University of Minnesota Athletics
Sara Groenewegen Blog Update
4/13/2017 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Sara Groenewegen took time to give us an inside perspective on the season so far and what it meant to the players to return home. She will be providing blog updates for the remainder of the season.
Hey Gopher Fans!
Wow, this season has been fun! Thanks for following along so far on this incredible experience. We are now 35-3 and 8-1 in Big Ten conference play. We are coming off of our first home series versus a Big Ten foe (Indiana) and it was so awesome to see all of our supporters. I thoroughly believe that we have one of the best home crowds in the country! Keep coming out to Jane Sage Cowles stadium because we love to see you guys there!!
This week we finally got to play at home after 33 games on the road. Those 33 games consisted of eight weeks of travel in 10 different stadiums and an estimated 17,619 miles. Wow.
Playing at home is so much different than on the road. However, we like to believe that we thrive when we are on the road. We see it as an opportunity to play ball outside; something that we can't necessarily do at home in Minneapolis in the brunt of winter and that a lot of teams in the NCAA don't see as normal. But we are up for the challenge year after year. That being said, being at home is nice. The best part about being at home is being able to sleep in your own bed.
If you tuned into our Saturday doubleheader versus Indiana, you would have noticed that we played in pink. It was our breast cancer awareness day/game. Indiana had reached out to us before the weekend and expressed their interest in playing a pink game in support of a coach in Indiana who is battling cancer while still courageously coaching her team. Obviously we showed support in that request. It is such a special thing to be able to bring two competitors together in support of something bigger than the game of softball. Cancer affects everyone in some sort of way, and it was great to be able to use our platform to create awareness on the matter.
This week we had a sweep of the Big Ten awards. Allie Arneson won Player of the Week, Amber Fiser won Pitcher of the Week and Kendyl Lindaman won Freshman of the Week. It was so awesome to see our team receive credit for all of the hard work that has been put in throughout the course of the year. This team is something special.
Congrats @AllieArneson & @amber_fiser on their first @B1Gsoftball weekly awards! @Kendyl_23 wins 4th straight!
âž¡️ https://t.co/2DZ3XaMVZ0 pic.twitter.com/LY9KGPB680- Minnesota Softball (@GopherSoftball) April 10, 2017
This upcoming week we are again playing at home in the beautiful Twin Cities area. We had such a great turnout last weekend and we are excited to see some familiar faces again this weekend. This is going to be an exciting series versus the Northwestern Wildcats. We hope you can make it out. Thanks for following along and Go Gophs!!
