Sampiyon! (Champions)

It wasn't a 40 point blow out but we won our 3rd game to win the Turkish championships. And I just so happened to be celebrating my birthday as well so it was an extra special day for me! Our Americans took no time at all to get back to the states. They wanted to enjoy the little time they had before they started with their teams for the summer so they left the next day. The rest of the team presented our cup to our club's president as well as walking out on the field during halftime of our club's soccer match. I hadn't been to a "football" match yet so that was pretty cool to see.

I also left the next day on a little vacation of my own the next to Antalya which is in southern Turkey. It's very nice this time of year and I pampered myself for a few days before I had to come back to Istanbul to join the national team in camp. I've been with them for a few days and we just finished a scrimmage against Czech Republic. We won it and we will play them again tomorrow just to get more game time before heading to Latvia where we'll start games on June 7th.

Championship in sight!

Well, I've been pretty horrible about keeping this thing up to date. To my defense I had about 3 weeks straight of visitors. First my parents came to visit, just in time to see us win the Turkish Cup. It's a 3 day mini tournament right before the playoffs start. We beat Galatasaray in the finals of that tournament. We had the next day off so I stayed with my parents in Kayseri where the tournament was played and we toured Capadoccia which was one of the most unique places I have ever seen. I will post pictures very soon. It's a huge area with bunches of caves built underground and in the sides of mountains and hills. Worth the google visit if you have time to look it up. My parents also saw the first game of the semi finals, again against Galatasaray, and again a win.

The day they left, my old teammate, JJ Hones, from Stanford who is studying abroad in Madrid right now took a weekend visit to Istanbul. She saw the second game of the semi's against Gala, but we lost that one. We still had a lot of fun and she was able to see most of Istanbul as one can see in just a couple days. She left and just a few hours later, another teammate from Stanford, Cissy Pierce came to visit. She just ended her basketball season in Germany and had a few days before her return flight to the states. She saw our final game and win against Gala in order to move to the finals and also toured a little bit of Istanbul. I saw more of Istanbul in just a few day span than I have in the last 2 years!

After Cissy left, I had a couple days to recoup before we played our first game of the finals against Mersin and my old coach from last year. It's a best of 5 series and our first two games were at home. We swept this team during the regular season but they were both close games so we were expecting to play a tough game. However, we easily won our first two games by 25 points and 40 points respectively. Our team was just determined to win and make a statement. (We also have 4 wnba players who the earlier we win the more rest they get before their wnba seasons start, so they had extra motivation.) We play what we are hoping is our last game and the championship game this friday on my birthday in Mersin. Here's to hoping I get that birthday present!!