University of Johannesburg Women’s team SASSU/USSA diary 2008
Day of departure from OR Tambo international airport: 29 June 2008.
FLIGHT TIME-10:00 AM
ARRIVAL TIME-12:30 PM
Day 1: DAY OF ARRIVAL – Sunday 29 June 2008
The flight was good, a nice 2-hour flight all hyped up and all. We arrived there in a jiffy and then there was trouble at the Cape Town airport.A bag was left behind in Johannesburg and we were told that it would arrive with the 3 pm flight; it did not but at least arrived at 10pm.We were staying at UCT at a residence called Kopano, which was a boys’ residence.We were staying in single rooms, big but cold so six of us decided to put 3 mattresses in one room and all sleep there together.tyt!!! The toilets smelled awful, not surprised at all, it’s a boy’s hostel after all, but come on; they should spray something for it to smell fresh.
Hmmm… Supper was great. We had rice, green peas, gravy and beef.
Day 2: Tournament starts – Monday 30th June 2008
No opening ceremony just got straight down to business. Games were on time, everything ran smoothly.Just that the organization did not provide balls for warm up (I must not get it twisted; this is not Engen u/18 tournament) and the other teams were asking balls fromthe UJ team
Games of the day:
UJ ladies vs. DUT -we won
UJ ladies vs. TUKS –we lost
The ladies match against TUKS started off aggressively with UJ winning the jump ball.TUKS started hitting their fast breaks as usual. We were playing them 2-1-2 and then a 1-2-2. After the first quarter, TUKS was leading by 20 points, the score was 20-5 to them, we came back with a bang, caught up, and the score become 47-47 in the third quarter. I guess we relaxed after that, which was irritating and they took advantage of that and won the game.
Day 3: Tuesday 1 July 2008
UJ has to win the next 2 games in order to progress to the semi finals. Now question is? Is VAAL going to win a game to be at the top of their pool to meet us, or lose a game to meet TUKS .Crazy I know, it was just a thought.Either way the 3 Gauteng teams dominated the day by winning their games and are all going to the semis.Same goes for the men’s’ teams.
We chilled in our room, which was fun as we brought sound to keep us sane.So we danced, laughed, slept.
Games of the day:
UJ vs. E.CAPEwe won
UJ vs. N.WEST we won
Day 4: Wednesday 2nd July 2008
Wednesday there was no game that was scheduled for us and we were all smiles…it was a rest day as we have been working hard at training.Apparently there was supposed to be a braai later, Pssh didn’t happen at all.Spend half a day at the Cavendish mall which is 20 min away from the University of Cape Town.Went there by taxi, I must say that it’s cool how Cape Town taxis operate.They have someone that act like a marshal to take in the money and do all the work, like calling customers. At least you don’t have to worry on messing up “ka change”. We went back to the residence afterwards as we had a training session from 4pm till 6pm, just to work on a few moves and strategies.Our semi-final is tomorrow at 5pm.Here we come1
Day 5: Thursday 3rd July 2008
The only reason we woke up early Thursday morning was for breakfast.Thereafter we went back to sleep until our late afternoon game against VAAL university of Technology.We were woken up by the sound of our neighbours upstairs singing our praises- “YOU WHAT? YOU SUCK” to us. Anyway, the VUT game was one we had long been looking forward to and we thoroughly enjoyed it and we showed our neighbours – opponents exactly how much we “sucked”.
Supper was just great every night, Hmmm. Man we enjoyed that, especially the UJ men, those people eat “haowa”.But breakfast was another story, uhhhhhh; we only had eggs, is that possible, apparently they said the big guys suggested that we have eggs only and cereal in the morning. At least there was juice in the morning because some of us don’t drink tea and like cold stuff all the time.
Day 6: Friday 4th July 2008
Friday was just yet another day where we slept in.We awoke early to have eggs only and returned to our rooms to rest until game time.It was a rainy day and we could not take our usual walk to the indoor.Our game was scheduled for 13:00 and everyone in the team was in high spirits – singing and dancing as we always do.The game against Tuks proved quit difficult and at the end of the day it was not ours to have as we went down by 7 points.We were really disappointed but kept cheering our boys for their final.This year did not seem to be for UJ as our boys lost by 1 point with 19 seconds to go,L. This loss was even more painful than ours because we could already taste the victory, but even though we did not win, the level of play displayed by UJ was far beyond any other teams at the tournament.
The function was not too bad, the food was, such small portions of meet and rice. We are ball players, we need to be fed; when will they get that in their head? People were looking good at the awards function especially our guys with the formal orange hemps that they gave us.
Day 7: Saturday 5th July 2008
The 12 boys and girls that were supposed to stay for the S.A camp left at 6am for the 8m flight and the rest followed to catch the 10am flight.Could things get any worse after losing in the finals? Once we arrive in Johannesburg at the University. Lindors bag was left behind at OR TAMBO airport; we did all we could to try and call lost and found but no luck. Till today, how her bag got left behind while packing the others, remains a mystery.3 kits, her sneakers and all are all gone.
Information supplied by Makgotso Moloantoa (UJ 1st team player). Work commissioned and edited by Victor Shakineza.
Recent comments