Women's Lacrosse stepping into the fall

It’s Tuesday, August 30^th and upperclassmen have not been allowed back to the Roger Williams’ campus until tomorrow because of Hurricane Irene. The storm seems to be coming to an end, but losing power at home is not my biggest concern; I am more worried about the condition of our new turf field! I have spoken with underclassmen that are already on campus and they can’t wait to “break in” the new turf.

The first day of classes is now Thursday, September 1^st, but I find myself looking forward to our first lacrosse meeting instead. We have a promising new coach, Kerry Hausdorf, a gorgeous new turf field and great talent coming from both our incoming freshman as well as returning players.

I was ecstatic when I found out that we were getting a turf field. After letting it sink in, I thought about how we always had that advantage of our home field being grass; most schools have turf and aren’t used to ground balls and running on the grass. Then again, we were at a disadvantage when we played at schools that had the turf field for the same reason. Now the Hawks have the best of both worlds; we have experience competing on the grass, and now we have the opportunity to get used to playing on turf on a regular basis. “You’re not going to be so excited about that turf field when you have to play outside in the winter,” some people would say to me. You know what I have to say to that? BRING IT NEW ENGLAND!

Being the only senior on the team is very exciting. Not only do I have all of these new opportunities to look forward to for my senior year, but I also get to take these underclassmen under my wing and show them our team’s confidence in them. I am speaking not only for myself, but for my team as well, when I say that we have the utmost confidence in Coach Kerry and everything she is going to do for us this year. We have seen each other’s talent and are looking forward to seeing the freshman reveal their skills. We are more a family rather than a team and we have our arms wide-open welcoming all of the new members of the Women’s Hawks Lacrosse Team 2011-2012. Get ready for a great year, ladies.

Wrestling bids farewell to Ireland

Hello all, sorry for the delay in blogging but the last two days in Ireland were quite busy. Day 6 was pretty fun. We started the day by heading to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour. It was very interesting and there were several different aspects of the tour. At one point, I was able to take the challenge of making the perfect pour of a Guinness, which I clearly passed. An interesting fact I learned from the Guinness Tour was that the distillery has a lease of 9,000 years in the city of Dublin which is honored by the government. We also ate lunch at the storehouse and I enjoyed delicious seafood chowder.

From there, we hung out until dinner for the most part due to weather considering it was a rainy day. After that we ate dinner at Madigan's as a team. I ordered a meal of sausage and chips which was not very good. From there we headed out for the night and I personally checked out the Temple Bar area which was fun.

On Day 7 we had a very loose schedule. We all ate lunch at a restaurant together where I think the overall consensus was that it was the best food we had all week. From there we were free; many of us went around and picked up souvenirs and adventured around Dublin for the last time. At night we headed out to the Temple Bar area for one last time and enjoyed live music at many bars and had our last Guinnesses.

At this point I would like to throw out a special thank you to Coach Kemmy. It was difficult enough to have to prepare an overseas trip for 25 people, and then on top of that to have to supervise this group of knuckleheads is a difficult task on its own. That being said, if there was any man suited for this type of responsibility, Coach Kemmy is the guy. It was a good experience for all of us and hopefully everyone left a little bit more cultured and educated.

I would like to thank all of the parents and my teammates for your support throughout these past four years, and wish the RWU Wrestling program the best of luck in its future. Thank you and God Bless.

Signing off for the last time,

Chris O'Shea

Wrestling vs. the Celts

Celts vs. USA Match – Thursday, June 16, 2011 @ the Hercules Wrestling & Weightlifting Club in Dublin, Ireland

RWU 35 - Ireland National Team 4

Results

Jon Lemoine pinned Brian Breslin (1:45)

Conor Hayes pinned James Brady (3:01)

Mike Forlenza won 4-2 over Clinton Scott

Chris O'Shea pinned Mark Nequal 1:01

Collin Crowell won 12-2 over Soslan Tue

Jack DiBurro pinned Mario Ilyucic (0:56)

Mike Monson pinned Ali Beck (3:33)

Nick Cambi won 9-2 over Marcel Ijaouk

To view pictures from the match, click here

Wrestling sees the sights and sounds of Dublin

Hello all! Day 5 was an interesting day. Today we took a city tour of Dublin in a double decker bus. It was pretty cool but absolutely freezing up top in the open section. I would love to run off all the sites we saw, but in a bus I was not able to take notes and keep track of everything like I have been able to in the other sites. What I did notice was that Dublin is a very cool city with lots of pubs (O'Shea's and Fitzgerald's covering both my parents' names).

For lunch we were on our own and I ate at one of the fast food joints called "Supermac's" with Shane, Mike F, and Ryan L. Very interesting place, basically a knock off of McDonald's with both pizza and ice cream as well. Later that night we went and practiced with a team in Dublin. After practice we had a match with eight matches of some of their wrestlers vs. us and we ended up winning every match. Those of us who wrestled received medals which are pretty cool. After that we went home and ate dinner at a Chinese Buffet named Jimmy Chan's. The food was similar but a little different. From there we were given about two hours to check out the city and we got a brief taste of the night life in Dublin. Hope all is well and I will get back to you soon.

Chris O'Shea

Wrestling travels onward to Belfast

Hey everyone, I'm sorry it has taken me a while to write this blog but finding computers has not been easy. Day 4 was our last day in Northern Ireland, and we traveled to Belfast to check out the city. It was in Belfast where we ate lunch and were given the option to spread out around the city. I chose to eat at a small cafe with John Paul, Kevin, Nick, Frank, Dustin, and Johan and had a delicious sandwich which consisted of chicken and stuffing.

After that, we took a tour of the Belfast City Hall which was very interesting as it had a lot of history. Our tour guide was excellent and it was a good experience. There are excellent pictures from there, including Coach Kemmy in his King's seat. After that we started to make our way back home with some side stops. We first stopped at the place where the Titanic was built in Belfast. A local resident told us this joke while there "People used to ask where the Catholics were while the Protestants were building the Titanic.” The answer is, “They were all busy building the iceberg."

After that we traveled about an hour south and visited New Grange at the Boyne Palace. It is a structure that was built 5000 years ago and has been restructured to still exist today. It was literally a little tunnel you crawl into created by rocks all over the place. We then ate at a local restaurant. Joey Holbeche and I each had a delicious burger there and the food was very good. After that we traveled to Dublin and spent our first night at Paddy's Place. It is a similar hostel that is run by the same company. Hope all is well and I hope you all got to watch my Boston Bruins win the Stanley Cup in the states for me!

Chris O'Shea