UCLA women's soccer team manager Sophie Zollman will document life on the road with the 2016 Bruins with regular blog posts throughout the season.
Hi, it's Sophie here to fill you in on our trip to San Diego State last weekend, the spot of our first official game of the 2016 season against the San Diego State Aztecs.
We loaded the bus and left at noon on Thursday for La Jolla. On the way, we stopped in San Juan Capistrano to eat at the family restaurant of Cesar Gonzalez, our Director of Video & Analytics. The restaurant was located in a strip mall near downtown, and the food was delicious! The cutest part was that each of our plates had tiny flags with our names welcoming us to the restaurant.
After lunch, we went to San Diego State for a light afternoon training session. The team played handball and practiced set pieces. A bunch of football players from SDSU also started doing the 8-clap for us after their practice had ended, which was pretty funny to see. Following practice, we had dinner in La Jolla before going back to our hotel and checking in for the night. It was crazy how many people came up to us when we were eating, wanting to wish us luck in the upcoming game. One of our favorite fans was a little boy who wanted to talk to us, but at the same time was too shy to, so he'd try to hide anytime one of us would look his way. He was such a cutie!
The following morning, we woke up and went outside to stretch with our athletic performance coach Joe Geletko before watching a couple of the Olympic soccer games and chilling in the hotel's concierge lounge. We then ventured to an Italian bistro in downtown La Jolla for the pregame meal and spent some time walking around the town.
One of my favorite parts of this trip was the bus ride to SDSU for the game. Darian Jenkins brought Oscar, our portable speaker, onto the bus, and Lauren Kaskie hooked up her phone and started playing the playlist she made for the team to use during warm-up. It helped get everyone super pumped up, and we all enjoyed seeing Alyssa Alarab's amazing dance moves.
The game itself against SDSDU went really well! Darian had a hat trick, and Amber Munerlyn scored an amazing goal where she flicked the ball to herself and chipped the keeper. Her goal has gotten a lot of views globally and a shout out from Fox Sports! We ended up winning the game, 5-0, and it was a great way to start the preseason.
We headed back to Westwood right after the game, stopping to get burgers on the way back, and arrived back around 1am. It was definitely an exhausting trip, but it couldn't have gone any better, and it makes us even more excited to see what happens this season.
This Thursday, we will leave for College Station, Texas to play against Texas A&M Friday night. I can't wait to update you all on our trip down South! Go Bruins!
- Sophie