This week marked the first official week of practice for all soccer teams, coed basketball, and coed volleyball! As our teams start to become more organized, build chemistry, and learn how to work together, they grow stronger during every practice!

 

On Thursday night, our varsity coed basketball team had their first friendly game against Virtus SR Basket, ending with a score of 58 (JCU) – 54 (Virtus) in the last few seconds.  More importantly, everyone played their best and had fun as it was a great (and very close) game!!

It’s been three years that JCU has been playing friendly games with Virtus SR Basket, so we were thrilled to keep the tradition alive! What a great way to start the 2017-18 season!

We also asked the men’s 11v11 soccer, men’s 5v5 soccer, and coed volleyball captains as well as an 11v11 men’s soccer player (Marco Micarelli) on how they thought the first week of practice went, here is what they said!:

Marco Fortuna, captain of the men’s 5v5 soccer team: So far from the first few practices this week, how do you think it’s going? The team is working well together, etc.?

“It’s going well, we have more players that joined.  They’re good, so I think that there will be more competition to play, which is important!”

Riccardo Vallese, captain of the men’s 11v11 soccer team:

“Our team started in the best possible way! Determination and commitment are the main ingredients of these first practices where the coaches are making the players work mainly on the physical part, to have everyone ready to run on the pitch! A lot of running, muscular power up exercises, and circuits where players alternate sprinting to ball conduction ecc… ending up with an intense 11v11 intramural game to consolidate the team, get to know each other, and help our coach out to evaluate all the players in the best possible way.  The new players are integrating themselves in the team and they brought a lot of fresh enthusiasm and energies.  The premises for the incoming season are within the best!”

Marco Micarelli, returning player for the men’s 11v11 soccer team:

“From what I can see, everyone is working hard.  New players seem to be getting along with the old ones. We are still at the beginning but we seem to have a lot of potential. By showing up to practice every time and by communicating to one another constantly, I believe we will be able to succeed.”

Veronica Rusich, captain of the coed volleyball team:

“The first practices went very well. I think that we have a nice team with a good potential to learn and grow. The new students are putting a lot of effort in the practices and are learning quickly! It has been good this semester as we are working in a motivated/competitive set of people and this makes me happy as the captain to work and play with them”

 

#GoGladiators #JCUPride #JCURome