We stopped along the way to grab a late lunch and we ate at a really nice restaurant. It had all kinds of interesting meat from deer, to duck, to wild boar. I got a BBQ deer steak to try something different and it was really good (picture above). I also had some awesome creamy basil and chicken soup along with a salad. I finished off the amazing meal with hot chocolate. Our president is on this trip with us, and he doesn’t travel with us really so that is a little bit different, but good. We got to the hotel around 10:00 p.m. and ate dinner. We were supposed to practice from 8:00-9:00 p.m. but we did not make it to our destination in time to do that.
Tomorrow morning we will have shoot around/a light practice and then we play tomorrow night. You can follow live stats at this link at 11:00 a.m. EST if you are interested:
http://www.fibaeurope.com/cid_f43ulKJBGLcVnbH-aqLVu2.compID_Rn2Om4j3HOcXtTFwJWFsh3.html
We play at 6:00 p.m. (11:00 EST) against Fortuna. An interesting side note is that one of my teammates from college grew up in the town I will be playing in tomorrow. I will keep you all posted on how we do. We will spend the night tomorrow night here in Lithuania and then it will be an early morning to bus back to Riga and fly out back to Istanbul on Thursday. We will then have the evening in Istanbul and then it will be time to head to Mersin on Friday. We have our next Turkish cup game against Mersin in Mersin on Saturday. The busyness never stops it seems, and yet it also helps time go by faster.
It is crazy to think that in exactly 2 weeks I will be flying home to the States for a few days. I am really looking forward to my time at home. We have 4 more games between now and break. Right now we are 1-3 in Eurocup and will not pass to the second round, so basically we have this game in Lithuania and then next week we play in Moscow, Russia. Because we are not one of the top 2 teams in our pool of 4 we will not pass. The team from Russia is undefeated and then Mersin (Turkish Team) is 2-2 and are poised to finish second because they beat us twice. The team from Lithuania that we play tomorrow has not won a game yet and is 0-4
Our GROUP:
Spartak: 4-0
Mersin: 2-2
Ordu: 1-3
Fortuna: 0-4
In the Turkish League we are 3-4 and sitting tied for 6th place out of 14 teams, which isn’t too bad. The Turkish League is so strong, so there are a lot of teams that hover around .500 in their records and yet they can still be good teams. As I reflect back some on our Turkish League Season we have lost one game by 4, one game by 3 and another game by 3 in double overtime. We are talking about a handful of points that would take us from a 3-4 record to a 6-1 record. The goal that coach has set before us is to make playoffs, which would be the top 8 teams at the end of the season. That will be a tough task because of the parity in this league, but I know we have the talent to do it!! We just have to keep working hard and fighting on the court. I think some of our close losses will start translating into wins as we go into the second half of the season.
Time for me to get some sleep soon!! I hope you all are having a great week so far J It is crazy to think we are already at “hump day” tomorrow.
God bless,
Megan
Reading for the day:
1 Samuel 9/Revelation 10
1 Samuel 9 - Saul meets up with Samuel! Samuel is going to tell Paul some information.
Revelation 10 - It is interesting how John eats the scroll at the end…really different. I don’t think I have noticed that before.