A10 starts

After a much needed sabbatical from the blog in an effort to recharge my creative writing skills or find some writing skills I'm back today as we start our Atlantic 10 Conference season.  With 8 games to go in the season we really have been given another opportunity to get our season back on track and earn a place in the A10 conference tournament.   After being picked to finish 9 from 12 teams in the preseason polls if the season ended today based on overall records we would finish 10th.  Dayton would finish 1st and St. Louis our current A10 champions would be 3rd so a very difficult start playing both teams away from home in the first weekend of play.  Fortunately that is not the case and we start with a clean slate and begin our challenge for an A10 championship tonight.

As we left DC yesterday the area was getting hit by heavy rains and storms so it was a pleasant surprise when we got off the plane in Dayton to find it bright and Sunny.  We start tonight against Dayton the only unbeaten, untied team in the country with a perfect 10-0-0 record and currently ranked #19 in the country.  We got a chance to practice on grass yesterday for an hour so the players can get somewhat used to the difference between our field turf (artificial) and natural surfaces.  The players have had a great week of practice so far so yesterdays session was a final tune up and a chance to get the travel and flight tiredness out of our bodies.  I took it upon myself to get my cleats on and after hitting the crossbar from every angle and then the half way line at the first attempt I decided to call it a day and offered my cleats to anyone who wanted to use them as they were obviously on fire. 

A team dinner last night and a walk and stretch this morning broke up the day well from sitting in the hotel all day waiting for the 7pm kick off.  Just about to head for our pregame meal so the rest of my blog will probably be done post game. Looking forward to getting on the field with the lads and getting off to a good start.

Games over 0-0 tie great fight and spirit and Could have won it at the end but I'll take a point on the road, post game thoughts tomorrow