Lady Dawg Research Papers

About three weeks ago, the Packer Varsity baseball team beat Berkeley Carroll school for the first time in twelve years and in glorious fashion. Tears streamed down my face as our winning run crossed the plate in extra innings, dust flying up as my teammates and I mobbed each other at the plate. Yet a few short days later, our team was blindsided by the news that St. Ann’s had pulled off back to back upsets to squeak their way into the playoffs ahead of us - just as our season seemed to be looking up, it was over.

The sun glared down on our bruised, tired, and dirty bodies as we hung our heads in defeat. Dropping to the losers bracket on our first of three days of the State Softball Tournament meant we could not lose again or we would go home and I would never play with this team again. Attitudes and hope started to fade as Coach read us our new schedule. We would have to play eight games in a row without losing once in order to make it to the championship. Everyone started to say goodbye and thank you to one of our coaches and a teammate that would not be there the next day. Halfheartedly they included a doubtful “see you on Sunday”.

With the Christmas tournament aside, we entered the post-season without a loss. We had a plan for each playoff game from districts to regional. We never deviated from the plan, keeping our eye on the target –

My freshman year we entered playoffs with a hopeful optimism that in our first year in 3A, the largest division, we could make a statement that we were here to stay. In the end, the game didn’t go our way. There were some questionable calls made but in the end, it is what it is: we weren’t good enough to win. A tough reality but often times you learn more from a loss than from a win. Sophomore

The rest of the team has seen me on my really bad days and days where I feel amazing. We all go through ups and downs. All of us 18 girls on the team had to get through preseason, and although it was only two weeks as opposed to the usual three, it was one of the most physically demanding times of my life. Despite this, it is rewarding to accomplish something after months of summer workout packets and preparation, and we all got to do it as a team. Even serious preparation and practice does not allow us to win certain games. Losing 4-0 to Dock took a toll on us, and for a couple of days it was easier to point fingers to others as to why we did not win. In spite of this upset, I used it to drive me during the next game. Not everything that happens during the season is going to lay out the way we would like it to, but I would not trade this sense of kinship for

After this game the coaches started to yell at the linemen and get mad at them even more. After all of us knocked down at least 5 defenders in that game, we didn’t get credit. It was one play that set them off badly, it was when one of the backs was running around the field, I remember me knocking a player on the ground, which I believe was the case for others also and going to find another person to block. And of course for our coaches, they thought we were just running around doing nothing because they only paid attention to the running backs. The player ended up scoring on the play, which made it worse for us because it gave the coaches more reasons to criticize us and glorify them (the backs were all very good but they just got all of the attention). That week turned the whole season around, and it felt like we were one team separated into two. Every little mistake we made it was once again “The backs doing all of the work”. It went on for the last few weeks of the season. After losing one game in the regular season we qualified for the league playoffs. We played our biggest rival, New Milford in the first round. Games against them are always much more intense and it feels like much more is on the line. It was a cold 30 degree morning, with crazy winds at New Fairfield High School. Nobody held back one bit, and the game was on the line every play. Nobody scored until

Throughout the year we went on a ten game winning streak. Then we lost one game, and ended the season on a 21 game winning streak. Including ten straight wins throughout the playoffs. That is a pretty big improvement compared to only winning 16 games the year before. Our team matured greatly from the year before; we became less selfish and became a team as a whole. People were willing to do whatever it took to win; even if

Even though we did not find much success in the win-loss column, we focused on improving what we could and doing our job both on and off the field, put academics and behavior in the classroom as a priority above the game, learned the value of camaraderie and brotherhood, and fought through

All of the hard work culminated in our last game of the season, the division title was on the line. With fifty-six seconds left in the game, we earned a corner kick. A perfect ball spiraled toward the six-yard box. Time slowed to a crawl as I felt my body leap into the air. Reaction, muscle memory and instinct took over. My teammates erupted when the ball whizzed off my head and landed in the back of the net. The clock buzzed seconds later and we all ran together to celebrate our win. I was elated we had won the game, but more importantly, I felt satisfied, and not just because of the goal.

Going into this tournament we did not have very high expectations considering the other two teams we had to play were ranked in the top 20 when were ranked in the 90s. Our first game would be considered the toughest because we had to play the tenth ranked team in the nation. But shockingly we ended winning the game. Our next game we unfortunately lost and were knocked out of contention for nationals. Even though we weren’t able to make it to nationals it was still a very fun and successful season.

With all this going on we ended up making Forestburg Volleyball history. Making it the farthest the team has ever gotten in playoffs, the Regional Tournament. We sadly lost our first game there, but when the rest of the team was down from making simple mistakes, I kept my head up, and did my best to try and cheer them up, and that was our toughest loss of the season. I am proud of my team though, we played absolutely amazing this year, and made history! I can’t wait to come back and watch the girls play

Our drills and plays are tiring, But the championship trophy was inspiring. We push through the day, hour by hour, Fighting to stand up, with all of our power. We know we are

I also talked to a fan, Quinn Johnson, and asked what he thought the pressures were on the girls this year. He replied with: “I think this season the pressures are there own standards. Last years team was not as good so other teams and fans did not expect so much out of them. But after we won the FVA this year and got the #1 seed for the playoffs more pressure was added to the team coming into playoffs.” This helps to see from a fan perspective what they believe the pressures are and what they expect the girls to accomplish this season.

The team we were playing was one of the best in the school league. They had good guards and amazing post players. They could make a lot of the shots we missed. We were nervous, but we had made it here and we knew we had to win. It started out rough, our defense wasn’t quite there. We let the guards go by us and the post post up way to easily. At the end of of the first quarter it was 11-2, they were winning. By half time we finally made a

Manipulative biological control is one kind of biological control (of that a subset is conservation bio-logical control augmentative biological control is second kind of biological control. This starts with the recognition that lady beetles in a given pest situation are available yet too little to do the job required, and purchasing more from a commercial manufacturer to release to augment those erenow available. Flying away of most released adult ladybeetles is a risk Yet, if lady beetle larvae are released, they have the choice of consuming the pest with that they are presented, or starving -- they cannot fly off. Clearly, this needs matching the pest to a purchased lady beetle species that will consume that pest. Classical or inoculative