Sunday, April 20, 2008
Another season comes to an end at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex. This time the women's lacrosse team said "farewell" to 10 seniors that have tremendous scoring potential. The matchup today was against Virginia Tech, a team that has struggled this year offensively.
I arrived 20 minutes early but even that was not early enough for the senior ceremonies. I rushed through assembling my gear when I realized that my CF wallet was back in my car in my laptop backpack! I raced out to get it and then raced back into the stadium. Fortunately I didn't miss any seniors.
Greg Fiume was there on the field and taking photos. Jackie from the Diamondback was also present. Some DoD guys were back in town on their weeklong sports assignment. It was good to see several people covering the senior day.
I did pretty well with my photos for today. I didn't get much of a chance to chat with Greg though. He had another assignment and had to leave after the first half and we spent most of our time on opposite sides of the field. I thought that the senior celebrations would be pretty emotional for the team and anticipated Virginia Tech taking advantage of the situation. As a result I stayed in the Terrapin defensive zone for 1/2 of the first half to shoot the defense.
My strategy paid off. The Terps were pretty sloppy in the early going and I got some good defense shots. But once they settled down and got into their rhythm it was Terps all the way. When I saw the transition unfold on the field I slid down the field into their attack zone. That's where Greg was set up.
I shot the remainder of the first half in the attack zone and then flip-flopped in the second. I did some shots from midfield and some shots from the corner in the attack zone. I also did some defensive shooting. Please go read my article and take a look at my photo gallery of Maryland vs Virginia Tech in the regular season final game for the Terps over at the DC Sports Box.
After the game the Maryland staff cordoned off the fans and sent them on their way. A memorial ceremony was held for Lauren Cohen, who's father passed away in March in NYC when a crane collapsed. The team planted a team, some parents said some words, the seniors said some words, people smiled and cried... The team videographer was present but no photographers were allowed in. I was honored to be there and thankful that Coach Reese invited me to stay. I tried to balance the distracting noise of my shutter release with the thoughtful condolensces that were offered to the Cohen family.
The post-game shots came out great. I didn't post them to Flickr or anywhere else - they're too private to be published on the Intrawebs. Instead I cut a CD for Sandy Worth that contains some of my pictures of the seniors this week and brought it to her on Sunday. I trust that she'll only distribute it to people that should have access to the content.
It's sad to see another team graduate some seniors and close down their regular season. On the other hand it does open up my schedule a little bit. I've informally started keeping track of the time I spend on my day job and my photography "hobby" and it's starting to approach 50/50. With baseball, softball, and women's and men's lacrosse you can stay quite busy shooting and writing.
