We Talkin' 'bout Practice

A couple weeks ago, before we started holding rookies practices, we had a returner practice. I'd been looking forward to it for a while but somehow didn't consider how different it would be without last year's big dogs (Sir Robin, Meeko, Ferris, and Guano) on the field. Meeko was actually there, but as a coach so it wasn't the same. It didn't take long before I realized that I would have to play a part in running the show, especially once we split into teams to scrimmage. Tambler split us up into four teams so we could have two scrimmages going on at once. I found myself on a team of cutters, so I handled for the whole scrimmage other than one point that Zazu offered to step in and let me cut. However unbalanced we were, I was happy with my team. Hannah had taken a year off, which she spent abroad in Israel and Spain, but she jumped into a spread offense she'd never seen before and consistently got open on the first cut for me. For the first day of practice, our flow was fantastic. We had way less drops than I had expected, and even though my team lacked solid throwers, each player was confident enough to throw a continue once they got the disc down field. I didn't expect to get any first possession scores but we did and I had little to do with it. The outcomes of our scrimmages were interesting. My team beat Joule's team handily and Bonds' team beat Loryn's team, but then Loryn's team killed my team and Joule's team beat Bonds'. Either we're just really inconsistent or else props to Tambler for splitting up our teams evenly.

We've had two rookie practices and they've both been a lot of fun. I haven't learned close to all the rookies' names yet, but the ones I have gotten to know seem like they're going to be great additions to the program. Some of them seem pretty dedicated to learning how to play- five of them even came out to throw with me on Friday and are already throwing acceptable forehands. Our scrimmages have been messy, as expected, but looked like a real game of ultimate at select moments. I'm excited to see how they improve over the next week before our first tournament this weekend and how the younger returners step up.