Behind the Scenes of the Women’s Soccer Team

Laughing, trees, candy and loud music. Two vans, filled with excited UB soccer girls, are heading for Millersville, Pennsylvania, for another important conference game. We leave Bridgeport after lunch and at first, most of us are in a good mood and excited about being away from the dorms for one night, but after a while our legs feel numb and finding a comfortable sleeping position in the packed van seems to be impossible. So to cheer things up, some of us decide to entertain our team-mates with catchy Swedish songs, requested by our assistant coach Scott. When we arrive at our home for the night, The Comfort Inn, most of us are starving and the first mission is to find food. Two hours later people begin feeling tired and one room after the other turns dark. The only problem is the air-conditioning that seems to live a life of its own. We have to choose between Arctic cold or Tropical heat. Our room goes with choice number two, which turns out to be something we come to regret. “Come on ladies!” 8 am and our cheerful Captains Lilja and Liz are warming us up with a little jog before breakfast. Nice, just what you want to do after enduring a night in a sauna. After breakfast we get some free time before we have to leave for the game and some of us head straight to the mall for some intense shopping while others have to stay behind for homework. The whole mall experience ends a bit chaotically when it turns out we didn’t get the directions back to the hotel, but Lilja is cool as always and gets us all back in one piece.
After some confusion about where to have lunch we arrive at Millersville only to encounter more confusion. The campus is huge and it takes a while before we can finally find our dressing rooms and the game may start! It turns out to be a warm and humid game, but we work as a team and win 3-0. We celebrate with a quick dinner and then it’s time for the long ride back to UB again: a trip with a lot of laughter and singing performed by the Swedes. Some like it; others are putting their headphones on wishing they could be back at the dorms far away from the crazy Scandinavians.