May 23, 2011

Hey Everyone!

The day started off slow, with an hour delay right off the bat out of the Sioux Falls airport. Once in the air, the flight went rather smoothly until we approached Dallas, where we were informed that we would not be able to land due to an active storm over the area. We then had to land in Abilene, Texas, because we did not have enough fuel to stay airborne and wait out the storm. We were stuck waiting for clearance in Abilene for two hours. I was originally scheduled to land in Dallas at 10:50 a.m.... I finally landed at 3 p.m., and finally reached the University of Texas at Dallas campus at 3:45 p.m.
 
I was not the only A2 participant to deal with the uncooperative weather, many of the girls were delayed, while a few won't make it until the morning of May 24. The weather compromised original schedule, so our 4:30 p.m. group meeting got pushed back to 6 p.m., when we were originally supposed to start practice. For our first session of practice, we started with only 21 of our 36 girls. Girls filtered in slowly as they arrived, but we were still down five girls at the end of practice.
 
The first session was just a nice transition to get us moving after traveling all day. We did a few ball handling drills and just worked out the kinks. It was a rather high stress day with all the delays and all, but I'm looking forward to what our second session brings tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.

We're scheduled for two practices per day in preparation for the U.S. Open Championships at the end of the week beginning May 28.
 
I'll keep ya'll posted on what's going on down here in Texas. Take care and God bless.
 
Kelli Fiegen