Amelia Kirby's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #4

Hello Everyone! I cannot believe it has been SNOWING! I am certainly not a cold weather person. We were supposed to go to Greenville Friday and Saturday for the Greenville Tournament but unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, it was cancelled. I had a Spanish and Sociology test scheduled for Friday, but I had rearranged them due to our tennis matches. I must admit, I slacked on studying because I believed I would have more time to make them up. I found out at practice Thursday the Greenville Tournament was cancelled, but I had a Student Senate subcommittee meeting at 5:15, then we counted ballots for the Student Senate Presidential Election (congratulations to Jonathan Milton, by the way) then I had Spanish lab and finally our official Student Senate meeting. I didn’t get back to my room until 10:30. I knew I would have to take my tests the next morning, and if I didn’t, I would be penalized. I wish we could have played this weekend, but Blackburn was hosting “stay overs” and my roommate and I were selected to house a recruit for Friday night. I can only imagine how grumpy I would have been to be at a match all day, then to hang out until the wee hours of the morning and get up to play more tennis. We have a match on Tuesday at Principia and I’ll be playing #5 singles and #3 doubles with Kami Brimberry. It’s still chilly out, mostly cloudy. We have another match at Webster on Thursday and a Triangular Match on Saturday. Be not afraid of death, be afraid of the un-lived life. Amelia C. Kirby (about Amelia)

Amelia Kirby's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #3

Hello everyone!

This past Saturday we played Eureka at 9:00 am and Maryville at 3:00 pm. I was ranked #4 singles and #3 doubles. I was supposed to play singles and doubles against Eureka, but they only brought four girls. That only allowed for 2 doubles teams, and a win by forfeit. I won my singles match against Sarah Dvorsky 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Our match lasted almost 2 hours, and we went to deuce four or more times on almost every point. I was unable to play against Maryville because of a wedding, but overall Blackburn defeated Eureka 8-1 and lost to Maryville 5-4.

We play Lewis & Clark on Monday. I'm glad because an athlete on their tennis team was on our team last year. I'm looking forward to seeing Dylan and having a friendly little competition between ol’ college pals. I most likely won’t play against Lewis & Clark because I rolled my ankle during my singles match against Eureka.

As I mentioned in my first post, I interviewed to be an Orientation Leader for the upcoming summer, and I was hired! This means I’ll live on campus over the summer, go through Orientation Leader training and help incoming students get acquainted with Blackburn and college life.

Amelia C. Kirby
(about Amelia)

Amelia Kirby's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #2

Hello everyone! The tennis season is off to a wonderful start! We’ve had a few cold, rainy days, and even had to practice inside. Today was beautiful outside and I’m really excited for it to be consistently warm.

Our first games are on Saturday. We play Eureka at 9:00 am and Maryville at 3:00 pm. I’ll be playing singles and doubles against Eureka but will miss the Maryville match due to a wedding. We haven’t established our ranking yet, but I was #5 singles and #2 Doubles with Mallory Cummings last year. I hope to be ranked higher than last year, but I would settle for being the same.

Until next time...
Amelia Kirby
(about Amelia)

Amelia Kirby's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #1

I am a Sophomore and involved in many activities on the Blackburn campus. This semester I'm in Radio Club, Film Club, Spanish Club, Tennis, House Council, Student Senate, Piano and Spanish.

I'm also trying to prepare for a semester in Spain, I'm running for Assistant Manager of the library and Crew Head for Audio Visual. I'm in Sophomore Seminar for Art because I'm an Art major, and I interviewed to be an Orientation Leader for the upcoming summer. Plus, there are my other classes and on-campus job.

This is my second season in tennis, and we have many young players on our team. We're looking forward to a great season and lots of fun! That's a little about me for now...

Amelia Kirby
(about Amelia)

Natalie Wetterauer's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #5

Wow...time is just ticking by and it seems like the end is so near, but yet far away at the same time. Well last Tuesday we played Principia College and lost. Then we played Webster on Thursday and lost. Saturday we played both Westminister and Fontbonne. We won against Fontbonne and just missed the win against Westminister. All the matches we played last week were well played, and all my teammates had some great hits and continue to improve their game.

This week is slightly less busy than last week’s schedule. We played Augustana College today and lost as well. I probably played my best singles match yet this season and it was exciting to see how well I'm getting to know my game and reading opponents.

The rest of the week is looking busy with us away at Greenville tomorrow, and then in St. Louis for the SLIAC singles tournament Friday and Saturday. There is a good chance that we are the number one doubles team and our 1 thru 3 singles could place well in the tournament, so it should be an exciting weekend. I just wish that we were not all clogged down with our studies, end of the year projects, papers, and exams so that we could focus more on our game and worry less about what we have to do immediately getting off the courts. Well I want to wish everyone good luck for this weekend’s tournament, and I hope the rest of everyone’s week goes well!

-Natalie Wetterauer
(about Natalie)

Natalie Wetterauer's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #4

Well first off I hope everyone had a great Easter. My family Easter was spread over two days. Saturday evening my aunt, uncle, and two cousins came over for pizza and an Easter egg hunt. 314 eggs were hidden for 7 of us kids. Technically we are adults since we are all over 18, but we are all kids at heart. After several people being pushed to he floor, all the eggs were found and I recieved second place. It was so much fun. On Sunday we went to my grandparent's for lunch and then spent the rest of the day with the family.

As for tennis, last Tuesday we played Rend Lake and lost 5-4. Following that match we played Blackburn College and won 9-0. Yesterday, Monday, we played Domincan University and won 6-3. It has been so much fun getting more matches in this past week and seeing good results and great improvements across the team.

This week we have a challenging schedule ahead of us. Today we play Principia College, Thursday we play Webster University, and Saturday we play Fontbonne University and Westminister College. It should be an exciting week and we are hoping to pull off a couple of wins!

Natalie Wetterauer
(about Natalie)

Natalie Wetterauer's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #3

Well officially it’s our third week into the season, but I feel like we haven’t really started yet. This is probably due to us only competing in one match so far. To be fair though life for me has been hectic and to try and squeeze in matches these past couple of weeks would have been hard.

During this past week I was trying to gain back energy lost from my sister’s wedding, study for four exams, hang out with a couple of friends who tell me they never get to see me anymore, put in some hours at work, go to a friend’s bridal shower, and of course get in some more tennis! Sounds a bit hectic right? This week isn’t looking too bad, but that’s only thanks to Easter!

Today we are going to have our second and third matches of the season. We play Rend Lake at 3pm and Blackburn following at 5:30pm. It should be good to play in the beautiful weather that is forecasted for the day and hopefully pull off a few wins. In the meantime, today also marks the beginning of a very busy schedule for tennis, so hopefully professors of mine won’t be too mad at me for missing classes due to lots of away matches!

Well I have to go get some studying done for a test I take in an hour, but I will let you know next week the outcomes of our matches today.

-Natalie Wetterauer
(about Natalie)

Natalie Wetterauer's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #2

Hey everyone. Well our match against Lewis and Clark didn’t go quite as well as planned. We ended up losing 5-4. It was still a good match and has inspired us to improve upon our game for the rest of the season.

The rest of the week flew by for me between school, tennis practices and my sister’s wedding. I can’t believe how difficult it is to be taking 18 hours, play a sport, help and be part be part of the wedding and still have a life outside of everything! The wedding was fun, but also exhausting. Here it is the second day of classes and I can’t find the energy to get everything done. We don’t have any matches till next week, so our goal is to improve upon our weak points this week.

-Natalie Wetterauer
(about Natalie)

Meet the Spring Bloggers

Women’s Tennis
Natalie Wetterauer
Eureka College
Junior
Washington, Ill./Washington Community HS
Major(s): Business Administration and Psychology
Career Goal: Attend Graduate School for Masters in Higher Education and Student Affairs
Other Intercollegiate Sports: Swimming
Athletic Achievements: Two-time MVP of the Eureka Swim Team


Baseball
Bryan Stanley
Webster University
Senior
Elgin, Ill./Larkin HS
Major(s): Business Management with an emphasis in Marketing
Career Goal: Marketing or Advertising
Other Intercollegiate Sports: Previously competed in cross country and golf
Athletic Achievements: 2009 1st Team All-SLIAC, All-Conference and national Gold Glove Award at Elgin Community College, High School Male Athlete of the Year and Sportsman of the Year


Softball
Jamie Hebron
Greenville College
Senior
Farina, Ill./South Central HS
Major(s): Biology
Career Goal:
Other Intercollegiate Sports:
Athletic Achievements: Academic All-Conference


Men’s Tennis
Chris Claypool
Westminster College
Junior
Jefferson City, Mo./Jefferson City HS
Major(s): Sports Management & Business Administration w/emphasis in Management
Career Goal: Continue involvement in tennis, whether teaching or coaching
Other Intercollegiate Sports:
Athletic Achievements: All-Conference in singles as a freshman and sophomore, All-Conference in doubles as a sophomore


Men’s Golf
Seth Shultz
Blackburn College
Junior
Murphysboro, Ill./Murphysboro HS
Major(s):
Career Goal:
Other Intercollegiate Sports:
Athletic Achievements:

Natalie Wetterauer's Women's Tennis Student-Athlete Blog #1

Hello my fellow readers. Here is the first of several weekly entries in which I intend to provide you with information about what being a NCAA Division III athlete means for my teammates and I here at Eureka College. I feel like what I am going to enlighten you about is what a lot of my teammates and other people in our conference go through being a Division III athlete. I hope that you find this blog educating as well as fun.

Well our season hasn’t officially started yet, but will on Thursday March 18th. With last week being our spring break our hope was to go somewhere and play tennis, but our plans fell through toward the end of last semester. We have decided that even with this set back we are still going to prevail and have fun this season. Several of my teammates went on alternative breaks to Costa Rica, some worked, and some got to just relax. Those four of us that stayed in the area got together several days to play some tennis and get our games ready for our match this week. Getting back from break though we are realizing that this season is going to be different without some of our graduates from last season. These changes may affect our overall team score this year, but we are pulling together the 4 new members we have to have a great fun season!

We are going to continue to work hard on and off the courts this week to pull through and hopefully get our first win of the season on Thursday. Stay tuned in for the update next week to see how our match against Lewis and Clark goes.

Natalie