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Sitch's Blog
FC Indiana midfielder Julianne Sitch
 MARCH 31, 2008
Florida has been a blast! We’re staying at the IMG Soccer Academy in Bradenton. It’s an amazing complex with a lot of nice facilities for athletes. We’ve kept our original training schedule with training twice a day and played two games against IMG Academy and University of South Florida. Both were wins and very well played by our team. Our last game is tomorrow against Tampa Bay Hellenic. It will be a little bit more competition and good for us to play against another team that’s in the W-League to see how we can compete against a stronger team. Other than playing soccer, we’ve all been enjoying the sun and hanging out together! It has definitely been a fun time and a great week of team bonding! We did have the joy of meeting a top female athlete! Maria Sharapova had a hitting session today at IMG Academy and the team was able to watch her train for a bit and get a picture with her. It was pretty neat to watch her practice.
We’ll be in touch back in Indiana!!
MARCH 21, 2008
Pre-season has been underway now for about three weeks, and our preseason games start March 20 against Purdue. Things have been going well as we’ve all been getting along and battling hard out on the field. I unfortunately have been watching from the sidelines as I’m out with a hamstring injury for six weeks. It is definitely a bummer and nothing any athlete wants to be dealing with, but that’s life and part of the game. It will all be better in a matter of time! The team has been doing a great job and improving every day in training. I think we’re all still learning how each of us plays and figuring out each other’s styles, and once all that clicks it will be great soccer! After the Easter holiday we’ll all be heading off to warmer weather, Florida. We’ll play three games and continue our routine of training twice a day. I think Florida is going to be a good environment for us to be in for a week: warm weather, great competition, and fun times with the team. I’ll have to talk my roommate, Jenny Jeffers, into bringing Guitar Hero with, so we can continue on with our career. Guitar Hero seems to be the entertainment of the week/season as many of us sit in front of the TV cheering each other not to get “booed” off the stage. Lucky is holding sessions for finger exercises if anyone needs help on using your ring and pinky finger! Sorry Kane, but you’ll need more than Lucky’s finger exercises if you want to start competing with us!! Wish us luck in Florida and we’ll be sure to keep you updated!
Dream Big!
Sitch 38
MARCH 5, 2008
Greetings F.C Indiana fans! I hope you are all geared up for the 2008 season and ready to support us as we begin our new journey in the W-League. This will be a great opportunity for this team to step up and make a name for itself in a different league other than the WPSL league. A whole new set of challenges await us for this 2008 season, but I’m ready to take on anything and have a very positive outlook on how this season will turn out and I hope you do too!
I briefly had the chance to train with F.C Indiana at the end of the last season and contributed to the successful win against New Zealand’s National Team. It was a great opportunity for me and I was honored to get the chance to be part of such a successful team and a great win. Only being there for a few weeks, I was still able to get to know the girls and coaching staff and I really got a feel for what they are all about. Last year’s team was made up of a strong core of girls and coaches that worked hard, were dedicated and also liked to have fun. We have a handful of those girls returning along with the same coaching staff and a handful of new girls to continue to build on last year’s success. I hope we all can bring those hard working, dedicated and fun attitudes to this year’s training and competition in order to make for another successful year. I expect this squad to have a very strong team bond that allows us to battle in a competitive environment every day and still walk off respecting each other the way we did walking onto the field. I want this team to go far this year and I believe we can do that! The only thing that will stand in our way would be ourselves. I don’t think any of us will let that happen. This group of girls has the talent to take us to a national championship. As a team we need to set a stepping stone of goals throughout the season to get us to where we want to go! I have no doubt in my mind that we will hold each other accountable for those goals and help our teammates day in and day out to keep our eye on the prize.
Another Championship!
See you this Spring!
Lucky's Blog
FC Indiana goalkeeper Kristin Luckenbill
 FEBRUARY 7, 2008
Greetings from Redondo Beach, CA. I have just finished up a week of training camp with the National Team. The team was split into two groups for a "mega-camp", which included players from last year’s World Cup team, and another large group of players new to the coaching staff. Pia Sundhage and the team’s new staff of coaches really emphasized playing in games and being creative all week in order to give everyone here a good chance to show themselves. For the most part, we alternated days of training with game days all week. It was hard work, but fun at the same time.
While the camp was mostly all-business, there were a few lighter moments as well. The most-unique of all was when Pia started one of our team meetings by playing her guitar and singing "Johnny B. Good" and "Feelin’ Groovy" for the whole team, before passing the real meeting resposibilities onto her assistants. We also managed to break up the monotonous hotel meals with a team trip to the Cheesecake Factory -- a very good way to keep 37 exhausted women happy! And I cannot forget to mention the nice surprise many of us got a few days ago when one David Beckham came into the training room and, to the delight of all of us, took his shirt off. I don’t feel right passing on the details, but it was nice...
The coaches made their first cuts this afternoon. It was tough to wait for them to make their decisions since everyone here has done so well this week. Luckily for me, I am moving on to the next 10 days of camp. Pia assured those going home that they are all great players and can be back in with the team any time in the future. Those of us remaining in camp will get a well-earned day off tomorrow, followed by another week and a half of training and games. I am looking forward to the joining of the two groups as we prepare for the Algarve Cup in March.
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