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In a year that had so many crazy and unexpected turns, when it started raining I couldn’t help but let out a little laugh and think, “Oh, of course, here’s one more thing.” But I also thought if we could do everything else we did, what’s a little rain? I feel like that really set the tone for the game. Menti: Leading up to like the bus ride to the locker room, I was just doing everything I could to control my nerves and just trying to think about, “Soccer is what I love to do,” and just trying to make this game as simple as I could.
![who wrote we are the champions who wrote we are the champions](https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/queen-news-of-the-world-sci-fi-5ea97037-ea17-405d-9f2c-c2b64000f3d2.jpg)
And so I think our kids have always had a little chip on their shoulder when it comes to playing these “big schools,” and they looked forward to it. Smith: Our kids were challenged by being the underdog and challenged by coming from a (smaller) conference and challenged by being a smaller liberal arts school compared to some of the schools we’re playing. We had so much support this whole time that we knew that we’d be coming home champions in everyone’s eyes, even if we didn’t win, which was awesome. Izzy D’Aquila ’23, midfielder: One of the best things for us was we got a ton of good-luck videos from friends around campus and a couple of athletic teams, which was really great to see and got some teary eyes from everyone. I was almost always up there doing rehab and someone would be there studying or playing a game, so I’d always have someone to cheer me on or talk to.
![who wrote we are the champions who wrote we are the champions](https://preview.ibb.co/kMCu5H/IMG_20180315_143653.jpg)
And that was really fun, especially for me. It was our snack room, it was our study hall, it was our Mario Kart arcade, it was our dining hall, so all of those things were going on at once. We had this team room on the 20th floor and we got creative. We found a way to stay connected, even when we were apart.ĭoyle: To be honest, we were dreading three weeks in a hotel room, but I think that, our team in particular, was probably more used to that environment than any other team in the country, because we are used to being in such a strict bubble. My team did The Bachelor, so people were in dresses, and there was host Chris Harrison, and there’s a couple of roses. Another week we had to get on a Zoom call and take the funniest screenshot. So one week we had to re-create dishes from a Disney movie, so one group did Princess and the Frog and another group did Lady and the Tramp. Sofia Jones ’21, defender: Marlee was in charge of small groups we called families, and each week she would give us a different challenge. Men’s soccer is just so high speed and they’re aggressive, I had to be able to jump in with them. Turnbow: I felt like I grew a lot during that time. Nicolos: It was really difficult to be dealing with what we already dealt with in summer, and then on top of that going home and then having that sadness of seeing so many other soccer programs in the East playing. So on top of COVID, we also now have the smoky air to deal with. For about 60 or 70 days in a row, we woke up and had to check the AQI (Air Quality Index) on our phone, hoping to have practice but checking the AQI every hour and working with sports medicine: Are we on or not? Can we practice for two hours or one hour? Can we play with 100 percent intensity or 50 percent intensity? Sometimes we would start planning a two-hour practice and 45 minutes into it, sports medicine would come over and say ‘you guys got to shut it down.’ It was a nightmare. So we are working our tails off in late July, beginning of August, and then pretty much the whole state of California was just on fire. Smith: We may be one of the only universities in the country who didn’t play in spring 2020 (because) Santa Clara County was the first county in America to shelter in place.