   ON | THE ROAD WITH TOM RYAN  | ||||
| ON | THE ROAD WITH TOM RYAN | ||||
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Greyhounds Headed For the Dance in the Dome
May 13, 2003 Well, the Loyola Greyhounds are on the road to the final four. After knocking off UMBC 18 - 3 at home on Thursday, we took on Yale in the quarterfinals in a Sunday afternoon match up. Fifth year senior Suzanne Eyler scored four in route to a 13 - 7 final. Our head coach Diane Geppi-Aikens who is battling inoperable brain cancer has stepped up her efforts along with Kerri Johnson and the rest of the coaching staff and players. Diane has been confined to a wheel chair since December and is paralyzed on the left side of her body. Nevertheless, she remains our spiritual leader and is a tremendous role model, showing heart and perseverance both on the field and off. We have known for some time what a special group our team is this year, but ever since a Sports Illustrated article broke about a month ago telling about Diane's condition and the team's success we have been bombarded with national and local media.  It started at our game in Syracuse on April 26, and got out of control the following game versus Virginia. We allowed cameras into the locker room to witness our pregame preparations, and what they got was a passionate dance off between Eyler and starting goaltender Kim Lawton. Eyler is well known for her acrobatically spastic dance moves, much like an aerobics instructor on redbull. The dance-off was followed by Caroline Cooper's heartfelt rendition of "Dina Won't You Blow Your Horn," and a duet of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" by Marrianne Gioffre and Eyler as might be performed by AC DC. On-the-field cameramen were in players' faces during our warm-up and even interviewed team members during the drills. We had a two goal lead with 1:30 left and could not hold on as we ended up loosing in regulation with seconds remaining. It was an admirable win for Virginia and a disappointing loss for Loyola. People sometimes say that you need to lose a game during the regular season in order to win a championship. I didn't think so, but it was a wake-up call. We had come to play in all but one game this season and had overcome our tendency in past years to play down to some opponents. We responded to the loss with a sense of urgency both as a coaching staff and team. I know I looked to see what I needed to do better, and I think the team did as well.  Last Saturday we played Maryland in College Park, in our final game of the regular season. We were able to get a handicapped accessible bus and Diane rode down with us for the first time this year. In our other road games, Diane's father John has followed the bus in his car. Film crews rode the bus with us for the first 20 minutes before letting them of at a McDonalds in South Baltimore. This game would be a reversal of Thursday's loss in which we would come back from a three-goal deficit in the final 15:00 minutes and score a goal with 26 seconds to win by one. Eyler took things into her own hands scoring 3 of the final 4 including the winner in heroic fashion. One bystander commented that that game was probably the most covered women's lacrosse game ever with at least 5 different stations covering including CBS and College Sports TV. CBS aired its spot on the CBS evening news with Dan Rather last Friday night.  The Today show has also been following us around for the past week and will be showing its feature on Friday May 16. Chris Connolly and ESPN showed up today and will be with us until the end. Their piece is scheduled to be on Sunday night's Sportscenter which starts at 11pm (May 18). They have asked me if they can use footage I shot with my new video camera in their piece. We are getting ready for a rematch with Princeton at the Final Four Friday night at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, NY. We beat Princeton back on March 9 in Double OT. We are a much different team now and I am sure Princeton is as well, so I expect nothing less than a battle. I've included some pictures I took last month when we traveled to Cali to play Stanford. Check out my website for information on my camp at Ursinus College this summer July 13 - 17. |    
The TR movie "The Delivery Boy" can be seen in short episodes right here on E-Lacrosse! Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 
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