Assessment

I believe the two most-recent tournaments I have played in, Philly Sportsfest and Nucci's Cup, have given me a fairly good impression of where I stand in club Ultimate. I'd like to take a post to reflect on what I've learned this summer, because I'll be leaving for Florida in less than 6 hours and it will give me a platform from which I can project and plan for the upcoming season. As I have often mentioned, I use a lot of my free time thinking about my game, my involvement, and where I'd like to take both.

At Philly Sportsfest, playing mixed, I found myself starting on both O and D. I can only speculate as to why--I was definitely not the strongest player on the team, but we had few male subs and I was willing to work. I was called as a primary handler, I pulled more often than not, and I was familiar with the strategies we were trying to use. I played O and D about evenly, and usually took myself out after a couple points--it was hot and I was running hard. As mentioned previously, this tournament made me the most sore I had ever been after only one day, and I was cramping up during points for the first time in my life (though I never cramped to the point where I had to stop playing, only felt the muscle twitch and then release). My warmup before games was marginal. I felt in the zone for the first game and played smart offense for most of the tournament, but found myself making more throwing errors later in the day.

At Nucci's Cup, we had a help-yourself rotation for PT. I favored offense, but again played both about evenly. I was simply more inclined to stay on for an O point, sometimes because I wanted to redeem myself and often because I felt better about offense, like I could do my job well on O. Again, I was a primary handler, picking up the disc more than anybody else by the end of the first day and through the second. I only pulled when Brian Jin was not on the field, because his pulls were superior. I threw most of the hucks, and my completion percentage was somewhat satisfactory for the competitiveness of the MBASNY. I found it more difficult to break the mark, mostly because the guys who were guarding me were usually taller than I am. I tended to not guard the other team's best player, which is something I have tried to do at summer league, simply because I was not the strongest defender on Metro.

What it seems to come down to is what you might expect. I can contribute significantly to a mid-tier club team, but I'm not ready to step into elite club. In order to be a competitor, I would need to improve my athleticism--something I am gearing up for after my last injury (my wrist still bruises easily, btw). This would also help the second obstacle I face: throwing choices. I can play conservative and I can play risky, but I haven't found a definite niche yet that balances risk with reward. I feel my decisions on the field are undermined when I play too many points in a row, so sprint-recover endurance will help, but I still need experience against tough opponents. I definitely need to improve the consistency of my hucks, and I'd also like to develop their range; I feel like I can put it mostly where I want it, but need to cover a greater distance and do it at will if I want to be a threat in the club scene. On defense, I need to keep challenging myself to take harder matchups.

Soon, I'll be back at school and practicing with Machine. I'll be playing in the club series, hopefully at open sectionals and mixed regionals. I believe that club experience is integral to my ultimate goal, so I feel that overall, this summer has been fairly successful for me. I have maintained a generic conditioning base, though it has been uncoordinated and lackadaisical at times, and I have sought out higher competition. Within the next few weeks, I'm going to draw the lines a little more clearer for the path I intend to follow to College Nationals.