NCAA Championship Diary: Alisha Ortiz
Nov. 10, 2010
Hey Longhorn fans, Well we made it to North Carolina today after an early morning of travel. We left campus around 6:30 a.m. this morning in order to catch our flight to Nashville then connected on to Raleigh-Durham. While the early starts aren't always the easiest, it was nice to get to the hotel by 1 p.m. in the afternoon and have the whole day ahead of us. After checking in, we had a little bit of time to rest and then headed to Duke University's practice fields to get a longer training session in. The weather here is perfect fall weather, sunny and in the 60s during the day but it got cold as soon as the sun went down, so it was good to practice in that since we'll be playing at 6:30 p.m. on Friday. At practice, we warmed up working on ball possession then went into a full scrimmage for 20 minutes before practice some set pieces. The highlight, maybe not necessarily for me but for the rest of the team, was when I was taking a corner kick and Kirsten Birkhold and I had a little collision and I basically went flying to the ground. It was pretty hysterical. Needless to say, Birky and I and the rest of the team were laughing pretty hard. Once we finished up with practice, our bus driver took us driving around the Duke campus a little before heading to Cameron Indoor Arena where we met up with the Duke Women's soccer coach who took on us a tour of the facility. The men's basketball team was actually having practice at the time so we got to sit in and watch for a little bit, which was a fun experience. Then we went to the Duke Sports Museum which was connected to the arena and some of the girls even ran into some of the Duke players that they had known from high school. We had a quick turnaround from practice to team dinner, but after a long day of travelling we were all starving. Dinner was at P.F. Changs, which was great as always and is pretty much a tradition of postseason travel with the Longhorns. Following dinner, we headed back to the hotel to watch some film and get some rest. With this being my last NCAA Tournament experience, I know me and the other seniors are soaking the entire experience in. We've been preparing hard and we're ready to go out and get a win against James Madison on Friday. It's exciting to be playing on the University of North Carolina's field where so many great players have played before. It's going to be a fun experience. Well time to get some rest, cheer us on and Hook'em Horns!!
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