Day 4 Cali Style: Livin’ the Dream

Guest Writer: Coach Tal

Day 4: It was fitting that 4 words summed up our day …. MUCH NEEDED DAY OFF! That is exactly what it was … well, to an extent. This morning the Pio’s joyfully loaded up their bags, laundry, and odds-n-ends to move hotels and head into our first adventure of the day: Breakfast at the Herrings.

Let me tell you a little bit about the Herrings: Aside from both Karen and Bruce (Parents of #24 Christina Herring) being two of our top fans and supporters, making the trip to Portland as often as they can, they also know how to cook a mean meal. Just to put it into perspective, you would have thought President Obama was visiting their house today with the amount of spectacular food that was presented to our fingertips this morning at their home in San Dimas, CA. They fed all of the Pioneer’s, plus all three coaches (I went back for thirds, shhhh) and visiting parents of other Pioneer’s. We had quite the spread ranging from fruit and granola, to eggs, bacon, sausage, muffins, toast, juice, and sparkling cider. We ate for an army this morning and were very appreciative to have such great hospitality on the road!! You would think we never feed the team … or the coaches with the amount of food consumed. The ladies enjoyed some down time visiting or dancing (Neva and Jodi) while the rest of us chatted about the weekend so far, the previous games, and our up-coming game tomorrow against Cal Lutheran. The team even had time to fit in a couple Christmas movies to round the morning out right. It was just what we needed to fuel our bellies for the day … THANK YOU TO THE HERRINGS FOR SUCH A GREAT BREAKFAST AND WARM WELCOME!

After our uniforms were washed, our appetite most definitely satisfied, we were back on another highway headed in another direction somewhere in the LA area! This time we had a bit of a hike to Thousand Oaks, CA where we were headed to Cal Lutheran for our practice this afternoon. On our 1.5hr drive today my van decided that Southern California quite possibly ONLY plays The Black Eyed peas, Kanye West, and Jay-Z on the radio, as we channel surfed through the same songs the WHOLE way! The other van scooted along behind us, some of the girls sleeping, while others talked about up-coming finals and randomly what character in the Lion King that they would like to be!

The Pioneer’s laced up their shoes for a quick practice at CLU this afternoon while Coach Tim headed down another freeway to get a jump start on scouting upcoming conference opponents. The ladies were in good form as they warmed up their legs a bit from playing back to back games the past two days. We worked on a few things we are anticipating the Regal’s might bring to the table tomorrow, as well as a few additions to our offense we will be working on over the next few weeks. It was just enough time for all of us to get that fire back in us for tomorrow’s game!

A quick trip to our hotel down the road provided us our next home for just one night in Thousand Oaks. Due to the overwhelming family support for most of the team, we had a free night for them to spend time with their family or stay in and study! A special request from Coach Fulks for dinner at CHIPOTLE (a staff favorite) and we were on our way to the closest one! We can always rely on CHIPOTLE to be a good way to end a great day.

The Pioneer’s are VERY anxious to get on the court tomorrow against the Regal’s as they provide a big challenge for us on our last game of our road trip. Game day awaits us tomorrow at an early tip-off at 3pm before we head back to Portland, back to final test preparations, and for Coach Whitesel and I, a desk full of paperwork not anywhere near as fun as the paperwork for our 2-0 road trip. Until then (Like I always tell both Coaches, we will keep Livin’ the Dream)!

Ps.. the pioneers have added some new significant numbers and words to this trip: Scneva, Stalia, 7, H-Dub, epic, facebook fame … and that is just the start but memories that will keep us laughing.

Day 3 Cali Style: The Few The Proud The Orange

Guest Writer: Coach Tal  (Day 3 Pictures)

Day 3: Did some one say coffee? YES …… Coach Whitesel and I started our day like we have on most road trips in our careers – with a walk to Starbucks to feed our need before we rallied the troops together for our shoot-a-round before today’s challenge: The Occidental Tigers.  

Occidental sits on the edge of Los Angeles about 20 miles from where we are staying, and in true Southern California fashion 20 miles equals one hour of driving thanks to the 4 Million people who live within the city limits of LA. So with that, we arrived at our newest place of competition for today while the girls were energized and ready to get loose and get shots up … which is exactly what we did.   Alum, Sarah  Moon stopped by the gym to say hello and catch up with us on her life and what she has been up to since she graduated in 2006.  It was great to see her and have her see our latest and greatest Pioneer’s that have filled her jersey since she left. 

Shoot-a-round not only provided us with some time to get lose, but also some time to work on our dance moves and celebration dances.  Special shout out to TEAM HERRING/SPENCE who “broke it down” for us on made free-throws.  Now we have to figure out how to get them to do that during the games ;). 

We quickly made progress back to the hotel to re-group,  eat, pile back into our vans to get back to the gym for the ‘Pre-Game Rally Reception’ that was held at Occidental prior to our game to support friends and family of the program to meet and greet with our players and coaches.  It was a great time for all of us to meet some new family members and catch up with those some of the players hadn’t seen since the previous day.  Thanks to Coach Lori Jepsen and AD Clark Yeager for attending and supporting the event.  It was GREAT to see some familiar Portland faces amongst the group!

Game time came and Coach Whitesel came through with a great pre-game plan on a whiteboard the side of a car window, but was able to communicate enough information for the Pioneer’s to pull out a great victory over the Occidental Tigers improving our record to 6-1 overall.  A team win at its best tonight for the Pioneer’s as we had 4 players come in with double digit scoring, Kristina Williams, Talerra Rich, Megan Spence, and Neva Hauser.  Both Neva and Megan went the extra mile and pulled down enough rebounds to have Double-Doubles as well …. way to go POSTS!  A true team win tonight for the Pioneers in front of a very large Black and Orange crowd!  Special thanks to the Oakridge Girls Basketball team for coming out to support former teammate, Kristina Williams, in tonight’s game (Good Luck tomorrow Trojan’s!). 

After some mingling with family and fans we made our way back toward our hotel in no time.  Who knew the best time to drive in LA was Friday night at 10pm.  In-N-Out Burger was our final destination tonight for the Pioneer’s as we celebrated our win with a true California road trip tradition!  Double-Doubles, milkshakes, and fries filled the need for food immediately upon consumption. 

Tomorrow brings a much-needed day off  for all of us as we will be headed to the Herring’s for a large team brunch first thing in the morning with practice to follow.  Tomorrow will be a day off of games, but certainly not preparation as we will have just as much if not more challenges ahead in our Sunday afternoon game against California Lutheran. 

Day 3 proved to be just as successful as the previous as we continue to be: The Few. The Proud, Orange!

Day 2 Cali Style: Get Low, Get Lucky

Guest Writer: Coach Tal

Day 2:  Today was our second day in Cali and nonetheless entertaining.  All of the girls, (plus one of the coaches, it may or may not have been me) were all able to sleep in a bit longer than the normal work or school week, so you know that definitely jumped everyone off on the right foot this morning!  Coach Whitesel and I headed to Starbucks for some much-needed energy, while Coach Fulks watched film of our competition in tonight’s game! 

Before we knew it, we were on the road to our shoot-a-round at Whittier this morning.  After we arrived at Whittier and before our normal pre-game routine, we had to take some time out to play our annual 3 on 3 games that became a new tradition last year in Cali.  So you are probably asking, why is this a tradition?  Two Words: Team Coaches!   Yes, that’s right folks, we laced up our shoes this morning to be a team in the King of the Court 3 on 3 game.  Competition was in the air very quickly this morning when the girls realized what was in store.  Although I am here to report we did not win, (and we even cheated a little) we had a great time!  Shout out to the winning team who won, Christina Herring, Neva Hauser, and Megan Spence.  Watch out you three … it’s ON next time, believe that!  It wasn’t all fun and games though …. as we were able to put in a new out-of-bounds play and review some of the Whittier Poets offensive sets for tonight’s game.  And just as quickly as we got there, we were back out the door and on our way back to the hotel for some downtime.

It was very unusual for the ladies to have so much downtime, but with finals next week, it was more than necessary to keep everyone focused and on task.  Even Coach Whitesel and I were able to fit in a few hours of  ‘Real Job Work’  while  Coach Fulks put in a nice power nap … wait, maybe I need that job?  Shortly after free-time and a pre-game meal from Red Robin, we piled back into our vans for our trek over to Whittier for game time. 

The Pio’s came into this weekend with a 4-1 record and the opportunity to play some great DIII schools to measure up against.  All of our pre-season play has been against NAIA or DI schools, so we were ALL very much looking forward to seeing how we measured up.  Good news … after an extremely physical, quick paced,  and high scoring game against the Poets, the Pioneer’s wrapped up the night victoriously against the Poets (78-69), to improve our record to 5-1.  Sophomore Neva Hauser stepped up to the job today to provide some crucial physical play for the Pioneer’s, while Freshman Kristina Williams went 9/10 from the free throw line to keep us above water when the score was too close to comfort.  All of the Pioneer’s threw in some great minutes and teamwork to help carry us into the final minutes of this very close game down to the end.  GREAT JOB LADY PIONEERS! 

Following the game, our iced wrapped ladies mingled with family and friends who came to the game.  Shout out to ALL the PIO POUND 6th Man Club fans in the gym who came out to support their Pioneers tonight.  We had over 30 family members and friends of the team attending the game.  It was great to have that kind of support on the road in a close and physical game like that.  Thank you to those of you who made the trip ~ you are appreciated!  The Poets kindly provided us with dinner before our departure back to the hotel as we enjoyed the win for a few minutes longer on the ride home. 

In celebration of the recent 5-1 record, some of the girls convinced me to have milkshakes before heading up to re-ice, shower, study, and head to bed.  We have another very tough game against the Occidental Tigers tomorrow night on their home court.  We will need just as much strength and energy going into tomorrow’s game as we used tonight. 

So far so good for the Pioneer’s in California. Tomorrow we take on a new challenge, and we will do it the same way we did today …. “Get Low, Get Lucky.” Click here for more pictures!

Go Pio’s!

We’re Going-Going, Back-Back, to Cali-Cali!

Guest Writer: Coach Tal

This week in Pioneer Basketball: Road Trip! 

In the vans!!

I am back in action as guest writer this week for the blog and loving every second of it.  Southern California is our destination this week, much further south than the last time we spoke from Canada!  This is a very big weekend for the Lady Pio’s as we sprint into these games with a 4-1 record and three VERY big DIII games ahead.  The girls were very anxious to get to the Golden State not just for the sun (and smog) but this seems to be the home, or close to it, for about 90% of our Pioneers.  Families and friends were on call to attend the games this weekend and get a little taste of 2010 Pioneer Ball!

Day 1: The best part about day one?  Direct TV on our JetBlue flight according to Junior Christina Herring, whom I had a chance to sit next to en route on our quick flight from Portland to Long Beach.  Chris and I chose to watch some ‘train wreck’ TV while others slept, some studied, and Senior Paige Dinnie, shared her seat with a woman who thought someone was smoking on the plane.  Of course it wouldn’t be a Pioneer road trip without some sort of epic moment everyday!

After a small disaster with our rental vans and wonderful LA traffic we had all 12 Pioneers and 3 coaches barreling down the freeway on our way to our hotel.  My van chit-chatted about the music on the radio, and the roadside scenery, while we heard the other van carried a very different tune – discussing global warming.  Hmmm, might have been the two Science based coaches in that van! 

After we crawled through traffic, scarffed down a quick meal, it was time to head to our first practice site: Whittier College!  The girls put in two hours of hard work practicing into the late hours of the evening, 10pm!  They were troopers … it was a very long day.  We put up a lot of shots and went through some game preparations for our game against the Poets!  Thanks to a filling dinner from Olive Garden and a quick game of cards, that Freshman Kristina Williams says she will never play again because there isn’t enough socializing that goes on during the game (who knew the idea of cards wasn’t just competing?). 

It’s nice to be back in Cali again for the Pioneer’s, lots of  family, friends, and questionable officiating awaits!  Click here to see all the pictures!