Stickin' With Sam

We went to Duke last weekend for our final fall-ball tournament. We were pretty excited, except for having to get up at 5 a.m. I was really excited to see my mom, who flew down for the day to watch me play.

We played five teams. We opened with Florida and got killed by them, then lost to Louisville. We did not play well. Then we played really well against Virginia Tech and Davidson, then ended with Duke. We played well but they controlled the draw, which made it hard for us to go on the attack.

I scored six goals in the games and I was much happier with the way I played in this tournament than the previous one, plus the weather was much better. I was definitely more confident and more comfortable for this tournament. I got a lot more playing time as well, which made me feel good.

I came away feeling much better about my situation.

One of the highlights was seeing my friend Phoebe Maglathlin, who was my teammate on the Darien volleyball and lacrosse teams and is now playing volleyball at Duke. She came and watched a few of the games and it was fun to catch up with her. She is getting playing time at Duke, which I was happy to hear. It was great to see her.

Even though there are no more fall-ball games we are still going through conditioning and lifting.

We’re getting really excited for Halloween this weekend and having fun. There are a lot of parties and on Saturday night there is a house off campus where a group of graduated football players are having a haunted house.

A couple of the freshmen on the lacrosse team and I are dressing up as baseball players. We have to dress up all three nights so we need two more costumes. We are trying to come up with something funny and creative.

Because of volleyball we never really got to do anything in Darien on Halloween so I am really looking forward to this.

Right now I am starting to count down the days to Thanksgiving. Since we aren’t as busy with practice now everything is going a little slower. Seeing my mother last weekend was a little bit of a tease so I am looking forward to getting home and spending more time with my family and friends.

I will talk to you all next week!