We all slept very well last night and feel completely rested from our day of travel on Wednesday. The breakfast at our hotel is amazing - fresh fruit, eggs, an assortment of bread - a great way to start the day! Its 10:15 a.m. PT and we are just about to leave for practice and then lunch at Olive Garden. We are all enjoying our time together in California and everyone is getting very excited for our match tonight!
After lunch...
We had lunch at Olive Garden today and it was so good! Everyone really enjoyed their meal, and you have to love breadsticks! We have the early game tonight so everyone came back to their rooms to get ready for the match versus Utah! The weather is beautiful, lunch was great and we are ready to play!
After the Utah match...
What an amazing match! First of all, thanks so much to the awesome Spartan fans that traveled to California to watch us play! What an honor to see so many fans in the stands wearing Green and White! It was a big surprise to our team that they played our fight song for us too!
Even though we lost tonight we really fought hard and battled the entire match. Utah is a great team and we proved that we really deserved to be in the NCAA Tournament. We lost game one and played really well in games two and three. We just need to focus on winning game five!
We just got back to the hotel and we are making our plan for tomorrow. There are some really nice restaurants and shops in the area so we will probably take a team walk in the afternoon and do a little shopping. We don't fly home to Michigan until very late tomorrow night, so after dinner we plan to go watch the second-round game at Pauley Pavilion and make a stop at the UCLA Bookstore.
Thanks again to all of the Spartan fans that supported us throughout the year! See you next season!
