Club Soccer Catch-Up
A couple of days ago, I realized that I haven’t updated you all on my club soccer adventures at all this semester! So here I am, remedying that. The club soccer semester began at the end of August, about a week after classes started, with three days of tryouts, after which we had our team!
This semester, our team is the most competitive it’s been since I’ve been here–we got so many awesome new players this semester, and combined with all of our great returning players, we are unbeatable! (Literally. We’re undefeated right now, and the number one team in our region! And hopefully it stays that way.)
For our first games, we played the University of Alabama, and the University of Kentucky on the same day. They also played each other, so that we could all get two games out of the way. We beat both teams (obviously, since I already told you that we’re undefeated). Those first two games were a struggle for me–I am not in as good of shape as I may seem. (I really need to run more.) By our second game though, which was against MTSU (whom we also beat), I was feeling less like an old lady on the field and more like an actual soccer player. The next weekend, we travelled to Knoxville to play a game against (and beat) the University of Tennessee, during which I had an assist!
One of my favorite parts about being on the club soccer team, besides the soccer part and the loving my teammates part, is that we travel to places outside of Nashville that I have never been to before! Being from California, I haven’t really been to many places in the south, and thanks to club soccer, I’ve now been to South Carolina and Alabama, and Knoxville, and a few other places in Tennessee too!
Our next game is this Friday at 7pm, so if you’re in the area, you should definitely stop by! We love fans!
October 20th, 2012
Question! I am a senior in high school and I’d really like to play club soccer in college. How did you go about doing this? Is it really competitive tryouts, a lot of commitment? I play varsity for my school and would love to keep playing through college 🙂
October 22nd, 2012
Hi Hannah! At the organization fair at the beginning of my freshman year, I found the club soccer table and signed up to receive their emails. They send out information about tryouts at the beginning of the fall semester. Generally tryouts are two to three days during our usual practice times, after which our captains and coaches make the roster. The competitiveness of tryouts varies from year to year, depending on the number of players that try out and their skill levels, and how many spots there are on the roster that year. This year there are about 30-35 girls on the roster, but it varies. Our team is only improving, so the level of competitiveness has increased in the last few years. The commitment is fairly significant, but it’s somewhat flexible–we practice for two hours, three times per week and play games most weekends in the fall, but academics come first. If you have a big test coming up or something of that sort and have to miss practice, everyone understands. I felt the same way my senior year of high school, and the club team is definitely the perfect level of both commitment and competitiveness that I was looking for. I hope I answered your questions–if you need anything else, feel free to send me an email; my email is caitlyn.a.durning@vanderbilt.edu!