Fall-ing for Sports
Email: 
Share: 
From orientation to the infamous primal scream before finals to Slope Day, on the hill we tend to mark beginnings and ends with some sort of celebration or tradition. This especially holds true for Big Red sports teams, many of which began training over the summer to prepare for the fall season.
The women’s varsity soccer team kicked off the fall season on Aug. 22 with the team’s first official practice. Although Aug. 22 marked the team’s first practice at Cornell, the players trained over the summer to improve fitness and strength before returning to campus. Each athlete had her own fitness “packet” that required six days of workout per week, said Whitney Stich ’09, team captain.
New coaches Danielle LaRoche and Allison Cowan created the fitness packet, which included runs, fitness tests, lifts, ball work and recovery workouts, explained team member Kala Neilson ’10. According to her teammate, Rebecca Flewelling ’10, the players even used a heart rate monitor to ensure that they would return to Cornell as fit and ready as possible for the season.
“We have 10 new members who have all excelled this preseason,” Flewelling said. “We are going to be a very young team with a lot of heart and I think [we] will surprise many of our opponents in the Ivy League.”
This fall, the team hopes to win the Ivy League title and erase last year’s disappointing record. According to team member Natalie Zandt ’11, the influx of new players will increase the difficulty of starting and playing in each game, competition which will ultimately translate into wins.
As for celebrating the arrival of new and talented players, each year the team bonds by tie-dying clothing together or planning an event off the field, said Neilson. On Friday, women’s soccer will meet Oakland University at a tournament in Rochester.
Like women’s soccer, the field hockey team had its first practice on August 22, a change from the two-day preseason that Ivy League field hockey teams are normally afforded. The 2007 season was marked by success, but no specific goalshave been set for 2008. The team does, however, hope to improve overall performance on a weekly basis, said captain Abbi Horn ’09.
Every year women’s field hockey starts off the season with a social event. This year, the team held a cookout at Stewart Park and celebrated with the coaches in order to get to know the new players, said Horn.
For men’s cross country, there’s no party to welcome new teammates. Rather, every runner participates in a 2.5-mile time trial to kick off the season, said Aaron Anderson ’11.
Preseason for the men’s cross county team, which took second place at the Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championships last year, lasted all summer when the team, who ran between 50 and 140 miles per week, completed the brunt of the season’s work. Several runners spent the summer in Ithaca, which proved to be motivational for the team.
“[It] made for a great training atmosphere. It’s a lot easier to drag yourself out of bed for a ten miler if you’re walking out the door with five other guys doing the same thing,” Anderson said.
Last year, women’s rowing made great strides during the fall, finishing 15 out of 39 in Championship Eights at the Head of the Charles Regatta, trumping 2006’s 31st place finish. The goal for the fall is to follow the example of team dedication displayed by the men’s crew team.
“Our overarching goal for the fall 2008 season is to emulate the kind of work ethic and intensity that our men’s crews have, particularly the lightweight squad, who are three-time national champions,” Cathleen Balantic ’09, team captain, said. “This will come with greater focus during practice and more extra workouts.”
Since rowing is primarily a spring sport, the women’s varsity rowing team did not return to Cornell before classes to practice, although many of the women rowed over the summer. To recruit walk ons, the team holds a two-week long physical education rowing course for freshman. At the end of two weeks, some students are invited to walk on the novice team with a four-mile run to the boathouse and back as a welcome, Balantic said.
Like the women’s soccer team, there will be a new sense of competition within the team as new rowers compete with upperclassman for seats in boats. This competition will ultimately have a positive effect on the team.
However, the real team tradition takes place during the Schwartz Cup in October, when both the men and women’s teams dress up and perform skits in their boats with alumni, Balantic said.