Playing Coach p3

We arrived in St. Johnsbury late on Friday night, having hit traffic on I-95 on the way up. The host family was very accomodating, setting up our parent/chaperone/driver in one room and the rest of the girls in the room behind it. They gave me, as "the coach", a bed in the guest room downstairs. I smiled to myself at the logic behind the arrangement: in order for any "hanky panky" (as my 7th-grade science teacher would have called it), "the coach" would have to walk up a flight of creaky stairs, through the room with the mother, and into the room with all the young girls. I doubt if this was seriously thought out ahead of time, but it struck me as humorous that it worked out that way.

The captains' meeting was scheduled for noon; since we were in bed by midnight, I wasn't too worried about getting enough sleep. In fact, I woke up at 7am with the host family, did a sudoku, and then sat with the mother and her youngest daughter in the living room. We had a nice conversation for almost two hours, at which point I went to wake the girls for breakfast. We had a protracted meal, talking and packing for the day at a leisurely pace, then drove to the fields around 11am. I had the girls do partner throwing while I went to the captains' meeting with Caitlin, where we found out that we had a first-round by. I was frustrated, because this meant that we could have driven up Saturday morning after a decent night's sleep, and it also meant we would have four games in a row on Sunday. With only two subs for a total of 6 games, I would have preferred three each day rather than two and four straight.

C'est la vie, however. We did some straight-up marking drill and then watched our first opponent (Longmeadow) play our third opponent (NMH). They both played exclusively zone, but it was hard to tell whether it was the best strategy--Longmeadow had a good dump-swing going, but couldn't break through the middle, so they would eventually turn it. The wind was a factor, so there was garbage aplenty and NMH was coming down with more of it. Neither team had consistent hucks, but NMH was putting more of them up and they had the height advantage. Both teams had a lot of drop and unforced errors--painful to watch, but not unexpected. At half, we went down to the fields to warm up for our game. Some throwing, where I helped the soph handler and the tall girl with their hucks. Then, a go-to drill while I wondered where Longmeadow was--the game was supposed to start in 2 minutes and they were nowhere. I ran to find them, asked them to get 7 on the line, and said we wouldn't bother with assessing.

I took no notes, but I remember my impressions from each game. Longmeadow had a lot of players, a couple with throws but none that really took over the game. For the whole game, they played only zone D and we played only man D, force-middle. Our dump-swing worked well enough, but really we were effective at moving it up the sideline and breaking through the middle. The poppers found holes, the wings found spaces, and the handlers did a great job of getting it to them and getting it back. We were able to score both up- and down-wind, mostly because our defense forced turns near the endzone. Longmeadow really was not prepared for man-to-man, and there was less wind on the lower field, a great boon for our zone O. We closed out the game 8-3.

Next up was Columbia, a team the girls have played two or three times over the last couple years, as they are the only other nearby women's team. We both played man for much of the game, although CHS threw zone for one point and we worked it right past them. They were led by a very talented player, Judith, who will attend Rutgers next year and play with Shakti (a great pickup for a struggling program). The Judith-Caitlin matchup was fun to watch, with neither player having a clear advantage. Judith seemed to be able to get open pretty effectively underneath, but not at will. She played good dump defense on Caitlin, but couldn't take her out of the game. It was pretty clear that Watchung had stronger supporting players to back Caitlin up, though, and we saw a lot of high-stall turnovers because of our strong defense. Highlight of the tournament: near the end of this game, Judith was on the CHS goal line, forced middle on the backhand sideline. Caitlin handblocks Judith, but her hand hurts too much to pick up, so she calls herself the iso in the endzone. Our soph handler puts out a low forehand, Caitlin lays out--full extension sideways--for the goal. Prettiest 30 seconds of Ultimate I can remember, but she hit her head pretty hard on the landing, and had to sit. The next point, we play great defense and got a lot of blocks and run-through D's (then repeatedly turn it over on the goal line), and one of our freshman scores with a layout. I think we trade points, then we lose the last point, winning at hard cap 12-4.

I had some trouble on Saturday, though, being the coach for Caitlin. I tried to give positive feedback, but not all of my criticism was constructive and I put a lot of pressure on her as the team's captain and best player. I expect a lot, and sometimes my positive comments are not heard, which makes it frustrating for her. On Sunday, I made a more conscious effort to be constructive and to compliment her when she was doing well. Sunday was a more difficult day of Ultimate, however. Our first game against NMH was ugly--they are another zone team, and kept changing the kind of zone they played to confuse our handlers. They tried three-man cup, four-man cup, three-man cup plus a girl permanenetly on Caitlin, and probably something else that I missed. The girls struggled with these different looks, especially when NMH tried to shut down Caitlin and she couldn't stay back to handle. Our dump-swing was less efficient, and there was miscommunication without Caitlin. Plus it was windier that day, making it was harder to go over the top, and we had a lot of drops. Caitlin wanted to try zone D for a point, but they shredded it (like I said, a zone team). So the beginning of the game was rough, and we lost half 4-8. During the second half, we took more of a huck-and-defense strategy, went back to man and started forcing trap rather than middle, once I saw that the NMH throwers had more trouble with it. The punting worked especially well with-wind, and our defense got us enough turnovers that we would eventually work it up against wind as well. NMH tried to come back at us with the punting strategy, but Caitlin poaching in the backfield was too much for them--she was more aggressive than the other girls when the disc went up. So we crawled back into the game, the cap went on, and we scored an upwind break to make it 9-9, double-game-point. We put it in for the win.

Next up was Stuyvesant, a team of many players, most of whom were athletic and had decent throws. They played zone-D, perhaps the most organized zone we had seen yet. Our dump-swing worked well, especially when we broke the mark, but they shut down our downfielders and wouldn't let the handlers gain yards on swings. Add to that a few handblocks trying to break the mark, and our offense was pretty much tied, and we ended up trying to punt again, with less success. On defense, we were not fronting like we should have been, and we had a lot of trouble getting the mark on and forcing the right direction. Since Stuy had a bunch of solid players, they were able to work it right up the field against us. Another big problem for us was fatigue, and I saw Stuyvesant players streaking deep after a turn and only Caitlin running deep with them, the rest of our players lagging or looking around confusedly. We lose 4-11.

But we had upset seed to make second in our pool, putting us in the semi-finals against St. Johnsbury. They have two or three girls taller than 6', and we played the game on the field with the most wind. They played zone. Our dump-and-swing was great when we could get it off, but sometimes the dump would get stuck with the disc and we only lost yards. We broke through the cup fairly well, but could never get any flow once we did--it would go back to a handler, and SJA would push us back again. Punting never worked because of their tall deeps. We played man D again, forcing middle with moderate success. I told the girls to force one of the SJA handlers permanently forehand, because I noticed that her backhand was much stronger and she often turfed the flick. Eventually, we went to permanent force-forehand, but our offense simply wasn't working in the wind, and we ended up getting shut out 0-11.

For the 3/4th place game, we went up against the Canadian team, Sherbrooke. We pulled ahead right away playing zone-D, trying to conserve energy overall by making three girls work hard at a time. We were up 5-2 when Sherbrooke found their dump-swing, and started working it up again. Our deep looks were working well, especially in the beginning, but we had some trouble with endzone offense. Fatigue really hurt us, and our offense overall stagnated. We scored to tie it up at 7-7, double-game point at the cap, but we were pulling against wind and lost 7-8. Overall, I was very proud of how the girls played. It seemed like they improved, but the lack of subs was really rough in later games. Even so, it probably helped early on to have a tight rotation, and I don't know how much better we would have done with more subs. As a coaching experience, I felt the tournament went well for me overall, and I enjoyed myself. I would like to coach. I think I would do it well, especially as I learn more and work out the difficulties I had. It felt good when, after the game against Columbia, one of their mother/spectators told me, "It was a pleasure watching you coach." I got another compliment at some point, too, although I don't remember who it was or what they said. It's definitely something I'd like to pursue in the future.