Coach Donovan continues the campaign to lower expectations.

"I know we won't be the team that won on Oct. 12," she said, "but I want to be close to that in terms of excitement. My fear is that we don't live up to that."

Losing players hurt. "I went into the offseason thinking that we may lose one, maybe two players," Donovan said. "But I didn't expect that teams would go after our bench and offer starter's money."

No Christmas cards for Seth Sulka this year, I'm guessing...