What a game

Well I am sitting here at press row as the Ashland vs. Gannon game, the final game of the day, has just tipped off. What an exciting day for the women's basketball team and the Augustana community. If you were not here, we have been keeping up on all of the watch parties back home and have appreciated all of the support we've received through social media throughout the day.

The Vikings definitely left everything out on the floor this afternoon. They faced constant pressure from the Clayton State defense throughout the entire game and never let it get to them. This team is just playing at another level right now from top to bottom. They have worked so hard the entire season and as they made their run through the conference and regional tournaments, it is so encouraging to see them continue to play at such a high level.

From the minute the game got over we have been working non-stop, besides heading on over to Olive Garden for dinner with the team, working with CBS Sports helping them prepare for tomorrow's national television broadcast of our game.

After our game, coach Krauth sat down with Lisa Byington and Jason Knapp of CBS Sports to talk about today's game, thoughts on tomorrow's game and just getting to know coach Krauth and a little bit about Augustana.

I spent about two hours this afternoon with the producer, Sue Maryott, for CBS Sports just giving them some history about Augustana and our women's basketball history.

Coach Krauth meeting with CBS Sports for tomorrow's broadcast.

Below are some photos from today's game.

Below is today's postgame press conference


If you have not heard yet, Augustana's game against Dowling College will air on CBS Sports tomorrow at 6 p.m. Check your local listings for the channel nearest you. Also, Midco Sports Network will also carry the game on local television tomorrow night and again on Friday should the Vikings advance to the national championship game.

Thank you again for all of your support and well wishes from back home.

Thanks for checking in and Go Vikings!

An eventful day winding down

Well since my last post I think I have had about a half hour of down time. We have been all over the place today going from team practice to our community engagement event, to the Elite Eight coaches press conference, to the Alamo for a team picture, and finally to the team banquet.

You've heard about our practice session and the venue where the games will be played in my last blog post. The community engagement event, which every team is required to participate in at the Elite Eight, was most likely the highlight of our trip up to this point. We went to Carroll Bell Elementary School in San Antonio where we met 100 students who were beyond excited to have our team at their school. The event started with our team running into a gymnasium to loud music and cheers from the students. Coach Krauth opened the event with a great message to the students at Carroll Bell Elementary. He expressed the importance using all of their abilities and having dreams to do big things in life. Coach expressed the importance of education to the students and said that they too, if they work hard at everything they do in life, they too can be successful in anything they want to. After coach Krauth's message, each player introduced themselves and told the students where they were from.

Coach Krauth giving a message to the students at Carroll Bell Elementary.

Students at Carroll Bell Elementary prepared a dance to pump up the Vikings.

The students also had a gift for each of our players, a t-shirt with their school's name and mascot on the front. The Vikings brought Augustana t-shirts with them and handed them out to the students for answering trivia questions about the team. Below is a picture of the t-shirts our team received.

At the conclusion of the community engagement event, the Vikings performed an impromptu performance of the Cupid Shuffle with the students. Below is a video clip of that.



Each team in the tournament then went to the Alamo where they had a team picture taken. I apologize for not getting a picture of our team in front of the Alamo for this post, but I had a handful of player's cameras taking pictures and wasn't able to juggle my cell phone into the mix. But here is a picture of the Alamo itself.

With that, I will leave you with the fact that tomorrow is GAMEDAY!!!

The Vikings will hit the floor at noon tomorrow against Clayton State. If you will be here tomorrow, I am looking forward to seeing all the blue and gold in the stands and will see you here. If not, thank you for your support and enjoy cheering on the Vikings from wherever it is you are. Here is a link that has all the information you need to view the game from home tomorrow, click HERE. Also on that page is information for the viewing party that will be held at Buffalo Wild Wings and on campus at the Back Alley.

Thanks again for checking in and Go Vikings!

Monday update

Monday's busy schedule got us an early start to our day today. With us being the first game on Tuesday, the home team was given the early practice time at Bill Greehey Arena on the St. Mary's University campus in San Antonio. In the NCAA Tournament the day is pretty much scheduled out for you.

Here is a brief detail of our schedule today:

7:15 a.m. bus departs from hotel to St. Mary's for practice
8:00 a.m. practice begins
teams are given just 55 minutes for practice
9:30 a.m. team went to breakfast at McDonald's
1 p.m. bus departs hotel to local elementary school for community engagement event and pep rally
4:15 p.m. today, all eight head coaches will take part in the Elite Eight pre-tournament press conference
6 p.m. today teams depart hotel for the Alamo for team pictures prior to tonight's banquet
7 p.m. tournament banquet
Following the banquet each team has the opportunity to take a barge ride down the River Walk

I will update the blog later today with pictures and stories about the community engagement event as well as the press conference.

Fans making the trip down to San Antonio will not be disappointed with the facility. It is not an overly large gym, but it has an arena feel to it with chairback seating all around the playing surface.

See the pictures of the facility below

Thanks for checking in and stay tuned later today for posts about the community engagement event as well as the tournament banquet.

If you are not already and have Twitter. Follow @GoAugie @AugieWBB and @EvansT99 to stay up to date with today's events.

Go Vikings!

Travel day

We landed in San Antonio at 12:46 this afternoon and were met immediately on the tarmac by our bus to take us to our hotel. After a short trip, we are all checked in and now making plans for lunch. It is currently 60 degrees and sunny here in San Antonio (sorry, but had to throw that in there). In all fairness it was a cold trek off the bus and onto the plane!

Today started off in familiar fashion for Vikings. Everyone gathered outside the Elmen Center, as they have for every road trip this season and years past. What made the trip seem even more like “just another road trip” was our regular bus driver, and longtime Viking fan, Dick Bjerke, who drove us from campus to the airport.

From the Elmen Center we made the short trip to the airport in Sioux Falls. We were fortunate enough to have a chartered flight right out of Sioux Falls into San Antonio. So the joys of travel, security lines, waiting in the terminal were not a part of our trip south.

There are numerous private airlines at the Sioux Falls Airport, and truthfully, we did not know exactly where the one we were flying out of was located. We made a brief stop for directions and made our way to the correct terminal with Maverick airlines.

When we found the correct location, the bus drove us right out on to the tarmac, where TSA was waiting to check our IDs. Everyone was checked and we were then given the OK to make our way on to the plane.

We ended up having a very nice plane for our trip down to San Antonio. The plane had just three seats per row, two on the right side of the aisle and one on the left. All of the seats were leather and offered plenty of leg room. In my opinion, this would be the choice plane for any basketball team.(See the pictures below of the seats on the airplane) 

I have to admit that seeing a plane with propellers at first did not really excite me. It was smooth sailing from start to finish. (I am actually writing this post from 31,000 feet so I was able to update as soon as we hit the ground in San Antonio and I had access to WiFi)

Shaunteva Ashley and Emily Bose read to takeoff for San Antonio. 

The team exiting the plane and walking right to our bus to head to the hotel. 

It was quite refreshing taking off from cloudy Sioux Falls and getting above the clouds to see some blue skies and sunlight.

Thanks for checking in and Go Vikings!

Well wishes

Sorry for the later post today. As you all know the weather has put quite the wrinkle in our spring sports scheduling at Augustana. I had hoped to have a post for you this afternoon, but as we put the final touches on our releases for the day I was ready to go home and spend some time with my family before we head to San Antonio this weekend.

For those that have not seen yet, or those of you who might not be able to make the trip to San Antonio, a watch party has been arranged at Buffalo Wild Wings on Louise Ave. in Sioux Falls while Augustana is at the Elite Eight. For more information on the watch parties click HERE.

Today, my assistant Eric, put the finishing touches on his game notes and the postseason guide and got that up on the website for your viewing. You can find that HERE. Also, here is a quick look at the cover of the postseason guide, pretty cool if you ask me. (sorry for the glare on the photo) 

I had the opportunity to stop over at practice again this afternoon as we had another interview from a local television station, this time KDLT. KDLT is sending a reporter to cover the Vikings as they make their trip to the Elite Eight. Below are pictures of coach Krauth and senior Cami Koehn being interviewed for tonight's news. 

Coach Krauth talks with Paul from KDLT earlier on Friday. 

Cami Koehn being interviewed before practice this afternoon. 

Now for the fun stuff. While visiting practice this afternoon the girls shared with me some pretty fun words of encouragement they have received over the past few days. Not only is the Augustana community and classmates supporting the Vikings, so are some local elementary students. 

The first thing I came across while walking into the gym was a large poster board that was sent to the Vikings from Augustana's education department. Faith Tinklenberg and Emily Schulte, who are both education majors, displayed the words of encouragement with me. 

The sentences were put together by using different types of candy to display the message. If you are not able to read the message I will provide a transcript here: "Once upon a time there was a women's basketball team who ORBITed the MILKYWAY galaxy. The were on DENTYNE FIRE this seas and their stars were bursting (STARBURST) all over. They weren't NERDS they weren't AIRHEADS but they were 3MUSKETTERS on a SPREE to CRUNCH their opponents. Every day they (SKITTLES) skittled about working on their FASTBREAK and perfecting their moves hoping to hit their PAYDAY. It was NUTRAGEOUS. Every game there was a different LIFESAVER on the court who could SKOR big. They didn't have BUTTERFINGERs and they found time to LAFFYTAFFY about the FUNDIPS they were having. Sometimes coach even let them TAKE5. So, when conference tournament rolled (TOOTSIE ROLL) around, they had plenty of TWIX up their sleeves and there were no SNICKERS from the crowd on this night. They had every RIESEN to celebrate...their win was worth 100GRAND. With the conference and the Region behind them, off they go to WHATCHAMACALLIT...(San Antonio, I guess) to make one last stand where they will put on WHOPPERS of a show and in the end jump for joy (ALMONDJOY) and give their fans MOUNDS of delight. HUGS and KISSES from all of us in the Education Department"

Senior Alex Feeney made her way to practice following another day of student teaching. While she was lacing up her shoes to hit the practice floor she showed me a letter that one of her students had given her earlier today. The student also made her a bracelet and wrote on the note saying "here is a little "good luck Miss Feeney" bracelet!" 

Below are a few more pictures of well wishes that were sent the Vikings' way this week. 

Thanks again for checking in and Go Vikings!

Thursday update

Well its 3:48 on Thursday afternoon as I write this post. I just got back to the office from the practice gymnasium where the team was getting ready to hit the floor. We have been handling media requests throughout the week and today has been another busy one.

Earlier this afternoon, coach Krauth was on "The Sports Hub" show with Ben Root on ESPN Radio in Aberdeen. You can listen to that interview by clicking HERE.

As I mentioned before, I just returned from the team's practice as we had local television station KSFY here to interview coach Krauth and Emily Schulte. Look for those interviews on tonight's evening news in Sioux Falls.

Coach Krauth being interviewed before practice this afternoon.

Junior guard Emily Schulte being interviewed by KSFY before today's practice.

Thanks again for checking in and Go Vikings!

Welcome!

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog dedicated to the Augustana women's basketball team's trip to the 2013 Elite Eight in San Antonio, Texas. I will be traveling with the team and will keep you up to date with the Vikings as they make their first Elite Eight appearance in school history.

We will be chartering a plane directly to San Antonio out of Sioux Falls on Sunday.

Feel free to send us notes and questions as we make our trip.

If you are on Twitter, feel free to give me a follow @EvansT99 or on the web at www.twitter.com/EvansT99 as I will also be detailing our trip there as well.

On Tuesday, coach Krauth and administrators had a conference call with the other participating schools as well as tournament officials. It sounds like the city of San Antonio is going to be a great place for us to experience the Elite Eight.

Later in the afternoon on Tuesday, coach Krauth, myself, and my assistant Eric Zahn took part in a teleconference with the other seven coaches and members of the media. Each coach was asked to give an opening statement before the media were allowed to ask questions. Coach Krauth was the first to speak on the call and set the bar high for the other coaches with his opening statement. Only a few of the other coaches were asked questions, with coach Krauth being questioned by a writer that covers Clayton State (our first round opponent). He was not very familiar with our team so just wanted some basic information on our team.

As of right now, it looks like we picked a good time to head south. The weather forecast for San Antonio calls for 73 degrees on Sunday (the day we arrive) and 68 degrees Monday and 72 on Tuesday. On the other hand, the Sioux Falls forecast for those three days calls for 31, 33 and 37 degrees on those same days.

Check back later this week for more updates. Also don't forget to log on to GoAugie.com for the latest information on Augustana's trip to the Elite Eight. I have set up a page with information on the tournament you can find that HERE.

Thanks for following and Go Vikings!