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Oglethorpe Women’s Hoops Takes Game to Italy
ATLANTA – After recording the most successful season in women’s basketball history at Oglethorpe University by storming all the way to the Final Four, the women’s team will now travel from Atlanta to Italy to play some international basketball and brush up on a different type of history: Italian Renaissance art.
The team, along with head coach Ron Sattele, will fly to Rome this coming Thursday and will begin a two-week trek that will take them through Venice, Florence, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast. Along the way, the team will mix some studies in with a few games of basketball as Oglethorpe art professor Dr. Jeffrey Collins will be lecturing on Art and the Italian culture for course credit.
“This is a great opportunity for the team to bond while exploring the treasures of Italian art,” said junior guard Katie Kulavic of Norcross, Georgia. “Plus we get to play a few basketball games against international competition – something I’m really looking forward to,” she added.
The team staged a few fundraisers during the season to help raise money for what promises to be a life-enriching experience. In December, the team signed up over a hundred sponsors for a “free-throw-a-thon” where the women shot free throws into the wee hours of the morning. With each made shot the women added money to the trip funds.
“The free-throw-a-thon worked on a couple of levels for the team,” said head coach Ron Sattele. “First and foremost, it helped us raise the necessary money for the trip to Italy by getting friends of Oglethorpe athletics to support is. Secondly, though, I got to watch the young ladies work on their free-throws for hours on end, which, of course, is great practice for late-game situations.”
Between the on-site lectures on Italian art ranging from Da Vinci to Michelangelo delivered by Dr. Collins, the women will manage to lace up their high-tops and get a taste of semi-pro international basketball. Following a visit to the Guggenheim museum in Venice on May 22, the Stormy Petrels will take the court at Palasport to square off with Virtus Venezia in their first international game.
After traveling to Rome and gazing upon the Sistine Chapel on May 24, the women will suit up to face semi-pro titans Athena Basket in the Stella Azzurra sports hall. The team will then head to the coast to enjoy authentic Italian opera in Sorrento before facing POL Sorrento on the basketball court at Campo della Scuolo Media on May 27.
The team will return to Atlanta on May 29th and will part ways for the summer. Undoubtedly, though, they will be looking to build off their Italian adventure in preparations for the 2008-2009 basketball season which promises to be an exciting one as the Petrels return seven of their top eight players from their Final Four run this season.
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