We want to share that our season is well underway for the team. We competed in our first tournament, the first of two Midwest Qualifiers, the weekend of 02/11 and we are excited to report that it went extremely well. The team played a total of 4 games throughout the weekend, winning 3 (against Lindenwood, Cincinnati, and St. Louis) and fell to Grand Valley in a tight scored game of 4-7. The first tournament is always the hardest, with nerves and a lack of experience playing with a new group of girls in the pool, so we are thrilled it went so “swimmingly” (pun intended).
We then hosted our annual Irish Invite and finished with a winning record of 4-0 (against Michigan State, Penn State, U of Illinois, Pitt). We were the only team to finish the weekend undefeated, so we definitely defended our home pool well. The Irish Invite is always an exciting weekend, providing family and friends with the opportunity to come watch us play, and introducing us to a new variety of competition compared to the teams we normally meet from our division.
These first two competitions proved to be a promising start for our small, but fierce, team this year and we are looking forward to all that can be accomplished this year.
We learned and adjusted after both of these tournaments and we are excitedly heading into our Spring Break Training Trip in California this upcoming week. We will be playing throughout the week against Cal Poly and UC Santa Cruz, as well as competing in the Foothill Invitational against a variety of West Coast teams. We will also be spending much of the week conditioning, learning, and most importantly team bonding.
Upon our return from this training trip, we will be jumping right back into things with our second, and final Midwest Qualifier tournament in Missouri the weekend of March 24-26. From there we have one more invitational and then on April 21-23 we will be hosting the Midwest Championships, vying for a spot in the National Championship tournament in May. Please consider joining us at Notre Dame that weekend to cheer on the Irish!