Huck of the Irish

On the drive down, I heard that rounds had been pushed back to noon on Saturday due to rain. When we woke up, we found out that our first round opponent has dropped out. After breakfast, we played a game of mafia and then headed out to cheer on the girls' team at their first game. When we got there, the heavens opened up in a downpour--all games got cancelled. Our coach told us he wanted us to practice anyway, so we warmed up and found a field where several other teams were playing out their games, despite the standing water that had turned the entire field site into a swamp. Even without the rain, the fields would have sucked, but the water was in big splashy puddles that made cutting a slow and arduous process. We did a few drills--deep cutting and defending, encouraging layouts, even after finding a knife on the field--and then scrimmaged against U. Texas-Arlington. It was windy, the fields were a problem, and we were our own problem with numerous drops, poor execution, bad spacing, not running at full speed, etc. We nonetheless went up early, slacked off in the lead, and eventually won 11-8 or something. Then we went back to the hotel, showered, ate, watched "Bring it On" and "Bring it On, Again" and hung out with the girls before going to bed.

Spoiled from sleeping in the day before, plus losing the hour from the clocks changing, we woke up early on Sunday for continental breakfast and a full day of Ultimate (finally). It was much colder on Sunday and even more windy, though less wet. My cleats were still somewhat sodden from Saturday, however, which froze my toes during the warmup. So, our first real game of the tournament was against Pittsburgh-Johnstown, a team with one of the nicest and most spirited players I have had the pleasure of marking up. He also had no problem jacking it deep at every opportunity, right around our marks as we played tight in the first half, keeping it close but going down 6-8. Our spacing was still a problem, and though we cleaned up our handler motion a bit we got blown out in the second half and lost 7-15.

Next up was Air Force, and as a team we stepped it up for this game. We went up fast and early by forcing goal-line turnovers with both man and zone D, scoring easily with endzone offense. I had a bunch of assists this game, because both our man D (when they were against wind) and our zone (when they were with it) were successful--I even caught a callahan goal after pushing them back in the wall and one of their throws bladed up and flew 20ft into the air. We let up a little bit in the second half, but won handily without them scoring more than 4ish. Next up was Drexel, a team that had a lot of trouble against our man D going into the wind and didn't even both trying to work it past our zone--they simply jacked it deep and threw a zone against us every time they got the disc with wind behind them. We would work it up patiently, breaking the cup and hitting open guys all the way up the field before turning it over near the endzone, and they wouldn't even look to move the disc much before punting. Okay, I get that they were trying to play a field-position game, but sometimes they wouldn't even walk it up to the goal line before punting. We had a lot of hell-points because of their strategy, but we kept working it patiently upwind. I moved the disc very well behind the zone--it was not a particularly difficult zone to break, but we broke it often and only turned it over with botched catches (and the occasional throw that got caught in the roaring wind). With wind at our backs, we were much more free to take deep shots--I had a nice hammer assist, Ariel had one of his own, and we often hucked it to guys deep. When it didn't work, we played straight up D. Maybe the wind was a huge help, but we fronted pretty well and rarely got caught with our pants down. I think they may have scored one upwind goal all game, and we won without them scoring more than 4ish.

The team felt like it was starting to come together more than it has yet, which is exciting. We still have a lot of work to do, though, so I'm really looking forward to spring break and the opportunity to practice where it's warm. Also, I'd rather not have Taco Bell after a tournament ever again...my meal kept coming back up into my mouth during the drive home. Not pleasant.