On Erica Walsh's whistle, groups of players took off in opposite directions from midfield.
With red flags marking the usual locations of the goals at the ends of the field, Penn State women's soccer players shouted encouragement at each other as they tried to circle each set of flags and get back to midfield
in under 49 seconds at practice Tuesday.
As the Nittany Lions move into the second half of the season, the amount of time they spend on conditioning stays fairly constant, while there is an increased emphasis on fixing the little things that have gone wrong in the games.
Throughout the season, they maintain a four-week fitness cycle in which difficulty of training increases for three weeks, and then the players are given a lighter week -- regardless of the results of the previous game.
"Physiologically, we try to stay on that type of rhythm because sometimes you get caught up in the emotions or results, and that dictates your training," coach Walsh said. "We prepare a cycle ahead of time to build into November and December."
Helping to allow the consistent level of physical training is the team's avoidance of injuries so far this season, with only a few exceptions.
Junior forward Katie Schoepfer sprained her ankle last Friday against Northwestern, and while she sat out the latter part of practice Tuesday after tweaking it, she will not miss any game action.
And senior defender Jessie Davis has been nursing a microfracture in her tibia since before the season began. Although she cannot participate in fitness exercises during training -- she does her own routine before practices -- she hasn't missed any game action either.
"It's really hard to watch things," Davis said. "I don't do fitness, which is hard to do and I feel really bad about it. I was in a similar situation last year with a torn meniscus, and so, I guess I'm kind of used to this vicious cycle."
But the injury doesn't keep Davis out of the team's now-daily focus on fundamental aspects of the game, like corner kicks and other set pieces.
"Our fitness level and our conditioning is always a top priority," junior defender Maura Ryan said. "But we also decide to focus more on the little things like man marking, which has been a problem of ours throughout the season."
Because of that problem, Walsh said the team has practiced set pieces at the end of practice almost every day for three weeks.
Ryan added, because of the repetition, the phrase "Beating a dead horse" has become commonplace with the coaches.
"Oh, I hate that phrase now," Ryan said with a laugh. "But doing the little things is important, and they're going to help in the end of the game when we're tired and we don't want to lose our man in the box. It's been killing us and we're trying to improve it."
