Palmer gives insight leading up to Albany

Last week, I talked about our tough loss to a surging University of North Carolina team. This week, we had another surging team to play, but this time they were coming to Homewood Field. We got home late Saturday night from North Carolina, had Sunday off to rest and relax our bodies, but then it was right back to work Monday for the “Friday Night Lights” game.

We knew it would be another difficult game for us, as this Albany team had an attack of the Thompson brothers and their cousin, all of whom had been tearing it up all year so far. One of them was leading the NCAA in points and points per game. Because the game was a Friday night game, we had one less day to prepare.

Monday we put in the game plan, as well as doing what we needed to do with some six on six and transition drills. After this Monday, I was headed to the library. Of course with my luck, I had my second midterm for a Neuroscience course on Friday, right before the game. Neuroscience isn’t really my strong suit, so I had some extra work on top of watching film and preparing Albany for the week. It’s nothing I haven’t gone through in my three previous years at the school, but to say I was nervous was an understatement.

Tuesday was more game planning, in particular getting ready for what their defense was going to throw at us. We knew they played similar to North Carolina defensively, so we were prepared already for what was coming. We started to get into some extra man plays and offensive plays for the week.

Wednesday was fairly uneventful. We spent some time watching the Albany defense and goalies and some time looking at brains and nervous systems. Thursday was a little more than our typical pregame, and we were lucky enough to have Sammi’s Italian food delivered to us on the Cordish Lacrosse Center. It’s always a nice change having the food delivered to us instead of heading downtown in the traffic, and it was delicious as always. Tortellini always a personal favorite.

After this, it was right back to the library for the night, where I was lucky enough to have someone teach me a little bit about this whole Neuroscience subject. For most of the night, it was an hour of studying followed by about 15 minutes of looking at Albany. By the end of the night I felt fairly confident about the exam, as confident as I was going to feel, and it was time for a little nap before the seven a.m. wake up for a little more studying.

The morning came earlier than expected as it usually does, and I was frantically trying to memorize what I needed to know for the exam at 11. Luckily the game was at seven instead of five, so I was able to take a little nap after the exam was over. I woke up around three that afternoon, went and grabbed an Eddie’s sandwich (smokin’ jay) and was on my way up to the field shortly after. Seven o’clock rolled around and we were on the field warming up on a beautiful Friday night.

The game didn’t go as planned and we ended up losing by one goal. Rivalry week against Maryland next, doesn’t get much better than that. Beat the Terps!