Stevens Admissions: Ellyn's Blog

Busy Spring Break

Hello readers!  I'm sorry for my blogging absence... I was very busy during Spring Break!  I didn't decide to do the "traditional" Spring Break trip of going some place warm like Florida.  Instead, I spent my break in Candada to site-see and then in Maryland for an indoor field hockey tournament!  This is the first Spring Break that spent out and about rather than just relaxing at home.

CANADA

My sister, a friend, and I decided to go to Canada at the beginning of Spring Break.  My sister and I had never been there before so we figured it'd be something cool to see... and let me tell you, it was awesome!  We went to Niagara Falls and Toronto!  My next blog will go more into depth of what we did and have pictures, so look out for it :)

MARYLAND

Anyways, at the end of Spring Break, my sister, a friend, and I participated in a field hockey tournament in Maryland (near Washington DC).  I hadn't really played too much field hockey since season
ended in the fall,  because I chose to take a break and pick up running to train for a half marathon (which is less than a month away - can't believe it!).  Needlesstosay, I was really looking forward to playing.
We played on an adult club team and our name for the tournament was "Phun".  We wanted to be competitive and do well in the tournament, but our primary goal was just to have fun and enjoy playing! We were successful, because It really was a lot of fun!  I got to play some field hockey and meet new people!  The only downside... I am EXTREMELY sore today!

Stevens Field Hockey Keeping Up The High Expectations

One of the wonderful things about being a Division III student-athlete is that the institutions focus not only on the athletic performances of its student-athletes but also on the academic success of these individuals as well.  The culture of Stevens as a whole, and particularly of the field hockey team, was always that school was most important with field hockey being a priority right below it.  Our athletics staff does a really great job understanding the rigor of our courseload and understanding that we are going to enter the professional work force; many of us will not pursue our sport after college.  Although our athletics is extremely competitive and top-notch, we have a great balance.

Yesterday marked the seventh straight year that the field hockey teamed earned the NFHCA Academic Team Award for having a team GPA above the minimum 3.0 requirement.  Furthermore, not only has our team gotten this award since its inception seven years ago, but the team got a 3.34 GPA for the fall (3.21 cumulative)!  Particularly because we are in season during the fall, I am so proud and impressed that my teammates and I were able to accomplish this feat (and the same applies for all of the other sports on campus as well).  We were able to perform well academically and athletically, reaching the "Sweet 16" round of the NCAA Tournament.

Field Hockey Receives Academic Team Award from NFHCA is a link to the StevensDucks website highlighting the achievement of the team.  It also mentions that the All-Academic team (individual awards) will be announced next week.  I'll keep you updated!

GO DUCKS!

Last Field Hockey Banquet

On Sunday, I attended my last field hockey banquet ever!  It is Stevens field hockey tradition to hold a banquet after season to celebrate the accomplishments of the team.  Not every team in college (both at Stevens and at other schools) has a banquet, and I think this special event is indicative of how our team and program is.

This banquet was more than just a regular farewell to the seniors and celebration of the team's accomplishments this year... it ends an era in the field hockey program.  Our coach and founding coach of the program, Jess Roach (Reed), celebrated her last year with the Stevens field hockey team.  In addition to the careers of the seniors, the banquet also recapped Coach's 7 years with the program (since the program's founding).  It included videos, photos, and we were even fortunate enough to have some alumni and their families come for this momentous occasion.  Since the program was founded in 2004, we have produced All-Americans, Academic All-Americans, won 3 conference championships, advanced to the NCAA tournament 3 times (2 times going to the Sweet 16), among a number of other accolades... which is absolutely remarkable to do in such a short amount of time!

Looking back, I am so fortunate to be part of such a special family that is the Stevens Field Hockey Team.  When I gave a speech at the banquet, I said that being a part of this team helped me not only grow as a player but also as a person, and I really meant it.

Anyways, enough of the mushy stuff, I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Phoenix for Thanksgiving

The title is true... I spent my Thanksgiving in Phoenix!

Before you ask... No, I don't have family out there.  What IS in Phoenix though was the 2010 National Field Hockey Festival.  Every year over Thanksgiving Break, US Field Hockey hosts a tournament that allows people of all ages to play in this HUGE tournament.  Last year the tournament was in Palm Springs, California (link to my blog post is here), but this year it moved to Phoenix, Arizona.

There are U16, U19, women's, and mixed (aka coed) brackets.  Although Lauren and I didn't find a women's or mixed team to play on, we were fortunate enough to be able to coach our club team at the festival.

What's great about our club team and the tournament is that it gives the U16 and U19 girls to play on a team outside of their high school AND allows them to get looked at by college coaches.  This tournament is the biggest recruiting tool that all 3 divisions of the NCAA use to look out for young talent.

The trip was wonderful.  We got the opportunity to be around field hockey, coach our wonderful team, and got to do some other cool things as well.  Our club team had girls from New Jersey and California on it, so it was really awesome to talk to them and hear about how things are on the West Coast!

 

Here are some pictures!

 

Less on my Plate

After a year of serving my sorority, my reign as bursar (aka treasurer) has ended.
(and so has my time as captain of the field hockey team)

It is a bittersweet feeling.

I am happy and honored that I was able to serve my sorority on E-Board as the treasurer. 
I was able to see the inner-workings of the sorority and interact with all of my sisters on that level.  Some of my responsibilities included: making a budget, giving reimbursements to sisters, writing checks to vendors, working with National and local representatives of the sorority, taking care of the taxes, and a plethora of other tasks. 
As captain of the team, I was able to help lead the team by re-enforcing our team rules and trying to keep our team as the tight knit group it has always been.

Furthermore, I can honestly say that I have enhanced my leadership (and time management skills!) by taking on both positions.  I hope that everyone has an opportunity to experience being a leader in an organization or team.

All that being said, I am happy that I now get to have "less on my plate".  Now that the time of being a captain of the field hockey team and treasurer of my sorority is over, I can sit back and enjoy my senior year a little bit more...
Don't worry, I'm not coasting through the rest of the year!  I've still got classes, Senior Design, Gear & Triangle E-Board, and being an RA on my plate!  I love being involved!

Both my sorority and the field hockey team are things that are very close to me, so I am still excited to be involved... just in a different way! :)

What Would I Do For An Empire 8 Championship...

For an Empire 8 Field Hockey Championship... I would carry around a life-sized Edward Cullen cutout for a day and give up desert for a month!

Our team has had a tradition of saying something we do or won't do that would be difficult... but something that we would do because we wanted a championship that badly.  This year, I combined something funny with something hard to do!

I am a few weeks into the "no desert" regime and am hanging in there!  Although I love sweets, a championship is so much sweeter!

The Edward Cullen cutout to class was difficult but worth it.  I just wish it wasn't raining that day!

(yup that's the cutout in the corner of my class)

 

Anyways, now that field hockey is over I am able to look back on my career here and see how much the program has accomplished.  I've been a part of 3 consecutive conference championships, 3 NCAA tournament appearances (2 of which we made it to the Sweet 16), and so many more new and exciting things.  This year, we started off our season 0-5 but wound up accomplishing more than anyone could have imagined.  Who would have thought that the 0-5 team would not only win the conference (three-peat) but also make it to the Sweet 16?

 

To cap off my field hockey career, I was fortunate enough to be selected to play in the NFHCA Division III Senior All-Star game this weekend in Newport News, Virginia at Christopher Newport University.  It'll be my last time in my duck uniform.  It's bittersweet but also extremely exciting to represent our school! GO DUCKS!

Annual Field Hockey Halloween Scrimmage

One of the reasons I have enjoyed being part of the field hockey team so much is because of all the FUN we have.  Whether it's inside or outside of practice, we are always having fun... and our annual Halloween scrimmage is a testament to that!

Coach selects one day around Halloween that we get all dressed up and have an inner squad scrimmage... IN OUR HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!

If you've been a longtime reader of my blog, you'll know in the past we've had KISS, the Ghostbusters (with me as the Marshmellow Man), Mario Kart, and so many other awesome costumes!

This year not only met my expectations but EXCEEDED THEM!  Every single person on the team brought their A Game and it was awesome!  Probably the best part of the scrimmage is watching the passerbys look at us on the field!  One of my teammates said they heard a passerby ask if it was the freshman just playing around for fun and goofing off... and they responded that it wasn't just the freshman partcipating... it was the WHOLE TEAM including the coach!

Without further ado, here are the pictures of the various costumes on the team (coutesy of Lauren):

 

The Rugrats!

 

Spongebob Squarepants!

 

M&Ms

 

Bubbles (from Powerpuff Girls)

 

Coach dressed up as Grace Ridge (one of the girls on the team) ... and she really looks like her!

 

Star Wars (p.s. I'm Jabba the Hut in the middle)

I have no voice... Successful weekend in Pittsburgh

On Friday afternoon we departed for our long away trip to Pittsburgh to play Washington and Jefferson for Saturday morning.  The trip was really long particularly because there was loads of anticipation.  Not only was this a huge conference game for us, but we also had a full weekend consisting of a visit to a scarehouse and dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse.

Our long trip began with watching tons of fun movies on the bus ride including Charlie’s Angels, Zoolander, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.   I enjoy napping on the bus so I admit that I didn’t watch all of them!

When we finally arrived in Pittsburgh we went right to dinner.  It was delicious!  I got to sit at a table with my sister, Karen, and Mel.  It was nice to sit down and have dinner with the seniors on the team (it doesn’t normally happen).  We stuffed our faces but not too much because we wanted to be ready for the scarehouse.

The scarehouse we went to is one of the best in the country.  We went there as a team the last time we were in Pittsburgh and it was absolutely terrifying!  The link to the scarehouse is at http://www.scarehouse.com/ .  I knew what was to come, but I will admit that I still screamed A LOT.

Saturday morning comes around and we are set to play W&J at 10am.  The team was extremely pumped to play this game, because we’ve played W&J in the conference championship for the past two years AND they were undefeated in conference this year.  The game proved to meet our expectations.  It was an extremely competitive game.  They scored first on us.  Even though I hate getting scored on, I will admit that their goal was good.  We answered right back in the first half with Mary Nikish scoring on a corner.  The second half was played in both sides of the field.  The excitement came at the end of the game.  W&J got a corner against us with no time left in regulation.  They took a shot that was deflected high and one of their players raised her stick and batted the ball into the goal.  W&J stormed the field and began cheering.  The official originally called it a goal to end the game but I immediately went up to her after she made the call to argue against it saying that it wasn’t legal.  Luckily, the other official agreed with me and the goal was taken back… meaning we were now about to start overtime!  W&J got corners against us but the defense played great so we were able to deny them the golden goal that would’ve ended the game.  A few minutes later in the overtime, Caitlin “Cali” Chamberlain got a breakaway against the other team but was tripped from behind in the circle.  Therefore, the official awarded us a penalty stroke.  Mallory stepped up to take the stroke and scored!  It was a beautiful stroke and ended the game!  We were so excited, because it was a great game that could’ve gone either way but we were able to get it done.

I could not be more proud of our performance… I’m not even mad that I lost my voice this weekend! :)

 

Field Hockey + I'm on Youtube!

I was interviewed today along with two of my teammates (Mal aka Meow & Caitlin aka Cali) to talk a little bit about how our field hockey season is progressing.

If you've been following athletics, you'll see that we had a rough start to our season. The team is so talented but so young, so it took us a long time to adjust and hit our groove. Luckily, we're hitting that point and really gelling as a team. We've got a few big weeks coming up, and I am confident that all of the hard work and preparation we've put in will help us succeed, and perhaps more importantly, HAVE FUN while doing it! :)

Anyways, below is the video!

My first poster!

For every game on campus, athletics puts signs around campus to inform everyone of the upcoming game and encourages people to come.

With every poster, they put a picture of a student-athlete for that team.

I have never had a poster with my picture on it, but FINALLY I got my first poster!
...but late than never :)