Hello everyone!
Well, it is back to school again, following a summer that seemed to go by way too fast. I am beginning my sophomore year as an ASU student, and my "freshman" year as a Rambelle basketball player.
I must say that these past two weeks have been very busy, as we have had many meetings, physicals, and already an anatomy test. :( This is going to be one busy semester.
We kicked off our 2010 preseason with an awesome party at Lloyd Whitehead's private lake. We had a great time and enjoyed some amazing food. Although Sunday was a blast, we were eating and tubing knowing that in the back of our minds we would be beginning our preseason conditioning workout at 7 a.m. on the track. I must say, we all did very well for our first work-out this season.
I am extremely excited about this season already. I have a feeling that this is going to be one of the best basketball seasons in the history of ASU women's basketball. I know y'all probably think that I am required to say that or that you heard the same thing last year. But please believe me when I say that this is true.
One of the reasons is: we are not only saying that this is going to be a great season, but we are working for it. This summer, all of the returners worked really hard not only in the weight room, but also on the court. I don't think that we have had this many people lifting and playing during the summer. I know that all of that hard work will pay off and translate on the court.
I look forward to seeing everyone at all of the games this year, and I hope y'all have a great week. Go 'Belles!
~ Lauren Holt
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Year of the 'Belles
Hey everyone!
I hope that you all had a great holiday break, and enjoyed spending time with your family and friends.
The 'Belles have been off to a great start in the year of 2010 as we boast a 3-1 record. We really came out on top after having a nice 10-day break from basketball where we got to recover from our four-game losing streak and move on to the start of not only a new year, but what we believed was going to be a whole new season. We left the losses behind us and came back from the break ready to work and had a much more positive outlook on the rest of the season. For the week before our first game of 2010, the 'Belles trained extremely hard even while having two practices a day! We looked like a completely different team and began to get down to business before our LSC South games began.
After one week of rigorous training, we traveled to Oklahoma where we won the next two games! In the first game versus East Central we looked fantastic. For the first time all season everyone really seemed to gel. Our offense seemed to fall into place while our defense looked tougher than it had all season. These positives carried over into our next game versus Southeastern Oklahoma (who at the time was ranked 25th in the nation) as we beat them with a buzzer-beater made by Alix Flores. Once we got those two wins we felt like a completely new team and had a much better outlook.
This past home game we played Midwestern State who definitely were no easy match but we played hard and managed to pull out a huge win to begin the LSC South season 1-0. On Saturday, we traveled to Stephenville to play Tarleton State and unfortunately got our first loss of 2010. However, I don't believe that it was a total loss because we seemed to gain a lot from this game. Afterwards, I expected coach to come into the locker room angry and frustrated but instead she waited 20 minutes, walked into the locker room and sat down and just talked with us, as if we we're having a normal conversation about the game we just played. I really admired her for this because I knew that she had to be angry, since she definitely doesn't like to lose, but instead decided to approach us in a different way. We hope to take what we've learned from this loss and beat Kingsville Wednesday, and Abilene Christian Saturday. Go 'Belles!
P.S. Rehab is going great! I should be able to run in a few weeks (not sure if thats a good thing though).
Lauren Holt #33
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Post knee surgery
Hey everyone.
Sorry it has been quite a while since I last wrote, I have been very busy with finals and knee problems. A lot has happened since my last blog. I'll start with my knee surgery. At the beginning of November, I found out that I had re-torn some of my meniscus and would have to have arthroscopic surgery. On November 27, I had surgery and everything went great. My range of motion is coming along fine, but occasionally it will tighten up and I will catch myself limping. Unfortunately, I will not be returning this season and will be classified as a medical redshirt. This news really broke my heart because. Ever since the day that I originally blew out my knee, on December 30,2008, all that i had thought about was my first collegiate game as a 'Belle. When I realized that this dream would not occur this season, it was devastating but I have come to realize that maybe it happened for a reason, and I should take the time that I have now, to get my knee back to 100%.
This past week was by far one of the most difficult weeks of my life, as far as school goes, thanks to finals. I am extremely happy to have gotten my first semester under my belt, and to have passed all of my finals. I will never start studying the night before a test again! When finals were finished, I traveled with the team to Denton, Texas, to play Texas Women's. It was a tough weekend, because I had never been around the team when they have experienced a loss. It was definitely a learning experience for me to see everyone's reaction after the game. I wished so bad that I could have cried with them and could fully understand what they were going through. I'm not going to lie, watching the games is definitely the hardest part of being injured. As much as I sit on the bench and fantasize about being out there with my teammates, I have to distract myself by cheering them on, because it's all I can do. After our game in Denton, we traveled a little farther to play Texas A&M Commerce. This loss was a little more devastating because we lost in overtime. I have no doubt that everyone will bounce back from these two losses and take what they have learned and apply it in these next two games before the Christmas break. Please come support the 'Belles as we play Northeastern State at 2 pm this Saturday. Go 'Belles!
Lauren Holt
Friday, November 6, 2009
First scrimmage
Hey everyone! Sorry it has been a while since my last blog, but the past two weeks have by far been the most exciting weeks of the pre-season/season. Last Thursday, we had our first scrimmage against Howard and I couldn't have been more nervous. I treated this scrimmage as if it were my first home game and went through the same rituals that I would normally go through during the season.
I made sure that the night before I got at least nine hours of sleep, followed by a healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. I then went to my two classes of the day and took terrible notes and didn't pay much attention to the whole lecture due to my excitement. Once I was finished with school, I made my usual ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and took a one-hour nap. I then discovered that Stephen Curry, my favorite NBA rookie, has a blog as well and wrote about his first game of the season. He stated that like me, he was nervous the entire day, but once game time came he knew that he was well-prepared and his nervousness faded. Once I read this, I kept going over it in my head the rest of the afternoon, up until our scrimmage.
Sitting on the bench, watching the upperclassmen play for the first ten minutes, my palms were drenched and my mind was racing. Once it was the freshmen's turn to show what we could do, I began to relax because I knew how comfortable I felt playing with my fellow freshmen. I was very pleased with our overall performance, I thought we played very hard and didn't make too many mental mistakes. I realized how blessed I am to have such an awesome freshmen class and really enjoy playing with them, not just in the game but also in practice the first few weeks. As the scrimmage progressed, we grew less and less nervous and began to play at ease as if we were still on our high school teams. For me, the scrimmage was going well until I pulled down a rebound and landed a little hard on my knee. After this I began to limp and couldn't move quite as swiftly as I could during the first quarter. Once the scrimmage was over, I iced it and went back to my dorm where I stayed up until 1 a.m. thinking about how excited I was about the upcoming season.
I finally drifted off to sleep and woke up the following morning not able to get out of bed because my knee hurt so bad. I called my dad and we met at my phsyical therapy place where I had spent the past nine months rehabbing my knee to normal. My physical therapist, Brett Carpenter, said that I just tweaked my knee a bit and tore some scar tissue that probably needed to be torn. I was greatly relieved to hear this but then became upset at the news that I would have to sit out for at least one week. This meant that I had to miss the scrimmage the following day, plus eight or nine practices. The following day, Coach Brooks talked to me and said that we could look at this as a good thing because then I get a chance to understand the plays better and see everything through a coaches point of view. Although I have hated sitting out of practice the past week, it has amazed me at how different it is to watch practice than to actually play in it. When I was practicing, I would get frustrated because I felt like our offense seemed a little to restricted (I like to drive baseline, which causes our offense not to function properly) but after watching practice this past week, I began (like coach) to get really frustrated when someone would drive baseline or do something that the offense wasn't designed to do. By the end of the first practice I realized how much easier it would be to score almost every possession if we would just run the play! I definitely will remember that when I begin practicing and want to drive baseline. In the end I'm glad that I was able to sit out this week and observe practice, but I definitely can't wait to be practicing again this Sunday and to be able to scrimmage on Tuesday vs. Hardin Simmons. I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I will let y'all know how the scrimmage goes if you can't make it this Tuesday. Go 'Belles!
Lauren Holt
I made sure that the night before I got at least nine hours of sleep, followed by a healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. I then went to my two classes of the day and took terrible notes and didn't pay much attention to the whole lecture due to my excitement. Once I was finished with school, I made my usual ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and took a one-hour nap. I then discovered that Stephen Curry, my favorite NBA rookie, has a blog as well and wrote about his first game of the season. He stated that like me, he was nervous the entire day, but once game time came he knew that he was well-prepared and his nervousness faded. Once I read this, I kept going over it in my head the rest of the afternoon, up until our scrimmage.
Sitting on the bench, watching the upperclassmen play for the first ten minutes, my palms were drenched and my mind was racing. Once it was the freshmen's turn to show what we could do, I began to relax because I knew how comfortable I felt playing with my fellow freshmen. I was very pleased with our overall performance, I thought we played very hard and didn't make too many mental mistakes. I realized how blessed I am to have such an awesome freshmen class and really enjoy playing with them, not just in the game but also in practice the first few weeks. As the scrimmage progressed, we grew less and less nervous and began to play at ease as if we were still on our high school teams. For me, the scrimmage was going well until I pulled down a rebound and landed a little hard on my knee. After this I began to limp and couldn't move quite as swiftly as I could during the first quarter. Once the scrimmage was over, I iced it and went back to my dorm where I stayed up until 1 a.m. thinking about how excited I was about the upcoming season.
I finally drifted off to sleep and woke up the following morning not able to get out of bed because my knee hurt so bad. I called my dad and we met at my phsyical therapy place where I had spent the past nine months rehabbing my knee to normal. My physical therapist, Brett Carpenter, said that I just tweaked my knee a bit and tore some scar tissue that probably needed to be torn. I was greatly relieved to hear this but then became upset at the news that I would have to sit out for at least one week. This meant that I had to miss the scrimmage the following day, plus eight or nine practices. The following day, Coach Brooks talked to me and said that we could look at this as a good thing because then I get a chance to understand the plays better and see everything through a coaches point of view. Although I have hated sitting out of practice the past week, it has amazed me at how different it is to watch practice than to actually play in it. When I was practicing, I would get frustrated because I felt like our offense seemed a little to restricted (I like to drive baseline, which causes our offense not to function properly) but after watching practice this past week, I began (like coach) to get really frustrated when someone would drive baseline or do something that the offense wasn't designed to do. By the end of the first practice I realized how much easier it would be to score almost every possession if we would just run the play! I definitely will remember that when I begin practicing and want to drive baseline. In the end I'm glad that I was able to sit out this week and observe practice, but I definitely can't wait to be practicing again this Sunday and to be able to scrimmage on Tuesday vs. Hardin Simmons. I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I will let y'all know how the scrimmage goes if you can't make it this Tuesday. Go 'Belles!
Lauren Holt
Monday, October 19, 2009
Practice has started
Basketball practices have begun and we are off to a great start! We kicked off our official pre-season practices with Midnight Madness this past wednesday. I was absolutely shocked to see the Junell Center full of so many people on midnight in the middle of the week. It was great to see so many people support the men and women's basketball programs, but at the same time it made the whole ordeal a lot more nerve-wracking for myself.
It was my first time to ever play a basketball game (even though it was only five minutes) in what will be my new home for the next four years. Since Midnight Madness we have had practice every day since (including weekends) and I think we have been doing a great job. I'm finally catching on to all of the plays and everyone is starting to gel. I'm especially looking forward to our first scrimmage next Thursday where we will finally get to scrimmage against someone that is not wearing an ASU practice jersey.
With all our hard work and preparation, as well as a new mind-set, we all truly believe that this is going to be a great season for the 'Belles. I hope everyone has a great week, and congrats to the ASU football team! Go Rams!
Lauren Holt
It was my first time to ever play a basketball game (even though it was only five minutes) in what will be my new home for the next four years. Since Midnight Madness we have had practice every day since (including weekends) and I think we have been doing a great job. I'm finally catching on to all of the plays and everyone is starting to gel. I'm especially looking forward to our first scrimmage next Thursday where we will finally get to scrimmage against someone that is not wearing an ASU practice jersey.
With all our hard work and preparation, as well as a new mind-set, we all truly believe that this is going to be a great season for the 'Belles. I hope everyone has a great week, and congrats to the ASU football team! Go Rams!
Lauren Holt
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The end of the beginning
Hey everybody! Sorry it has been a while since my last post, it has been a very busy two weeks. Since I am one week late on my blog entries, I'll start by telling you the events of last week. Last week our challenge was by far the most difficult one we have had to endure, (yes, even more than the swimming!) Our challenge was a court work-out where our goal was to sprint 20 down-back down-backs in 25 seconds or less for the first ten, and 26 seconds for the second set of ten, with a 30 second rest in between each one (with a one minute break between the first set and second set of ten). Myself and a few others didn't get to attempt this challenge due to injuries, but I think I speak for the injured crew by saying that it was extremely difficult to watch our teammates complete such a difficult challenge, and that we are extremely proud of them.
On top of this challenge, we had to run two miles at 7:00 a.m. Tues.-Thurs. because some of us didn't get our Academic Progress Reports signed in time (myself included, sorry team!). So, I guess you could say that we are in pretty good shape! This past week has been much easier, because our conditioning consists of a pool work-out where we get to play fun games, such as water polo. Tomorrow for our conditioning, we will "save" each other by completing the challenges for one another. For example, I didn't get to complete last weeks court challenge, so my teammates will divide the 20 down-back down-backs amongst one another, in order to "save" me. Not only does this go for the injured people, but for the people who didn't make their times in the previous challenges. I will be sure to let y'all know the results of the "saves" next week! Until then, have a great weekend!
ONLY ONE WEEK UNTIL BASKETBALL PRACTICE BEGINS!!!!
Lauren Holt #33
On top of this challenge, we had to run two miles at 7:00 a.m. Tues.-Thurs. because some of us didn't get our Academic Progress Reports signed in time (myself included, sorry team!). So, I guess you could say that we are in pretty good shape! This past week has been much easier, because our conditioning consists of a pool work-out where we get to play fun games, such as water polo. Tomorrow for our conditioning, we will "save" each other by completing the challenges for one another. For example, I didn't get to complete last weeks court challenge, so my teammates will divide the 20 down-back down-backs amongst one another, in order to "save" me. Not only does this go for the injured people, but for the people who didn't make their times in the previous challenges. I will be sure to let y'all know the results of the "saves" next week! Until then, have a great weekend!
ONLY ONE WEEK UNTIL BASKETBALL PRACTICE BEGINS!!!!
Lauren Holt #33
Monday, September 14, 2009
The best is yet to come
We are finally into week four in school and to be honest I am still adjusting. Last week was a very busy week between school and basketball. Our challenge last week was to run 12 suicides on the football field (from the touchdown line to the 50, back to the touchdown line then the full 100 yards and back). I wish I could say that I completed this challenge, but due to problems with my knee I had to sit this one out (but don't worry I'll get to make it up!)
This week proves to be a MUCH bigger challenge for me because we are swimming :(. I am hands down the worst swimmer EVER. Last week, due to the rain, we had to go to the indoor swimming pool to do our work-out. And wow! it definitely was a work-out. I typically came in 2nd or 3rd to last because I have no technique what so ever haha. On top of that my legs are much much longer than my torso, and my feet are so big and probably weigh 50 lbs. This combination equals TERRIBLE swimmer haha.
If one player does not complete the challenge on Friday in a given amount of time, then they can be "saved" by other players on the team. I hate to say it everyone, but I'm probably going to have to be saved haha.
Basketball is going well. I am learning our new offense and defense and beginning to slowly adjust to it. I am a huge fan of running a four-out, one-in offense because forwards truly get to play everywhere. I am so excited about basketball season starting soon! It is exactly one month away! I hope everybody has a great week, and please pray that I don't drown this Friday!
Lauren Holt #33 (new number!)
This week proves to be a MUCH bigger challenge for me because we are swimming :(. I am hands down the worst swimmer EVER. Last week, due to the rain, we had to go to the indoor swimming pool to do our work-out. And wow! it definitely was a work-out. I typically came in 2nd or 3rd to last because I have no technique what so ever haha. On top of that my legs are much much longer than my torso, and my feet are so big and probably weigh 50 lbs. This combination equals TERRIBLE swimmer haha.
If one player does not complete the challenge on Friday in a given amount of time, then they can be "saved" by other players on the team. I hate to say it everyone, but I'm probably going to have to be saved haha.
Basketball is going well. I am learning our new offense and defense and beginning to slowly adjust to it. I am a huge fan of running a four-out, one-in offense because forwards truly get to play everywhere. I am so excited about basketball season starting soon! It is exactly one month away! I hope everybody has a great week, and please pray that I don't drown this Friday!
Lauren Holt #33 (new number!)
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