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University of Houston Athletics
Coach's Diary With Kyla Holas
3/19/2002 12:00:00 AM | Softball
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| Kyla Head Coach Biography |
| Diary Entries * March 11 |
Monday, March 11, 2002
What a week! We have just spent the past ten days in Florida. Nothing like hotel rooms, restaurant food, and nineteen girls sick or injured to make you feel good about being home. Our trip stress began with the airport security screens and ID checks. Howard, my assistant, had to be searched head to toe because he forgot and tried to bring our glove kit on the plane. Once we arrived, the rental car nightmare began. Two hours and three 15 passenger vans later we go to bed and prepare for South Florida.
We talk all the time about how the season is divided into three parts: tournament time, conference and post season. This is now Part Two for us. We finished the weekend winning two of the three, leaving the ballpark satisfied even with half of the dirt still with us due to the weather conditions of 20mph winds. We took Monday as our mandatory day off and did some site seeing and got some much needed rest. Tuesday and Wednesday we spent practicing and lifting and finished up our touring. Over the three days we managed to see a theme park, a spring training game, attend the Strawberry Festival and hit the beach.
Now with the tournament beginning we headed into game mode and opened up Thursday with Florida International and BYU. Looking sluggish in the first inning, we finished the day 1-1. Friday had us playing Michigan State and Georgia State. Thanks in part to timely hitting, we now stood at 3-1. Maryland was the game that determined the pool. Win and we get first. Loose and we might not make bracket play. With a solid performance on the mound and some key hitting we won the pool and the game 3-0. Our first bracket face-off was Illinois Chicago. We had played them in our first year and now here we were again facing a very hot team. Three homeruns and seven innings later we won and were on to the semi-finals.
Our next game was to be against BYU. Due to BYU's policy of not playing on Sunday, the game was not played and we advanced automatically to the championship game. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4:45p.m. and as a team we decided to stay, change our flight and play for it all. We tried to notify UH professors of the change and make other arrangements, then we made the call to return. If we could not do it together then we would not do it at all. What mixed emotions. Glad to be returning home, left with the "what if" of not playing.
Our return flight was adventurous. It was late, they had to remove some intoxicated passengers and one of our players got sick. Finally, here I am ten days later, with a 7-2 record and my own bed. Today is filled with laundry, paperwork, emails, phone calls and game preparation for Southern Mississippi. The great thing about this sport is there is always another day and another game.
