Mew's Views: Oregon, Here We Come!

Senior midfielder Sam Mewis is back for season two of Mew's Views. Mewis helped lead UCLA to its first-ever NCAA Championship in 2013 and is back for her senior season with the added arsenal of experience playing with the full U.S. Women's National Team under her belt. Mewis, a three-time all-conference player and a 2013 NSCAA Scholar All-West Region selection, has scored 76 points on 25 goals and 26 assists in her UCLA career.

Last Friday was a very special celebration of the senior class. I cannot express the gratitude I feel towards my fellow seniors, underclass teammates, coaching staff, family, and UCLA fans for the incredible evening that was put on for us. The juniors performed one of the funniest and most heartwarming skits, impersonating each of the seniors in a way that only our closest friends could have done successfully. My parents walked me out onto the field before the game. Of the seniors, Caprice Dydasco scored a goal, and Sarah Killion had 2 goals of her own with an additional 2 assists (one of them was to me, and I have never been so happy to score a goal in my life.) Also, Ally Courtnall added in an assist. Darian Jenkins and Taylor Smith finished out the scoring tally.

We continued the celebration on Saturday with all of our parents at the Courtnalls' beautiful house in Westlake Village. We had an awesome dinner and a really fun afternoon with the seniors and their families. I want to thank the Courtnalls for inviting us all over and providing such a great atmosphere for everyone to relax and celebrate our four years together.

The team got back to work on Monday with some fitness at training. We did the running in our platoons, which are four even groups of players divided up for the year. We do lots of activities within these groups, and the winners of the activity earn a “bar” for their platoon. The bars are placed in the shape of a pyramid on posters in the locker room, and the platoon with the most bars at the end of the year wins a prize. I need to give my platoon, Delta, a shout-out for crushing the fitness drill against all adversity. We have decided that average all-around speed is best in this particular drill that we did, and we were very happy to come away with a bar.

It’s been quite the busy week! We are heading to Oregon today for two more tough Pac-12 matchups. We’ll take on the OSU Beavers on Friday night at 7pm in Corvallis, then we’ll travel to Eugene to play University of Oregon on Sunday at 1pm.Classes have really been going this week, as we wrap up Week 3 of our 10-week quarter. I’m thoroughly enjoying a Creative Writing class that I got into, in which we write short stories weekly and share them with the class. I went to a really interesting event at the Hammer Museum on Tuesday night for this class and met and spoke with the executive editor of McSweeney’s Magazine. I’m also taking a Toni Morrison seminar that I have really been getting a lot out of. We just started discussing Beloved and I’m excited to continue with the material! It’s so crazy to think that this is my last quarter here and that these two classes (barring any catastrophe) will be my last at UCLA. I feel like I have learned so much here and am trying to soak in as much knowledge as I can before it’s over.