Indiana University Athletics
Valentin's Second Adventure Diary
9/13/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Sept. 13, 2005
After traveling to Holland and Belgium earlier in the summer with the Big Ten Foreign Tour, Indiana senior Cyndi Valentin has embarked on another trip to play international basketball. This time, the 5-8 guard is headed to the Dominican Republic to compete in the FIBA Americas Championships with the Puerto Rican National Team, which start Sept 14. Prior to their arrival in the Dominican Republic, Valentin and her team stopped in Canada to play exhibition games. Below is her second diary entry for IUHOOSIERS.com:
Sorry it's been a while since I have written, we don't have free Internet here. Anyways, I think I ended with our first game against Canada. So the days have pretty much gone the same here in Canada. Today I didn't get up for breakfast because I was so tired. I wanted to sleep in a little. We had a walkthrough at 11 am. We did some shooting and went through our defense for the game. We ended the practice by running through our plays. After our walkthrough, the Canadian team had us over for a catered lunch. We had green beans, mashed potatoes, chicken, etc. It was really good.
We went back to the hotel rested for a while and ate some fruit a little before the game and then played at 7:30pm. People came to watch the game, of course for Canada but it was nice playing for a crowd. I actually got to see Rene Portland (Penn State head coach) and talk to her. If some of you aren't familiar with her, she coached me when I went to play for the Big Ten Foreign Tour. It was nice to see her. We lost to Canada by 13 points that night. After the game we went to eat. Canada took good care of us while we were there.
Thursday was the same routine. We woke up go to walk through, had lunch, relaxed and then played. Since Thursday was our last day, we went out and saw some of the town. It was really nice. We all hung out and got to know each other better. Since we had to leave at 4:30 am to the airport we didn't go to sleep at all. But when we got on the plane I definitely slept. There weren't many people on the plane so I got to sprawl out over three seats and sleep.
We got to Puerto Rico around 4 pm and went to the hotel and relaxed. Over the weekend we actually stayed over in Salinas, which is about an hour from San Juan. It's a training facility for people that want their team to be together and train.
We ate and just hung out together there. After that, we got there and had a scrimmage against a group of guys. We ended up losing. It was definitely a totally different game then playing against girls because they were so much quicker and could jump so much higher. After the game we stood in the gym for a while and watched the guys do competitions. It was kind of like an All-Star thing. There were three-point shooting competitions and a dunk contest.
Then we went back to Salinas where we showered and watched some movies. We ended up leaving for the Dominican Republic on Sunday around 12 pm. We got here around 1 pm. It was a really short flight, like 45 minutes. It was so awesome because when I got here, I got to see two of my aunts and uncle. They were waiting for me at the airport. They brought me chocolates and candy. That right there made my trip, because I haven't seen them in couple of years.
Well, that's it for now, stay tuned for the next update.
