Bucknell University Athletics
Michael Lookingland Diary
3/4/2005 7:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Feb. 12, 2005
I woke up at 7:15 a.m. and make it to our 7:30 a.m. breakfast. The breakfast was delicious with an option of eggs, homefries, bacon, french toast, waffles and pancakes, as well as oatmeal and fruit. After breakfast we came back and picked up our practice gear from our equipment manager to prepare for our 9:30 a.m. training session. We left at 9:15 a.m. and headed to the field.
We had light practice since we were scheduled for two games the next day against San Jose and Columbus. We did our usual 15-minute warm up and stretch with our trainer. Then we moved into an 8 vs. 4 keep-away game in a 40 x 30-yard grid where we were required to do a lot of running in order to get open because we were allowed only one touch before passing the ball. After that I went with the defenders and we did some clearing drills where four people would hit balls into the penalty box and the other four defenders would have to clear the ball out of the box with a header, volley, or by controlling the ball and passing it out of the box to target players at midfield. After we did that for 20 minutes we were given 15 minutes to work on skills on our own. Some people worked on fitness by doing sprints, abs, or pushups. I went with the group doing pushups and hitting long balls to our outside midfielders.
After practice we went back to our village and got ready for lunch, where once again the option was chicken, fish, vegetables, rice, pasta, soup, salad and bread. After lunch we went back to the apartment until it was time for dinner at 6:45 p.m. We went to the local Italian restaurant as a team and had a good meal on the evening before our first two games.
