Los Angeles, California!!!



Kelsey Durichko, Alexis Kemper, Danielle Day,
Megan Andres, Marisa Thomas and Coach Emans at
Casa Vega.

Alexis Kemper, '14

Hey everyone! My name is Alexis and I am a second year player to the Hiram women’s basketball team. Hopefully everyone had an exciting and relaxing winter break and I’m here to share our team’s whereabouts over the holidays. As a team, we traveled to Los Angeles, California! Even though we stayed in Anaheim, most of our activities were spread throughout the Los Angeles area. For some, this was their first time traveling to California and even flying which made the trip even more exciting. Everyday we had an excursion planned as well as a practice or game. We visited many familiar sites such as Rodeo Drive, Laguna Beach, Sea World, Downtown Disney, and even USC’s campus and basketball arena. As a team, we were able to take a downtown tour of Hollywood, which personally, was the highlight for me of the trip. We saw many restaurants and clubs that were popular to many celebrities and even movie scenes! Half of our group, including myself, visited the famous Pink’s Hot Dogs and it was definitely as good as everyone writes about! Many of us wanted to spot celebrities and we successfully did! Lisa Leslie was one that especially hit home for a lot of us. We were able to watch the Women’s USC game against Stanford where we saw her! I think this was really inspiring and exciting for a lot of us because we watched her play basketball as we were growing up. Although we weren’t as successful as we wanted to be as far as games go, I think we experienced a lot of great competition and positive things to take away from our two teams we played in Cali. I think it was awesome that many of our families were able to travel with us and experience all the great things we did while we were there. It was definitely an experience I will never forget!

Team at Casa Vega, authentic Mexican Restaurant

Brenna Host, Kelsey Koskinen, Amy Geisman,
Tiffany Shields and Calysia Smyers at Casa Vega.

The famous Chinese Theatre!

Jasmine Kellom, Taylor Ratliff, Amy Geisman, Lindsay
Buckner, Sam Morford, Bridgette Click,
Emily Smerchansky, Amanda Petrusky, Chelsea Kovach.

Coach Preston, Marisa Thomas, Emily Smerchansky,
Chelsea Kovach and Amy Geisman with Lisa Leslie!!

Group photo following the Stanford v. USC game
at the Galen Center, many souvenirs made the trip back
to Ohio!