By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– Blanchet Catholic’s Rebecca O’Dell has been battling through a lower back injury since the 3A/2A/1A Special District 2 Conference Title game against Dayton this past Spring.
Some days are better than others, but she’s still finding ways in making it happen to help her team come gameday as O’Dell and the Cavaliers played their 12th game of the season Monday afternoon.
“It’s just kind of like tolerance,” O’Dell describes the injury. “I’ve just built tolerance to it and now I just need one-or-two breaks. It used to be like I’ve sat the whole game, but it’s gotten better and that’s all that matters to me that I can play on it.”
O’Dell struck in the first half against Taft in the Cavs 1-0 victory in the first game of the week for both teams. There were opportunities for Blanchet following O’Dell’s goal, O’Dell having a few nice runs herself trying to help the Cavaliers try to build onto their lead, but the victory was nice coming off their tough 2-0 loss to Amity/Western Christian on Wednesday.
“We really needed that, especially coming off of our loss to Amity. That kind of hit us hard, so this was definitely good for our self-esteem,” O’Dell said of the win. “(Defensively) I think we did pretty good. We had a couple of moments, but they’re going to happen. We had a couple almost finishes from our other forwards, but I think we did really well tonight.”
The win snapped their two-game skid with Gervais coming to town Thursday for a 4:15pm game before Blanchet travels to Yamhill-Carlton to close out the regular season on October 21.
And the key to success to close out the regular season with momentum comes down to their mental approach to each game.
“I think we just need to stop getting into our heads because we tend to look at stats a lot, including myself, I look at stats…and that’s not what it is. It’s who wants it more and who finishes and that’s how the game is,” O’Dell said.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
