February 24, 2016
Hey Badger Fans!!
Well its finally here, it is Big Ten Championships time! The final travel roster that includes 17 women and 21 men was announced on Monday, following our last home indoor meet that took place on Friday. We had some wonderful performances at this meet and were able to get a couple more people on the bus to Big Tens so that is very exciting for the team.
Being a thrower I talk often about throwing and as it happens, one of my favorite moments from the home meet came in the throws. Redshirt freshman Banke Oginni was going into her third throw with two fouls before it. In order to make finals and get three more attempts, she would have to mark a fair throw on this final one. I have been in this position before and it is one of the most terrifying spots to be in as a thrower, especially in a big competition. Not only do you have to get a fair throw, but you also have to make sure it is a far enough distance that will move you up in the competition to make finals. I was nervous for her but I had confidence in her and she pulled it off just like I knew she could. She even managed a new personal best in the competition!
As I mentioned above, we will be traveling to Geneva, Ohio to compete at the Big Ten Indoor Championships at the Spire Institute. This meet has been hosted at this neutral site in Ohio for the last three years and it is a really nice facility and overall set up. It features a 300 meter track and awesome seating for spectators. From the first year it has been there we have chartered and shared a plane with the University of Iowa team. They get on first and fly to Madison to pick us up and then we go to Ohio together. Flying on a chartered plane is really nice because we are all together and can leave and arrive as needed. It also means we get to fly home Saturday night right after the competition and not have to wait till the next morning for a commercial flight. Plus, they usually have some yummy snacks for us! For throwers, flying can prove interesting because we are generally pretty big individuals, and it can get very entertaining when three of us have to sit next to each other in a row. Lets just say that when that happens, we are out of our seats a lot. Depending on the length of the flight, I like to either sleep through it to get it over faster or I will sometimes watch a movie or read. One of my favorite parts about flying commercial is when we are walking through an airport as a group and we get some Wisconsin shout outs or people come up to us saying that have a connection to Wisconsin. It is such a good feeling seeing Badger fans everywhere! Sometimes people just want to know what kind of a group we are. We have gotten asked if we are the band, or cheerleading before, so it is funny to see what group people interpret us to be.
I am really excited to see what both our men and women’s teams can do this weekend. We have all been training hard and this is the time of year when a lot of performance breakthroughs happen. We also have several people pushing to get qualifying marks or times for the national meet so hopefully we can get a few more onto the plane to Alabama in a couple of weeks.
Have a fantastic week Badger Fans!
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