And just like that, the season is over.....and not only the season but my career. It is at times like this that all u want to do is look at the bad, its over, its done, never again will I play in another college basketball game, which thinking about it is very depressing, but instead of looking at all the bad that has bestowed itself upon us, pause and look on all the accomplishments of our Senior Class:

- SCAC Champions as Seniors (which is the first ever women's conference championship for OU)

-Made NCAA tournament all 4 years including one Final Four appearance and one Sweet 16

-Won 20+ games all 4 seasons

-Total Record of 96-26

-4 Seniors with over 1000 career points and 5 with over 500 career rebounds

Plus there are multiple other individual awards earned by each senior that I am not going to go through and name each. Looking back I have to admit that we had a very successful career. We have started the ball rolling at Oglethorpe and we all expect for the rest of the team to roll it a little further next year.

Now its time to look to other things. I had an interview for grad school today so hopefully I will still be in classes next semester (wow, I never thought I would say that), and I am also looking at coaching. So basketball will still be in my life. Who knows, maybe the SCAC isn't rid of me yet!! :-)

With two more wins under our belt, the Petrels are flying (well driving actually) to the familiar court of Thomas More for the Sweet Sixteen. We played at Thomas More last year for the first and second rounds of the NCAA so we know we can win on this court. We play George Fox who is 28-0 right now. Again this is familiar territory since we played against Thomas More last year when they were 29-0. It will be a tough game.

Right now, I am just returning to my room after a study session with my fellow math major Josh. Since this is the last week before Spring Break, all the professors decided to get in one more test before we all forget everything over the week off. Unfortunately this means that I am supposed to have a test on Friday, but since I will be in Kentucky I have to take the test on the road. This is just a extra hassle but it has to be done, and thus these are the positives and negatives of making it to the Sweet Sixteen!!

History was made this weekend as the OU Women's Basketball Team wins the 2009 SCAC Conference Championship. This is the first women's championship in the history of the school!! Coach Sattele was able to sub freely in both our first round, 14 point victory over Millsaps and also in our 20 point, second round game against Centre. We were then able to take some revenge on Trinity in the championship game. Earlier in the year they were able to take advantage of our poor shooting, but not this time. We shot a record breaking 58.9% from the floor in the championship game leading us to an 82-65 victory. It was amazing!! This was the third year in a row that we made it to the conference championship game and it was a like a weight was lifted off our shoulders when we finally won the game!! Below are the Seniors with our Championship Trophy!!!

But we are not done yet. This year, the NCAA's are coming to us as we get to host the first and second round games this weekend. First, Greensboro and Mississippi College play and then we play Maryville (Tenn). Earlier in the season we were able to defeat the Scots on their home court so we know they are looking to get back at us, but our senior class remembers our freshman year when Maryville knocked us out of the NCAA tournament in the first round, so we feel that it is our turn to finish their season. Then on Saturday, the winners of the two games play. Should be good games on both nights!!

It is so nice to have home games this weekend for more reasons then just the basketball. Yes, it is great to have the home court advantage, but it will also be good to be able to not have to miss any class this week. After already missing class the past two weeks, I will now have time to get caught back up. There is a chance that we might be able to host again next weekend which would make this tournament even more amazing. GO PETRELS!!!

It is officially the end of the regular season. The Stormy Petrels ended up 22-3 and are headed into the SCAC conference tournament as the #1 seed from the East. So far the season has been a success but we are not done yet. Hopefully after this weekend OU will have its first women's basketball conference championship, but I'll let you know the result of that next week. What is great about our team is that everything is a group effort and even our bench really gets into the games making the atmosphere so much more exciting!!

Missing classes is starting to catch up with me. When we travel we leave on Thursday morning, so we miss all Thursday and Friday classes. We missed these days last week due to traveling for the last weekend in the regular season, we leave tomorrow for the conference tournament, and there is a chance that we will miss the following three weeks for the NCAA's. It gets hard to stay caught up, but luckily our teachers usually understand and they realize what a great accomplishment it is to go the NCAA tourney and they are good about letting us make up our work. But it is still stressful none the less. Oh well, I would rather be stressed over classes because of travel then to have my senior season be over any day!!

What an exciting weekend. Not only did OU basketball go 4-0 this weekend, (both the guys and girls won 2 games each), but also Friday was Homecoming and Sunday was Senior Night. It is not often that we get to go out and just have fun, but Friday after we beat Rhodes, everyone was able to get dressed up and go out to the Hotel W for dancing and fun. Katie Kulavic also became the all time leading scorer in OU history. What a night!!

Sunday was our senior night which was and emotional time. We have 7 seniors on our team and most of us have gotten significant playing time since we were freshman. We ended up beating Birmingham Southern by about 25 and everyone got lots of playing time, seniors and underclassman. This was also the afternoon that I became the fourth member of our senior class to score 1000 points in her college career. It was so special for me because once when I scored my 1000^th point, Coach called time out and gave be a basketball that said "Oglethorpe University, Biz Richmann, 1000 points" and I was able to run it up to my dad in the stands. It was the greatest feeling!!

Also, the first home game of next year, Katie's jersey for our  retired along with a jersey saying 05-09 for the accomplishments of my senior class. Congrats ladies!!

Well it is definitely getting to be one of those busy times of the school year. It is time for the first tests, projects, and papers to be due and it always seems like all teachers choose to load on the homework during the same week. I sometimes think that teachers must collaborate and decide to all give work out at the same time just to annoy us students, but I just do not know. Maybe I will understand it when I am a teacher.

Anyways, the Stormy Petrels were able to come out and win our last three games, including one against our former assistant, Coach Liz. It was great to see her, we all miss her so much, but we did not let our love for her get in our way of winning. Because of injury, Tina unfortunately could not play, but Ari Brown was able to step up and filled in the gap. Here is Ari lighting it up from the three point line.

We are now 19-2 on the season and have a distracting weekend coming up this weekend.

Homecoming is this Friday, so not only do we have a game against Rhodes, but there are also performances and the crowning of Lord and Lady Oglethorpe. Then of course there is the dance that happens after the games. Not sure if I am going to go yet or not. That is something I will have to decide though. Then Sunday is Senior Night which is probably going to be an emotional time, especially since we have 7 seniors. Should be a fun weekend with hopefully a couple more victories and with any luck another personal accomplishment occurring as well!!

Well, this past weekend was definitely a rough one and Texas is still my least favorite trip!! We left Thursday morning and played Southwestern on Friday and Trinity on Sunday. I do not know what was wrong with us this weekend but we could not throw the basketball in the ocean if our lives depended on it. We shot horribly as a team. Despite the poor shooting, we were able to pull off a win at Southwestern but Trinity got the better of us. We got home early Monday morning with one win, one loss, and I got the bonus prize of a black eye. (Some people tell me that basketball is not a contact sport, HA, they have obviously never actually played the sport then!!) The weekend did not end up like we were hoping that it would, but that is now the past and we have to look towards the future.

Two big games this weekend, Friday we are playing Colorado College and then we have Austin College on Sunday. Our assistant coach from last year is now the head coach at Colorado, so we are all looking forward to seeing her!! We love you Liz!! So this weekend should be fun.

School is still killing me. One of the best parts and yet one of the worst parts about going on trips is that we have to miss class. It is great because who does not want to miss class, but it sucks because you have to make sure you stay up on your work. I, unfortunately, decided to not take any of my books on this trip and now I am playing catch up. It is not horrible, I am almost all the way caught up, but it still adds stress to the pot.

There is the saying "Time flies when you are having fun." Unfortunately, that is not the only case when time seems to fly. School has officially been back in session a week and a half and even though I am only taking three classes this semester, I feel as if I have so much I have to do and absolutely no time to do it in. And I am sure that senioritis has nothing to do with it whatsoever.....but, um, yeah, moving on. We finished our non-conference schedule a couple weeks ago with a defeat over Maryville and a record of 8-1 (9-1 if you count Birmingham Southern who is in our conference but do not count as conference games since then were a D-I program a couple years ago). We have then won our last 3 conference games against Sewanee, Hendrix, and Millsaps.

To keep a long story short, we ended up winning all three games fairly handily. We are playing well right now and we need to continue it through the rest o f the season and into the tournaments. We play two tough games this weekend as we travel to Texas, which is one of my least favorite trips. But if we could come home with two big wins like we got this past weekend, it would make the trip so much more enjoyable!! Go Petrels Go!!

Oh, Katie Kulavic, our All-American broke the school record for assists this past Sunday against Millsaps. Congrats Katie!!

After a long trip, we are home now with a couple more victories. It is never easy playing on the road, especially in our conference, so while the wins were not pretty, we are happy to just get the W and move on. Luckily, we got back to Atlanta at about 9 Sunday night so we were able to get a good nights rest before going over to some of the local churches and giving camps to some of the middle school kids in the area. Surprisingly, it was actually a lot of fun. While it is good to help teach the younger generations about the wonderful game of basketball, sometimes those camps can be a dread and just drag on, but the girls were good and worked hard and made it fun for everyone. Oh, this is also the second week in a row that we have had the SCAC player of the week. Last week it was Tina Grace and this week it is Anna Findley. Anna is our absolutely amazing three point shooter and below is her preparing to drive to the basket.

Coach then pulled a surprised to all of us. We were scheduled to have practice later that afternoon. It was pretty much a toss up of how this practice was going to go. On one hand we did have a game coming up this Wed, but on the other we did not play very well this weekend and he might want to whip us into shape and get our minds right. To our relief though, Coach decided that running us to death was not the best idea and took us bowling instead. Now normally I am not a very good bowler, but something was clicking on the first game we played and I rolled a new personal best of 151. It was so exciting!! It was almost like going to the Final Four all over again....well maybe not quite that exciting, but it was still pretty cool!!

Now we have to look to what lies ahead. We are off to play Maryville tomorrow up in Tenn. It is gonna be a tough game. I have yet to win a game in their gym and hopefully we will be able to change that tomorrow. Then we have another conference weekend. This time we face Sewanee at home. I am glad that this year we are not traveling the weekend before classes start (we head back to school on Jan 12 L). Yeah, I am pretty much just not looking forward to going back to class at all, but it is something I just cant avoid right now, so I guess I will just have to enjoy my last week of pure basketball and prepare for the tests and quizzes to come at a later date. 

Victory was ours on Monday night. #4 Thomas More fell for the first time this season to the one and only Stormy Petrels. It was a hard fought game by both teams, but in the end we were able to prevail. This is a really good win for us. With this confidence, hopefully we will be able to come out of this weekend with a couple more wins. This is the first time that we are on the road for conference play and the SCAC is a tough conference to play in. There is no easy game, especially on the road. Tomorrow, yes New Years Day, we leave bright and early at 9am to head off on a 7 hour bus trip with our guys team to Memphis, TN. Friday night we will play Rhodes and then on Saturday we will head over to Birmingham to prepare for another game against Birmingham Southern on Sunday. This is the set up of most of our conference games. Its rough but you get used to it. It is just nice that this first trip is over Christmas break so we can get used to the travel without having to worry about classes as well. 2008 was a good year, now lets bring in 2009 with a bang!!

This is Hannah Brooks, our defensive specialist and a major team leader, hitting a free throw.