Only three more days of workouts!  I feel like I barely remember June and now July is almost over.  But this summer has been great!
 
We have today off from workouts, but our team is going to a community service project at Coyote Hill.  I've heard that we will be painting a basketball court.  Should be fun!
 
This week is already crazy.  Since its our last week of classes, everyone has finals or a final project due this week.  Also, most of us are moving into new apartments for the school year, so we are all trying to pack and clean our old places.  I am not a big fan of packing, moving or cleaning, so this week is going to be a little rough.  Most of us are moving into apartments with one another.  Paige and I are moving in with Christine, Liz is moving in with Sydney and Kendra is moving in with Maggie.
 
After this week, we get three weeks off to go home.  Then the school year starts up and we start pre-season workouts. 
 
I think quite a few of us are taking vacations when we get home.  Maggie and I are both making trips to Hilton Head, S.C. with our families, Paige is going to West Virginia, Christine is going on a cruise, Sydney is making a trip to Chicago and those are only the ones I know of.  It might be a competition when we all come back in August to see who got the best tan.
 
Peace, Love and Basketball.
 
Tori Niemann

This past weekend, most of the members of our team went on a float trip on the Meramec River.  It was a ton of fun!  We had one big raft and a bunch of tubes and we floated for almost six hours and we ended up floating seven miles.  I think we only lost a couple pairs of sandals, two pairs of sunglasses and not all of us got cuts or bruises from the rocks.  So the weekend was a definite success.
 
Monday our team had our best workout of the summer.  It started with conditioning at the indoor football field.  It was blazing hot, but we stuck together and ran hard.  We did ten sideline to sideline sprints.  Then we had a great weightlifting workout.  We finished up the day with five on five and we played eight intense games.  All of us played all out and pushed each other.  Afterwards in the locker room, we all decided that was the best we have played all summer.  It is always easier to make it through the tough workouts when you have your 11 sisters next to you.
 
The final two players left for me to introduce are seniors Kendra Frazier and Bailey Gee, both of Kansas.
 
Kendra's favorite thing to do at home is to see her family and her favorite thing to do in Columbia is to eat out.  She loves Chipotle.  Two things you may not know about Kendy is that she was in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC and she was the valedictorian of her class.  Kendra said the main thing she has learned during her time at MU is how to do her own laundry.  The biggest difference for her from being a freshman to now being a senior is that she knows her way around campus and Columbia.
 
Bailey's favorite thing to do at home is to hang out with her family and friends.  In Columbia, she likes to go to the different MU sporting events.  Her favorite restaurant in Columbia is Macaroni Grill.  Two things you may not know about Bay is that she used to be a cheerleader and she can play the guitar.  Sometimes she will play for us and she's really good at singing too!  The one thing Bailey has learned over the years is to not take things for granted.  Now being a senior, Bailey has noticed her leadership role on the team has changed and after 3 and a half years, she finally knows her way around the engineering building!
 
Only two more weeks of summer workouts and classes!
 
Peace, Love and Basketball.
 
Tori Niemann

    I can't believe summer is almost over already! We have about 2 weeks left of workouts, and 3 weeks until we start practice.  It is flying by so fast!  But it isn't stopping us from working hard.

   

We are still lifting every day and conditioning Tuesday's and Thursday's, Thursday's in the sand.  Which can be fun but also very challenging.  

   

Anyways, we are so excited to have our new freshies here with us! We now have a complete team, and I couldn't be more excited to see what we will be able to accomplish.  All of us are putting in so much hard work in the weight room and on the court that success will hopefully come to us this next season.  Everyone is working well together and having fun which will make for an amazing next six months and beyond.  

  

Our doubles games each day are starting to get very competitive, which is a great prelude into season.  When it comes to the Tiger Challenge, black team is still winning...YUCK. GO GOLD :) If it is a physical challenge, black team wins.  But if we have to think or sprint, it usually goes to the gold. 

  

One of the goals we talked about in our meeting last week for next year is to be an Academic All-American team and with how all of our summer classes are going, I think we may just accomplish it!  I can't wait to see what this season has in store for all of us, but until then we are going to continue to work hard and better ourselves.  I hope Molly is having fun in Peru with the National Team!

 

We are finishing up these last two weeks by going hard!

 

Paige Buchanan #12

We had our one and only stair workout of the summer on Monday. We were in the arena and we ran up a flight of stairs 16 times.  We did jumps, bounds, and sprints up the stairs. It wasn't too bad, but all of our legs were feeling kind of shaky by the end of it!
 
This past weekend, a group of us made a trip to the Lake of the Ozarks to Maggie's family's condo.  It was Sydney, Kendra, Maggie, me and a former player, Bekah Mills.  We had a great time and got some pretty nice tans!  It was a perfect, relaxing weekend. 
 
We calculated how many hours we have left of workouts for the summer on Monday and it is only 33 more hours! We had a team meeting with Coach P on Monday and it helped us to get recharged for working hard these last couple of weeks.  The main goal for us these last couple weeks is to push ourselves even when we are feeling exhausted. 
 
Now I would like to introduce two of our seniors, Bre Brock and Christine Flores.  Both are from San Antonio, Texas.
 
Bre doesn't get to travel home very often because of the distance, but her favorite thing to do when she is home is to hang out with her family.  Bre is really close to her family.  We are always hearing her talk about her nieces!  Her favorite thing to do in Columbia is go to the movies and her favorite restaurant here is CC Broilers.  Two things you may not know about Breezer is that she can sew (I didn't even know that!) and she absolutely loves children.  One thing Bre has learned over her years at MU is that there is nothing wrong with asking for help.  Bre said the biggest difference from being a freshman to now being a senior is the accountability.  As a freshman, it was all about being new to the "college life" but now as a senior its all about being accountable, dependable and being able to help the younger girls on the team.
 
Christine's favorite thing to do at home is to hang with her family and friends.  Christine has younger twin siblings that she loves spending time with.  Her favorite thing to do in Columbia is going outside with her two dogs, Riley and NuNu and going to Devil's Icebox.  Her favorite restaurant in Columbia is Gumby's.  Two things you may not know about Cflo are that she can do the splits and that she used to play the flute.  One thing Christine has learned over the years is how to manage her time better.  The biggest change for her is the amount of discipline she now has and she has noticed that her work effort changed.
 
Peace, Love and Basketball.
 
Tori Niemann

This past week we finished up our June session of summer workouts.  Our first month really flew by!  In the weight room, I think it is safe to say that all of us got much stronger.  All of our weights were constantly increasing in the exercises.  Now in July, we will be doing more conditioning.  In June, we did more agilities.  We are also doing conditioning four times a week now instead of the two times a week that we were doing in June.  Only one more month of summer workouts!

This past weekend, all of us went out of town.  Some people went home, some went to different lakes, Sydney went to Tennessee and Paige even went to Los Angeles.  I went home on Friday, spent all of Saturday at Baring Lake in Edina, Mo. and went to Kansas City on Monday to watch fireworks before heading back to Columbia.  From the sound of it today in the locker room, everyone had a great holiday weekend. 

Now I will let you in on sophomore Maggie Flynn and junior Sydney Crafton.

Maggie's favorite thing to do when she goes home is eat at the local restaurants such as Mr. D's and Mustang Sally's.  But her favorite restaurant in Columbia is Flat Branch.  Her favorite thing to do in Columbia is to hang out with her friends and teammates.  Maggie's favorite memory from last year was our trip to the Virgin Islands and playing against Tennessee and beating Georgetown.  Two things you may not know about Mag are that her right pinky finger does not ever straighten.  The injury happened in high school, but now instead of giving high fives, she gives high four and a halfs.  Also, Maggie drives a Jeep named Beverly.  Something that Maggie has learned about Sydney is that Syd always just goes with the flow and that she is an easy going farm girl.

Sydney's favorite thing to do at home is to go to her grandparent's farm and help out.  She does a variety of chores like raking hay and mowing the yard.  Her favorite thing to do in Columbia is to hang out with the team.  Sydney's favorite restaurant in Columbia is Red Lobster.  Syd's favorite memory of last year was beating Iowa State on Senior Night by one in the final seconds of the game.  Two things you may not know about her is that she loves country music, especially George Strait, and that she drives a stick shift.  Something that Sydney has learned about Maggie is that Maggie is really outspoken, loud and always has something positive to say.

Two weeks fire free!

Peace, Love and Basketball.

Tori Niemann