Clarkson Soccer - Spring 2025 Edition

Emily's soccer season ended in early November and for the first time in more than ten years, she had no organized soccer to play. NCAA division 3 rules only allow for 25 practices in the off season, which doesn't start until the second semester. They lifted as a team three days a week and she worked out on her own 5+ days a week, but for the most part, she's played very little soccer. The first scheduled spring practice was in early March, and it was "basically a blizzard". After spring break, they started regularly practicing three nights a week and played their only spring game on April 23rd.

Potsdam got A LOT of snow this winter, but it was actually really nice the week of the first practice - until practice time, when it started snowing like crazy!

One of her teammates did an Instagram takeover, and Emily was featured a few times.

Lee and I made the trip to Potsdam for the spring game, surprising Emily. It was completely worth it - the look on her face when we walked up the bleachers was priceless.

A much depleted squad played very nice soccer and was able to secure the 2-1 win.

Last team lift of the semester!

April Lacrosse

Elizabeth played her final club lacrosse games over the first few weeks in April. Both games were tough losses. There is a lot of bad blood between the NH and CCSU lacrosse teams and she just barely squeaked through that game without getting tossed out. The game against Bryant was must calmer, her only game of the season without a yellow card. We are hopeful that club rules allow for graduate students to play, so that she gets one more season but if not, she had a wonderful time playing with these girls.

It was freezing cold and pouring rain when they played CCSU.

When this girl couldn't stop Elizabeth, she just reached out and grabbed her shoulder as she went by - resulting in a yellow card and an 8 meter shot for Elizabeth (goal).

Elizabeth absolutely harassing the goalie, who was foolish enough to leave the crease.

On our way to Bryant!

New Whip

Since she started working at Starbucks, Elizabeth has been saving almost all of her paychecks so that she can buy a car. Because of her upcoming internship in New Mexico, the timeline for purchase was accelerated by a year - which means that she has to finance some of the car, instead of paying for it all in cash. We looked online for several weeks and then, with graduation and the tariffs looming, spent an afternoon at the dealership in early April. She bought herself a preowned Mazda and now has the nicest car in the family! 

We stopped at Starbucks on our way to complete the paperwork and pick up the car and one of the baristas drew a lovely message on her cup. No one was happier for her than her co-workers, all of whom work just as hard as she does and understand how meaningful it is to buy your own car.

Chairman's Award

In mid March, Elizabeth was notified by the University of New Haven that she would be receiving an award at the Henry Lee Awards Ceremony on April 1st. Until we arrived, we did not know what award she would be receiving - when we saw the program, we were surprised and proud to see that she was selected to receive the Chairman's Award as the top National Security student. Lee and I are well aware that she has an impressive resume - works full time, volunteers 12 hours a week, attends school full time with an overloaded schedule so she could graduate in three years - but we were blown away by her professors' words about her contributions to their classes and to the university. We are so proud of Elizabeth's hard work and hope that she finds much success when she enters the real world.

Although Emily joked that this was probably an April Fool's joke, she made sure to join the livestream (while in class) to watch.

March Lacrosse

Elizabeth's club lacrosse team had two games in March - their senior night against CCSU as well as a game against Yale. The CCSU game was great until the refs let it get out of control and then took over so completely that the game became a snooze fest and lasted far too long. The game against Yale was an exciting 7-6 loss in which Elizabeth had all 6 goals for New Haven and had the ball in her stick with the ability to tie up the game with less than a minute to go. Unfortunately, she was fouled hard but the refs "didn't notice anything" and so it was not to be. It's great to see New Haven's tiny club team hold their own against these much larger D1 schools. 

Years of playing high school lacrosse on a terrible grass field made Elizabeth uniquely situated to play on Yale's club fields. While everyone else (on both teams) was falling all over the place, she was completely at home.