Bell Crack

My first Mixed Club experience. I think this was one of the most enjoyable tournament experiences I have had yet. I've joined up with NYNJA, a team with some players I know from Rutgers or summer league, plus some injured kid from Hofstra (what a goofball). I was really excited to play on the same team as Caitlin again, and it was good to see mixed Ultimate where the girls made a big impact on the game. In summer league, I've only played 6-1 and (rarely) 5-2, where the men will often look off the women and a girl will only influence the game if she has a big advantage over the other team's girl. Most of the teams this weekend, however, seemed to use their women effectively, although the men were typically the handlers and would admittedly get the disc much more often. We swept most of our opponents on Saturday, lost to Harpoon but still won the pool by point differential. In the game against Harpoon and both games on Sunday (Crafty and Bashing Pinatas, respectively), we really seemed to suffer from mental problems--bad drops, throwaways, miscommunication, and in general not playing like a team. Which makes sense, given that it was a tryout tournament. Even so, I'm pretty excited about playing with this team, and hopefully it will push me, along with Skylands and (occasionally) MCUDL A-league, to become a better player.

I noticed that Club, even Mixed Club, is hard. The better opponents had some fairly tall guys, and I'm merely average. My legs felt really good, but I feel like I am not as fast as I can be, and summer conditioning should help with that. I think I had one drop and two throwaways on Saturday, but three assists (one to Caitlin!), two goals, and four D's put me at +6 for the day. Sunday was less inspiring, with only one goal to compensate for one drop and a bunch of poor throws--almost all of them were catchable, but they weren't easy passes you could expect the receiver to catch. My goal was exciting, though: the huck went up to a female teammate covered by a Crafty woman, and I sprinted from much farther back to catch any garbage from the expected D. I surprised myself, though, got to the disc in time and snatched the disc simultaneously with the Crafty chick. We landed, I said "tie goes to the offense" and made, according to spectators, a "guilty" face. She acquiesed, I got heckled for skying a girl, but it was my point and it was fun. I also won pokey against Adam from BeaconHS/SUNY-Albany/Bashing Pinatas, a friend whose teams seem to keep beating mine. When we matched up during this game, though, I didn't let him get the disc and he didn't stop me for the few points we played together.

Oh, and it didn't rain buckets like they said it would. Beautiful weather, phenomenal fields, and a great tournament overall.