Maryland goalie Brian Phipps gives lacrosse fans an inside look at the Terp's season. Find out what goes on in the preseason and what it's like to be a top college lacrosse player.

Preseason Scrimmages

02/12/2008 By Brian

        Sorry about not posting anything lately, I have been real busy with practices and school work, and actually do not currently have the internet at my apartment.  For some reason it is not working so I haven’t been able to get on here lately. My fault.

       Anyways, lately we have had 2 weekends of scrimmages and practices everyday.  We started off scrimmaging Loyola and Delaware on February 2 at Maryland.  Scrimmages went well and luckily the weather was nice so it made it more enjoyable.  We played Loyola first, which was a rematch from our fall scrimmage.  It was a low scoring game but we found a lot of positives out there that we built off of for the upcoming games.  We then played Delaware and that was more of a high pace, scoring game for us.  In all the day was successful for us and we got a lot accomplished.

The following weekend (this past weekend) we headed up to Princeton to play them, another rematch of the fall.  We came out on fire and built up a good lead.  The weather wasn’t the greatest but it was still fun to play against a highly competitive team and to see where we would match up.  Things went well and that leads us into this week.  This week we are focusing on certain things that we noticed didn’t go well in the scrimmage that we want to fix for the season.  We rap up our preseason with scrimmages on Saturday here at Maryland, against Harvard and someone else.  This is our last chance to work the kinks out and get everything on track for our opening game against Georgetown.

       Our scrimmages are winding down and we are all looking forward to the season to start.  We are really excited about our team this year and how we all came together.  Should be interesting to see what happens when the season officially starts up and we will go from there: starting at Georgetown.

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Practice, Practice, Practice

01/24/2008 By Brian

And the season begins.... We started actual practice this week and it feels good to get it going.  But it feels pretty cold out too.  We are starting up our stick drills and getting comfortable in full pads again.  The freshman are getting accustomed to the usual routine and fitting in with the team.  This has been a full week of practice with no classes for me.  My winter class ended last Friday and now I am just waiting for the spring semester to start.  This week has all been about lacrosse and getting focused on the season again.  This week of no school has helped with the free time to relax and rest from practice.  Nothing beats hanging out on the couch relaxing watching good television or a good movie.  Not to mention having bags of ice all over my legs from bruises already.  That is probably the best part about spring: bruises all over, not.  The long practices gives the shooters more time to hit me and man it hurts.  I am not going to lie, getting hit with the ball is not fun, especially in practice in the cold weather.  The bruises, welts, and swelling never ends but it comes with the job.  I would never trade my position on the field for any one them.  I love being between the pipes and facing shots day after day.  Why? I do not know.  And yes, it hurts, but oh well.  Although practices are tiring and drain me, I continue to look forward to the next one to get back on the field, between the pipes to face the next shot that comes at me.

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Last Weekend of Winter Session

01/15/2008 By Brian

The last week of winter session is windy down.  We are getting in shape and looking forward to the season which is right around the corner.  As we are all preparing for finals of our January term class, we are pushing ourselves even harder on the field.  We haven’t gotten used to waking up at 6am but we know it’s well worth it.  The veterans on the team call this week Christmas with lacrosse.  Every morning we come in for running and there is a new type of gear in our lockers.  Whether it is new G22 gloves, stx armpads, shoulder pads, heads, stringing sticks, or under armor gear, we are excited to get it.  Everyone is stringing up their sticks, dying their sticks, adjusting their helmets, or lacing up their cleats.  The excitement is building and we are ready for the 2008 season to come.  Once this week is over, all the new gear that we get is going to be put to use on the fields and we will be going at it full throttle.  We have a bad taste in our mouths’ from last year and ready to take on whoever comes in front of us.  This past month of waking up before the sun is even up is for the next couple months to come.  We have put in the hard work with the conditioning part, now here comes the fun part of laxin’ it up on the field.

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Previous Posts

02/12/2008
Preseason Scrimmages
01/24/2008
Practice, Practice, Practice
01/15/2008
Last Weekend of Winter Session
01/07/2008
First Weekend of Freedom
01/03/2008
First Days of Preseason Practice
12/28/2007
Inside Look to Terps Lacrosse

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