Amy
Kraus has been one off CFHC most
talented players over the past few tournaments. With un-relenting
stamina and an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the
right time, Amy has proven herself to be one of our most deadly
attacking players. Having coached Girls Field hockey and always
being dedicated to the game, it comes with no suprise that Amy
was selected to represent a Select Jewish U.S.A team to tour Isreal.
Such was the hectic pace of Amy’s preperation for the tour that
very few of us at CFHC had the oppertunity to wish her luck and
keep up with her experiences. Luckily however Amy has been keeping
intouch from Israel. Below you will find updates from Amy from
Israel.
Update
11th July 2005
Hi
All,
Well
I have been here for almost two weeks now and it is AMAZING! We
have been super busy with traveling through out Israel and practicing
that I have been unable to write until now.
Our
first week here we stayed in Kafar, in a hotel with all the "older"
teams "Open" teams and it was a blast. No sleep up all
night and hard practices in the early morning and long days traveling.
We
shared a bus with the Men's open Rugby team for a week and it
was a lot of fun--too much fun at times. We got stuck in
a small village with our bus having a water leak but luckily there
was a bar next to the gas station and we got to hang out there
for three hours until we made our way back to Kafar returning
around 3-4 AM. We quickly got to bond with each other and
the Rugby team.
We
are now staying in Natanya a beautiful small beach town about
a half hour outside of Tel-Aviv. We are in a really disgusting
hotel with cockroaches and broken water pipes, but we are barely
in the hotel it is ok. We practice in the mornings and play
during the days now not too much to do sine it is about 90-100
here every day. The hotel is right near the Mediterranean
and it is beautiful. WE have met a lot of new people from
all over the world and making new friends. WE had our Opening
ceremonies to day and they lasted 8 hours! It was too long,
but really fun and exciting.
Our
first game is this Wednesday at 6pm since we either play early
in the am or late n the day because of the heat. So think
of me and my team wish us luck!
The
team is coming together and we have had a lot of fun together
and so we hope to play well and are excited for the upcoming games.
I
was selected as a Capitan for our team which is a great honor
and privilege which I was happy to be selected. The team
looks good, we play well together and have come a long way since
our first time playing together two weeks ago in the Bronx tournament.
There
is a lot to tell and right now it is about 3 in the AM so I need
to get some rest since I was out until about 5-6 this morning-or
rather yesterday morning with my roommate and friends.
I
hope every body is doing well and that things back home are going
well.
Take
care and once we have our first game I will let you all know what
happened!
Amy
Update
17th July 2005
Hi
Everybody,
I
hope you all are doing well. I hope that all the people
are getting this e-mail that I told I would include, but since
I had trouble setting up a list I have to go through and get the
names from my address book and do it one by one. So, that being
said, if you know of anybody that I may have forgotten please
let them know it was not intentional.
So,
we have played three games so far. The first game we played
was against the Netherlands, Dutch girls who beat us 5-0.
It was a hard first game we had to get our jitters out and then
play a very good team.
We
then played our second game on Friday at 9:30 against Australia
in the morning which was early but we came together as a team
and played much better even though we ended in a draw (tie) 2-2.
We scored first ( I had the first goal) then they got a stroke
-which is like a penalty shot in soccer one on one with the goalie
basically with one change to get it in one touch. They scored
on the first stroke. Then it was 1-1. Then we scored
again( I scored the second goal as well) and once again with about
4 minutes left they got another stroke and they scored on
that. It was a much better game since the only way they
scored was on strokes where we came down the field and scored
"real" game goals.
This
game left us going into this morning’s game 4th. So, this
morning bright and early at 6:00 we left for the field and our
game began at 7:30 AM. We played South Africa. Since
it was an early game and out side our hotel is always a big party
some of us did not sleep as well as we would have liked since
the noise kept us up, so we started of a bit slow but we scored
( Jill scored this goal) first after a good fight for the ball
in the circle. The South African team started to get a bit
tough but we as a team woke up and brought it to them. The
second goal for the team was right before half time and it was
a great shot into the circle and I tipped it into the goal around
their goalie, who is also their Coach! So, now we are up
2-0 and the SA team started to fall apart, they were bitching
to each other and they mentally were lost. We played a hard
first half (35 minutes) and then the second half was tiring.
Unfortunately we had an injury to one of my team mates; she may
have broken her hand/arm. So at half time she told me she
wanted me to score a goal for her and so, it the
first two minutes of the second half as luck would have it I took
the ball from mid field and ran down the field and shot
and it went in! So, that goal goes to my team mate Leora.
So, we then were up 3-0!!! We let down with four minutes
in the end of the game most of us playing for the whole game
which kicked my butt, but had to be done, and they scored 1 goal.
It was not a very good goal, and we still WON!
We are now in SECOND place for the tournament. This means
when we play next on Tuesday we will be playing in the semi's
going in 2nd!! We have a chance to win a medal and as a team we
are SO EXCITED!!!
For
those who asked that I score goals for them I am trying my very
best and have only two more games here. You all can fight
out which goal is for you, but so you know since my parents are
here with me they are receiving one and my teammate Leoracertainly
will get one. The rest of you can fight it out and
let me know what you decide :)
Anyway,
we are going today as a team to a SPA for some R & R before
we go out and celebrate the win today, the goals and the fact
that we are in medal contention for second!!
Hope
everything is going well with everyone and I can't wait to see
all of you.
Take
care and I will update you after our next game on Tuesday at 7:30
again in the AM!!
I
also want to thank all of you for all of the support you have
given me through out this adventure. I am having the time
of my life and am glad I am here.
Lots
of love,
Amy
#13 -It is usually an unlucky # but I was 13 in High school and
since we don't have enough #'s to go to 26 this was what I wanted.
For those of you know my superstition about numbers 13 is LUCKY!
