Starting Off 2010 By Making History

This weekend, we made history. It’s that simple. The women’s basketball program at Vassar has never, yes NEVER, had a 2-0 start in Liberty League play until this weekend. After a long trip north on Thursday night, we pulled out a 69-63 win at Clarkson University on Friday and held on for a tight 50-46 win over Saint Lawrence University the next day. It was the first time Vassar had beaten Saint Lawrence since 2001.

I can’t come up with a better word to describe the weekend other than incredible. Both games were an intense 40 minutes, both emotionally and physically. It certainly wasn’t perfect, we made our share of mistakes and had to overcome foul trouble in both games, but in the end we were able to stick it out and get the wins, and that’s really all that matters at the end of the day.

As a team, we’ve been discussing the idea of having expectations since we returned from winter break (which seems like forever ago) and we talked about it at length on Thursday night at the hotel as we prepped for Clarkson. The message was simple: expect to play well, and expect to win. Don’t sell yourself short with a ‘hopefully’ or a ‘maybe.’ Expect to do the things that you want to do in the game, and you will do them. Operate in confidence, not in fear. Expect the win and feel it before it has even happened. This was what we agreed upon on Thursday night in mental preparation, and we consistently reminded each other of it throughout the weekend.

I’m sure neither Clarkson nor Saint Lawrence expected the kind of play they got from us this weekend. Clarkson probably didn’t foresee a 26 point performance from Brittany or a double-double from Tori. Saint Lawrence probably wasn’t expecting a 21 point-10 rebound outing from House or the tenacious defense they felt the entire game. But all that mattered was that we expected it from ourselves. We saw all of it before it even happened. This didn’t mean we weren’t playing hard throughout the entirety of both games. It meant that we had confidence in ourselves and in each other that we WOULD play hard, and that doing so would lead us to victory. And it did. Twice.

So here we are, 3-0 in the year 2010 and 2-0 in the Liberty League, sitting at the top of the standings after weekend number one. But it is way too early to get comfortable. Tomorrow we go back to work to get ready for a tough RPI team. We’ll take it one game at a time, and we will continue to work as hard as we have all season. Most importantly, we’ll continue to expect things from ourselves; we will expect to win. Because what the mind can conceive, it can achieve. Just ask my teammates and coaches.