Aug. 30, 2008

The Season is finally here...FINALLY! The team met at Krenzler Field to head to Irvine, California, for our first two regular season matches, and everyone is still carrying the same excitement we saw on our first day.

We all arrived at Hopkins with plenty of time to spare, and SAAC member Jeff Baker put the video camera to good use right away. He "interviewed" a slew of random travelers, all of which gave their own rendition of "GO VIKINGS!", some of which were clearly more enthusiastic than others.

I would have to say that the best version was done by Kenny G...yes, Grammy award winning Kenny G is officially a CSU Men's Soccer fan, and we have the film to prove it! We're all just hoping that our first weekend of matches comes through as smooth as Kenny's jazz.

One thing that wasn't as smooth as Kenny's crunchy beats was the flight, and lone senior Anthony Rucci clearly wished that it was, wincing with every bounce. Regardless, we landed safely, hopped on a shuttle to the rental facility, and were quickly on our way from LAX to Irvine.

You tend to hear a lot about traffic on the 405 in southern California, and to our experience it is completely...true. Our supposed 45 minute commute turned into about 2 hours. After arriving at the hotel and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we were off to the UC Irvine campus, which is about 10 minutes away, for a quick training session to jog off the heavy legs.

After the short session, it was back to the hotel for a shower and off to dinner at Macaroni Grill. The only problem was that the Macaroni Grill had recently closed...permanently...and we settled for a local place with plenty of TVs instead. We arrived back at the hotel at around 10:15pm, but in all of our minds its already after 1am...so a good nights sleep is what we all have in mind now.

Tomorrow, it's up early for breakfast, perhaps a little walk, and hopefully complete focus on our first opponent, Seattle University at 5 PM pst.

In the words of the great Kenny G, "GO VIKINGS!"