Aug. 17, 2006

Periodically during the school year, softball captain Christina Guerland will provide a behind the scenes look at the team. In her first installment, she writes about how she and her teammates spent the summer.

In approximately two weeks, a majority of Yale students will be returning to New Haven to start another school year. It is hard to believe the summer has come and gone so quickly, but every member of the Yale softball team is excited to return to campus. We have all been extremely busy this summer gaining experience in a variety of occupations but also staying sharp on the field.

I spent the summer in New York City living with my teammate, Kate Meserve. I secured a 12-week internship at Chelsea Piers, a 30-acre sports complex along the Hudson River. I worked with the Special Events Department assisting with a variety of events, everything from corporate outings to private barbecues to preschool summer camp. It was a wonderful work experience and living in New York City was a blast! I knew very little about Manhattan but quickly figured out the geography as the "sink or swim" situation presented itself. I can definitely see myself living there after college.

During many of my explorations of the city, I was side-by-side with Kate Meserve. Kate had a 10-week internship at Credit Suisse with the Sales and Trading Department. Despite the 5:45 a.m. alarm each morning, she had a wonderful experience, particularly with her fellow interns hailing from Harvard, Princeton, Penn and Wake Forest.

Two girls spent the majority of their summer outside of the United States. Niki Haab was in Honduras doing missionary work and falling in love with little Honduran children. Aracelis Torres traveled with the Puerto Rican National Softball team to Canada for the Canada Cup and Colombia for the Central American and Caribbean Games. There were over 5000 athletes for the competition in Colombia and her team stayed in an "Athletes' Village" setting similar to the Olympics.

Meredith Parks and Jessica Meyer lived together in New Haven and took summer classes to ensure a more relaxing senior year. Meredith also studied for the MCAT and will be taking the test on Saturday, August 19. Good luck Mer!

Another pre-med all-star, Courtney Blachford, interned at the Protein Data Bank at Rutgers University which is a worldwide archive of biological macromolecules. She worked on a remediation project to help identify and rename improper ligands (ask her to explain). Courtney also played travel ball with a 23-and-under team.

For their first college summer, the Class of 09 stayed active. Rebecca Wojciak and Katie Edwards both played softball with adult teams and Katie also coached an 11-and-under team. Kyli Hanson played for a slow pitch team but the highlight of her summer was going to Cozumel with her family where she received her advanced scuba diving certification. She reached her deepest depth of 165 feet and also swam with a 35-foot whale shark! Koz (Danielle Kozlowski) took a hiatus from softball and skated in Boston to get ready for her next hockey season.

Deanna DiBernardi and Megan Enyeart both worked as counselors for day camps. Deanna was in charge of the 9-year-olds at the Garrett-Williamson Foundation Day camp near her hometown and was given the nickname "Miss D". Megan looked after the 5-8 year-olds at the UCSB Summer Day Camp in Santa Barbara, California, where she became a self-proclaimed "human jungle gym".

Throughout the summer we have all kept in touch with our incoming freshmen through email. We are so excited to add seven members to our team and they seem just as anxious to arrive at Yale and begin their college career as student-athletes.