Tim Edmunds Memorial

Before the recap, I'll just say that I took Monday off from lifting because I was very tired. I moved Monday's workout to Tuesday, then skipped Tuesday's workout altogether. I was too tired for quads and hamstrings today, especially after staying up til 4am (it was Jay's birthday). Alright, here's the recap.

Saturday, Game one: Princeton
We approached the game with a mixture of "let's beat the rivals" and "let's focus on our strategy, regardless of who we are playing." I don't want to say very much about this game, other than the following: our defense was poor, because we have not worked on it yet, and our offense was poor, because it requires coordinated movement, which we did not have. This was many a rookie's first game ever, so they were not really prepared. Our returners (including myself) also gave up the disc on dumps, and that sucked. Really. Okay, enough.

Game two: George Washington
The returners did a much better job of holding on to the disc, and we started to pull down some of the bullshit as well. They gave us the disc back a lot, probably because they were playing their rookies as well. So we got lucky on some ill-timed deep throws, played more conservative on offense, and got a little more aggressive on D. Lost 8-12, which I think is fairly respectable.

Game three: Lehigh
Always fun to play Lehigh. They threw in mostly their rookies, including J. Katzen from Watchung and a couple girls. We stayed almost even, then near the end of the game they played all-returner lines and brought it to universe point, which we lost. During this game, I think I skied somebody, got skied by somebody, and played about average on the whole. I had some nice hucks. When covering the pull near the end of the game, I was sprinting down and some Lehigh guy named Kahn turned and rammed his chin into my face. My lip started bleeding, it was very unpleasant. I think we scored to make it universe, and I think they scored without turning it over, but with some stupid throw where they got lucky. Honestly, I'm really hazy about what happened. As usual. Lost 12-13.

Game four: Swarthmore
Crossover game (i.e. prequarters). Even with our half-rookie lines, we stepped up and took control of the game. Our new guys started having much better cuts, and they played some really tight man defense--especially once we introduced straight-up mark. Our offense was pretty sweet as well, and I had more buttery hucks. I played pretty well this game. We won 11-8.

Sunday, Game five: Salisbury
It was windy, they went on a run in the beginning because our offense started off on the wrong foot. Then they played zone, but we worked it up and scored anyway, mostly thanks to our poppers Jay and Paul. Greg didn't play this game, so I was in for almost every point. We started pulling back into the game in the second half, capitalizing on their mistakes and forcing some turnovers with decent defense. We still had problems with O, though, and ended up losing 8-12. Not as bad as losing to Salisbury B, though, like last year. I was content.

Game six: Rutgers Y and Rutgers X combine and lost to Columbia U, 9-15. We still played half returner, half rookie lines. I think we could have won this game. We gave them the disc too easily. I didn't really play well. Not a great way to end the tournament, but overall the weekend was successful in that we got the new players lots of experience. I think they got a taste of how hard it is to go toe to toe with other teams. I was really really sore by the end of it, just drained. I also got sunburned, which sucked. But I feel alright about where the team is, and good about where the team is headed.