Army West Point Athletics
Black Knight Blog - Tuesday, Oct. 19
October 19, 2010 | General
Good morning all of you out there in web land! Tracy Nelson here with you today. It's approximately 9:07 a.m. as I'm writing this from the comfort of my desk with a delicious iced mocha latte at my side. I have to admit that I'm running a bit on empty today, but it was well worth it.
I headed into NYC last night with Erin Mills, an assistant women's basketball coach here at Army, to see Sugarland at the Best Buy Theater. It was the BEST show I've ever been to. If you guys haven't had a chance to check out Sugarland, they just put out a new album today and yours truly can't wait to get my hands on it. Last night's show just made me that much more excited! Of course, it was helped along by the most amazing crowd, a drop-by from Bon Jovi himself, along with Brooks & Dunn and Little Big Town. Cap off the night with me catching a guitar pick from Jennifer Nettles and I was one happy camper.
That being said, the work doesn't disappear. It just paused for the night. Today I'll be working vigorously on the women's basketball guide, which I've been putting off for a couple of weeks now. Head coach Dave Magarity and his crew are about two weeks into official practices and the team is coming together. Army did not have a single senior on last year's roster and returned everyone. Throw in seven rookies and that brings the grand total to 23 players. Magarity and his staff decided to form a JV team out of the deal, which will be coached by none other than Erin Mills herself. Magarity has mentioned to me more than once that this will allow some of the younger players to gain some real game experience and he'll also have the flexibility of moving players up to varsity. That can be a real push for some younger players in a practice setting, which will do nothing but benefit the team as a whole.
Before basketball season gets into full-swing, I've been keeping busy with volleyball a-plenty. The Black Knights just finished up a great weekend at Gillis Field House during which they swept both Bucknell and Colgate. The team is really starting to come together and work towards peaking at the right time. I haven't seen them look that good since the start of the season. Under pressure and with two big-time matches, sophomores Ariana Mankus and Francine Vasquez pulled through with a couple of stellar performances to lead the team to victory. Army took over sole possession of second place in the Patriot League standings and sit at 6-1 after the first half of Patriot League action.
Since I was at home covering volleyball on Saturday, I was unable to make the trip down to the New Meadowlands with the rest of our crew. What tough OT loss for the Black Knights. However, life was put into perspective in a hurry once news of Rutgers DT Eric LeGrand's injury. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
That's going to do it for today. These women's basketball bios aren't going to write themselves!
