Doin' Work JACKETS!!

Howdy everyone!!
It is already the 3rd week of school and going fast! I know you have already heard details about our little camping trip, but I also have to add that it was super fun! In our survivor challenge I had to eat grass,yuck!! Although I am very thankful I did not have to eat the pickled purple hard boiled egg haha! But through the water and fire challenge we prevailed and were the winners of the challenge, and we got to sleep in the cabin, although because of the storm EVERYONE slept in the cabin which did lead to a fun experience. I, however, was super comfortable on the one bed that was inside :)
Another superrrrrrr exciting event is that last week I was cleared by the doctor with a month progression into basketball! That was an awesome day, and finally getting back into everything feels amazing, I really missed working hard with my teammates. And all the hard work I put in over the summer is paying off :)
Lastly, I just want to say everyone is doing an amazing job working hard in our conditioning sessions, I know this is not the most fun part of basketball but it will pay off in the end! Keep up the good work!
NANCY #32

What a great day!

This afternoon Amanda "Mondie" Mondrach and Ryan Gnagy were married. Mondie was an outstanding player for us and Ryan was a student coach. Even more fun was the reception. It was a blast watching our YJ4L (Yellow Jackets for Life) interact and have fun. We had 13 alums, 3 former student coaches, 2 assistants and their wives, and several former practice players there. It was truly heartwarming to be a part of tonight's festivities. Pictures are of the wedding, first dance at the reception, and some of our YJ4L crew having fun.

The final picture needs a little bit of explaining. A few years ago Butz tried to teach me the dance to Soulja Boy on the bus on the way home from a game. It caused great laughter at the time. So tonight, they called all the players and coaches up for a picture, except once we all got there, the DJ played Soulja Boy and of course everyone wanted a replay of that bus dance. It really was a lot of fun even though I can't dance at all!

I truly have been blessed to have the opportunity to coach and work with some great young ladies and coaches. Tonight was a great reminder of that. I miss them all!

We didn't start the fire! (But seriously...)

Welll hello everyone :)

I can't believe the second week is already over! This past weekend we had the camping trip at Coach's house. It was....interesting, but a blast :) Basically, we had 2 teams and it was a survivor competition. If it were just a competition in carrying people and being blindfolded, we would easily win....but if we really had to survive in the wilderness -- we would die. The final challenge was fire starting (or lack thereof).... well we REALLY put in an effort. So much effort, that we had to put another tape into the video camera. Props to Catherine...she had some rough paws after making it rain with magnesium shavings. We 'finished' and gracefully carried Jen back to camp. We never gave up so that's all that matters!

Workouts and open gyms have started. I went to my first one on Wednesday. I'm not cleared yet, so I couldn't do any of the sprint work, but I'm more than happy to support all of you. Everyone pushed themselves in sprints and lifting and I'm really looking forward to the upcoming season! I really want to join you guys and contribute, but regardless -- I know that EVERYONE is going to work hard, no matter what their role is. :)

My classes are actually going really well! I love all of them, although i have a full plate. My only problem is Art appreciation...I'm sorry BW, but I will never appreciate art...but at least i have some bball players in that class to help get me through!

Hope the week finishes up well for all of you yellowjackets!

P.S. seee yaa bright and earlyyy at conditioning tomorrow! I'm excited for spinning and Coach Campbell's upbeat workout playlists :) Lesss goooo!!!

-Lizzard

week #2!

Well we are finishing up our second week of school! I'd like to say it flew by..but not really haha getting into the routine of waking up early and listening to your teacher lectures takes some getting used to, but I know when we're all making the big bucks it will be worth it :) haha This past weekend camping at the farm was definitely fun and an adventure! I am a proud member of the team the won our "Survivor" challenge. But considering how hard it was to start a fire and wear blind folds, and carry a person on stretcher to each challenge, I feel like if any of us were really on the show Survivor..we might die. As the winning team we got to sleep in the cabin, while the others slept outside..until it started storming and nobody was a winner, since we all had to squish and sleep inside. As coach said "Champion teams touch each other more", and that we did haha we were like a can of sardines with no wiggle room. Myself being 6'2 and sharing 4 feet of space with Melissa and Jess was quite an experience. It was hard enough to sleep and then Jess probably sat up about 4 times in her sleep and began sleep talking. The first few times I tried to comprehend what she was saying, but when i realized she wasn't even aware that she was speaking, so I just ignored her haha it was a rough night, but an overall really fun time. We all got to do fun stuff and eat a lot (our favorite thing to do), even though some girls threw up from the food challenge we had, I won't say any names (Laurel), it was a great time! Now we are back to the reality of studying hard and working hard on the court and in the weight room. I know the Lady Yellow Jackets will be ready to bring it this year, can't wait!! :)
-Natalia

Let the FUN BEGIN!

Wellllll.....it's that time of the year again! Classes started last week, and I have 8 A.M.'s everyday....fun fun. But besides that it's time to start conditioning. It all started Friday with a little fun run plus some sprints through the metroparks at 6 in the morning. We for sure saw some deer out there. :) And today was our first day of conditioning in the gym, that champion maker was a fun time, let me tell you. On Friday we are spinning for our "fun" day of conditioning. It may look easy, but it is definitely a workout. But enough about that, let's talk about something else.

This past weekend, we had our team-bonding camping trip. We had fun on the 4-wheeler and swimming, but then the challenge for the cabin began. It all started with a food-eating contest, and some of the things were disgusting! (grass in a bowl and pickled eggs...gross!) But then we had to act like we were on the Survivor show and complete 3 challenges, all while some people were blindfolded and another was on a stretcher. My team did pretty good at the water challenge and the challenge where someone had to climb the tree....but then came the fire challenge... We were supposed to start a fire using a fire starter thingy were you had to scrape metal into a pile and then scrape sparks into the shavings....we definitely were not doing it right...(but it was a valiant effort by Cat) so we got stuck in the tent. Everything would have been ok, but first, a cat got into our tent and freaked everyone out, and then it started storming...so we all got to sleep in the cabin...22ish people...in a one room cabin. It was slightly cramped...but still fun!

After the camping trip, I went to the Mudhens (thats baseball) game for my brother's birthday. He is 16 now! But when we got home, we had a slight crisis! We have had kittens behind our shed for a while, and we have been feeding them. Well my brother called me freaking out because a hawk tried to take one of the kittens! He got the hawk to drop the kitten, but he didn't want them to get eaten, so he took them into our garage...so now my family has 3 little baby cats to take care of. :) I love cats so I was ok with that...but my mom doesn't want anymore pets so we had to find new homes for them....but yay! My brother and I are cat heroes! And that is about everything that happened this past week that was slightly interesting...

P.S. That picture is of me and my family at dinner before the Mudhens game! Happy Birthday Mike!

and that is all....

Lexi Rohrbach #45

Hmmmm

So we had our first casualty of the season. Frosh Megan P. found a way to walk into a door after open gym and gashed her eye open. After lots of blood, and a few stitches she will be good as new. :)

Dr. Budge

Today, another one of our Yellow Jacket alums took a step in her professional life and is now DOCTOR Selena Eskinazi-Budge. She received her doctoral hood at a ceremony this morning at OSU. Great job Dr. Budge! Proud of ALL of our BW alums out there doing great things with their lives and making a difference!!!!

BW Orientation Leader Megan Frisina!

Our own Megan Frisina is doing a great job as an Orientation Leader for BW's Weekend of Welcome! Also in the dance video are Heather Schier, student coach and JoBeth Roll, YJ4L. Proud of them being totally involved as a Yellow Jacket For Life in the campus community and not just athletes!

Megan Welcoming Freshman



Orientation Leader Dance

Autumn Williams : Sophomore

heyyyy there you all! just 5 days until we are all back on BW's campus and i'm actually excited. I hope everyone's summer has been fun. I'm Autumn and will be a sophomore this year. My major was criminal justice but i have switched to Graphic Design(I don't remember what the major is actually called lol) and Computer Science. I'm from Cleveland and live with my mother and little brother. He's the main reason I'm ready to come back to school haha but yeahhhhhh I'm pretty much out of things to talk about I've been staring at this hotel wall for like five minutes and came up with nothing SOOOOO, I'm looking forward to meeting all of you, although i don't speak much! But i mean you'll atleast get a Hi out of me (:

P.S: yes i am wearing spider man trunks! I'm a big kid at heart soo you're going to see me with A LOT of things probably more suitable for my little brother haha

Eh, I'm Bored

I blogged before sharing lovely information about my life but for right now I'm sitting at work bored. BW has been champions of the world this summer. We're taking over any possibly tournament around the area. Rachel Rossman, Megan Frisina, and I played in a 3 on 3 tournament out in Titusville, PA. It is an outdoor, parking lot, 3 on 3 basketball festival. There were 8 teams in our Division, Division Diana Turasi. Yeah, well, out of the 2 days we played totalling roughly 10 games, we came out on top, undefeated, couple scrapes and bruises CHAMPIONS of the women's bracket. NO BIG DEAL. You can see our shined trophies and t-shirts hung proudly.

Not to mention Jess Lairson, Jess Carpentar, Rachel Rossman, and I take over Walsh University's open gyms. It's not easy being winners all the time. I hope we do some damage this season because we've all gotten this winner's mindset and can't, won't, refuse to settle for anything less.

I probably should be at football practice but those boys can wait, blogging is so much more fun.

Can everyone please move in! Hammytime is lonely!

LEHHGOOO
Okay bye.

Jennaaayyy two-one

Kacie Evans, Freshman :)

Heeeeyy everyone! Sorry i'm suuuuper late blogging, we had some issues with our internet :/ . But anyways, my name is Kacie Evans, I'm from Newark, Ohio. Its about 2 hours fromm BW, depending on your driving habits :) I graduated from Newark High School. I have an older sister Jennifer, 2 cats and a dog. I'm extremely close to my family, without them I'm not sure where I would be. I love music and am hoping to learn how to play the drums! Larry might be able to teach me! Hahaha. I'm a Christian and hope to one day be a part of a praise and worship band. Behind the basketball player is a die hard 4-H'er. If some of you don't know what that means, I raise and show livestock at the fair in the summer! The Hartford Fair was my home for 10 days every summer for the past 9 years. I started out with goats, then started showing hogs and cattle. As gross as they are, raising hogs has been my favorite part of being in 4-H. I'm pretty random at times, but I think we all are. I'm not very shy, I love to dance and sing (even though I'm not good at it), I love all types of music. I'll stop there because then we won't have anything to talk about later! Hahaha. Alright so I bet your all wondering about the pictures, probably a few specific ones. Well the first one is a tad hard to explain, but to make it easy, I won a lot of trophies with this hog and blah blah blah. The second would be Me and the absolute love of my life, Blayden. This was where we started, when he was barely a week old. Technically, my title is Babysitter, but in the past 22 months I've earned the title Big sister, Teacher, and Best friend. He comes before everything in my life. I should probably apologize now because I'll endlessly talk about this kid lol But the third and final picture is him now, almost 2 years old and the biggest stinker I've ever seen. I'm sure you will all meet him, he'll melt your heart :) Buuuuut I can't wait to move in and get freshman year rollin. I'm absolutely STOKED to start working out with the team and getting to know everyone! That's all for now, See everyone soon! :)

Laurel Thomas, Freshman

My name is Laurel Thomas and I will be a freshman this fall. I am a graduate of Canton Central Catholic High School. Canton is about an hour away from BW. I am so excited for college and basketball! Everyone I have met from the team I have really enjoyed and I look forward to meeting the rest of you! I will be living in North this year and I am a business major. I am blessed to have such a wonderful family. My mom and dad are Bob and Teresa. You will all know my dad before long.. He has been very impressed with those of you he has met. From a young age has taught me to love the game of basketball. I have two sisters. My older sister Erika will be a senior at the University of Dayton and my younger sister Brittany will be a sophomore at Central. This summer I have been training, shooting, working and spending time with my family and friends. I hope you are all enjoying your summer! I can't wait to see you later this month :)

This is a recent picture of my sisters and I at graduation.