1. Ultra
2. Archie
3. Penny
4. Slush
5. Dada
6. DK
7. Tidal
8. Carolyn
9. Ashley
10. Mahi
11. Imli
12. Agave
13. Kacto
14. Cosmo
15. Dwade
16. Godiva
17. Cuervo
18. Beesly
19. Ziggy
20. Austen
21. Ferris
22. Bonds
23. Loryn
24. Gryllz
25. Joule
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Psycho Season Recap (Part 3 of 3)
After our Centex debacle, we were pleased to still be seeded fourth at Sectionals. It was on our home turf and ten bids to Regionals were up for grabs, so there wasn’t a lot on the line. We were playing for a good seed at Regionals and our pride. We kicked off the tournament with a game against Claremont, who beat us in Austin but was playing without Junior Worlds handler Erika Baken. Claremont had big threats in Carny and Bayliss, who are both smart players that have an advantage in size, but we played confidently and won 11-7. Our next game was against San Diego State, competing in their first College Series. Their style of play was more aggressive than ours but we displayed superior composure and took an easy 13-1 victory. Afterward, we played Occidental and were able to outrun them for an 11-3 win. Nicole Copti made some good plays, but they came in without many subs and they were clearly tired. Our last game of the day was against UCLA, the top seed in our pool. The wind had picked up and the field was rotated 90 degrees from the other fields we had been playing on, creating a clear upwind and downwind. We started off well, going up 3-2, but struggled offensively for the rest of the game. Both teams suffered from many uncharacteristic turnovers, most of which the wind played a part in, but UCLA was able to score upwind when we failed to and we fell 5-7 in hard cap. We took on Long Beach State in the last round of pool play on Sunday. Since we were tied for second in our pool, only the winner of this game would move into the championship bracket. The loser would lose their shot at a top four finish. Guano faced off against her younger sister, Igloo, and showed her that she still had a few things to learn. Long Beach State kept us on our toes, but we hammered out a 9-7 win and moved on to a semifinals game against future College Champions, UCSB. Like our game against UCLA, we scored first, but after trading the first few points, it was all downhill. UCSB was in much better shape than we were, one of several reasons why we just couldn’t hang with them. Ferris hurt her shoulder on a bid in the endzone and spent the second half with the trainer. We lost 7-15 and dropped down into the third place bracket for a rematch against Claremont, this time playing with Baken. They shocked us by taking the lead in the beginning of the game, and forced to claw our way back into it. We came back from a sizable deficit to tie the game as the end approached. An impressive lay out block in the endzone by from Ferris kept us in the game when it looked dicey, but on double game point, Claremont won on a deep shot. The final score was 13-14. When we were standing on the line before game point, we heard UCLA explode in celebration for their upset win over UCSB, which give them the So Cal Section title. I was really happy for them, but it was hard to show it after our game since I was upset with our loss. We played Long Beach again for fifth in a game no one really cared about. My knee had been progressively hurting more and more since halftime of the Claremont game, so I sat out for this game. Score Reporter says we won 15-10. Finishing fifth in Sectionals when we knew we needed to get fourth at Regionals was a blow to our confidence, but somehow it earned us the Sports Club of the Week award. That’s how well they understand what’s going on with us.
We spent the week before Regionals pumping each other up with “Eye of the Psycho” necklaces, motivational emails, and nearly a mullet haircut. Regionals were in Colorado and we knew it would be cold. Most of us fitted ourselves out with clothes that would keep us warm, knowing that living in San Diego hasn’t prepares us well for the cold. In the morning on Saturday, we found out that our pool had some minor changes, and instead of playing Midas first, we would play Cal Poly SLO. It was an easy game and we were able to get away with some sloppy play and still cruise to a 17-5 victory. I had a lot of trouble dealing with my cold, stiff hands and had more drops in the first half than I would have liked to have all day, but I was able to cut it out later on. Once we were warmed up, big plays came out of young and older players alike. Playing in what she knew could be the last tournament of her college career, Meeko was a huge mark. She caused several turnovers through handblocks and eliciting bad throws by shutting down the thrower’s options. Meeko was stunning on offense as well, keeping her composure as a thrower despite breezy conditions, and punching in score after score. This is most likely the reason why she wasn’t heckled nearly enough for wearing a glove. This game gave us a chance to adjust to the cold Colorado weather and get warmed up to play UCSB. I knew my knee was a time bomb and I anticipated would give me trouble at the end of the day, hopefully only on Sunday, but I started feeling the pain during our first game. Knowing it would only get worse, I spent an outrageous amount of time rolling out my IT band throughout the day and took a bunch of Ibuprofen. UCSB is clearly the top team in the Southwest region and had a virtual lock to go to Nationals, despite their shocking second place finish at Sectionals. Our next game was our third matchup with them of the season, so we had a good idea of what would be required of us to contend with them, but weren’t going down without a fight. We began the game up 2-0, but UCSB was unfazed and tied the game up at two points apiece. During the next point, UCSB was nearing the endzone when they threw a high swing pass and Guano jumped up for a D. She got tangled up in the UCSB player and fell to the ground in pain. The trainers evaluated her and diagnosed a bad knee sprain with a possible partial LCL tear. Guano would not return for the rest of the weekend, an enormous loss for us since we relied a great deal on her to handle in the unfavorable weather. Later, her doctors diagnosed her with a torn ACL, a huge setback for someone with such an active lifestyle, but she pushed herself in the following months with her physical therapy and was able to recover remarkably fast. As the game carried on, UCSB ran us to the ground with their superior fitness level, making deep cut after deep cut and moving the disc around with ease. As they tired our starters out, they were able to substitute additional strong players and proved that they were the deeper team. The final score was 7-16, which placed us second in our pool of three. We spent our bye scouting the game between USC and Claremont, knowing that we would face the loser of this game in the first round of bracket play. Claremont strategically rested their strongest players during this game and sacrificed a big loss to USC in a game they decided they didn’t have a shot at winning in order to be at their best when they faced us. This tactic proved to be beneficiary, since our game was indeed hard fought and came down to the wire. Kacto was a force to be reckoned with on defense, letting nothing get past her and never looking tired. Sir Robin had spectacular puts all day and Meeko’s long pulls gave us solid field position time after time. In the end, we got our revenge on Claremont. This 12-10 win placed us in the second place bracket, and was their last game of the day. In one of the semifinals games on Saturday, Colorado surprised UCLA with a one-point win and secured their bid to Nationals, which unfortunately meant that we would be matched up against top-seeded UCLA on Sunday instead of Colorado as we expected. Our teams seemed well matched as we traded points in the beginning of the game, but UCLA pulled away with five straight points and took half 8-4. We surged back to bring the score to 10-11, but UCLA found a weak link in our man-on-man defense and scored on a pass to the open side in the back corner of the endzone on game point and won 12-10. This loss moved us down into the fourth place bracket, which meant that one more loss would eliminate us from Nationals. Long Beach State was the next hurdle we needed to surmount on the track we hoped would lead us to Nationals. Tambler let me sit out this game to save me for our upcoming important games since I was hurting a lot. What was a sunny morning turned into a gloomy, windy afternoon. Once again, sloppy play drew out the game longer than it had to be, but we pulled it together in the end and took a relatively easy victory. In our ensuing game, we faced off against Claremont for the fifth time of the season. We had each beat the other twice, but both teams were thinking more about earning a spot in the “game to go” than their pride, as the winner of this game would have to win just one more game to make it to Nationals. The wind had picked up between games and played a huge role. We broke out our four-man cup and had great success with it. Joule’s mark frustrated even the most seasoned handlers by trapping them on the sideline and not allowing them to swing the disc back across the field. Ferris threw some incredibly accurate hucks to Joule in the gusty wind and repeatedly shut down Claremont’s strongest cutter on defense. We won the game 9-4, but long points with numerous turnovers our legs down before our last and most important game. Everything we’d worked for this season came down to our final game against USC, who had just lost to UCLA by a larger margin than we had earlier that day. The rain began to fall ominously as USC jumped out ahead, scoring the first couple points and making us look confused and tired. We wouldn’t give up that easy though. We scored a couple points, but never cut too far into USC’s lead. Each team played a zone defense that cut off most upfield throws, but USC was able to rely on the athleticism of Lindsey Cross and a few other key players when they did get a longer throw off. Loryn was instrumental in working the disc around through USC’s zone and Ferris made crazy grabs all over the field and in both endzones, helping us produce a slight comeback, but it wasn’t enough. USC ended the game with a score to the front, left side of the endzone and their sidelines erupted onto the field as we walked off drenched and crushed.
Despite the devastation of having our goal within grasp and then seeing it fall away, we did accomplish a great deal over the season. Only a year after our suspension, we made a run at Nationals, which few outsiders expected from us. Next year, we should have a few less doubters, but also higher expectations of ourselves.
We spent the week before Regionals pumping each other up with “Eye of the Psycho” necklaces, motivational emails, and nearly a mullet haircut. Regionals were in Colorado and we knew it would be cold. Most of us fitted ourselves out with clothes that would keep us warm, knowing that living in San Diego hasn’t prepares us well for the cold. In the morning on Saturday, we found out that our pool had some minor changes, and instead of playing Midas first, we would play Cal Poly SLO. It was an easy game and we were able to get away with some sloppy play and still cruise to a 17-5 victory. I had a lot of trouble dealing with my cold, stiff hands and had more drops in the first half than I would have liked to have all day, but I was able to cut it out later on. Once we were warmed up, big plays came out of young and older players alike. Playing in what she knew could be the last tournament of her college career, Meeko was a huge mark. She caused several turnovers through handblocks and eliciting bad throws by shutting down the thrower’s options. Meeko was stunning on offense as well, keeping her composure as a thrower despite breezy conditions, and punching in score after score. This is most likely the reason why she wasn’t heckled nearly enough for wearing a glove. This game gave us a chance to adjust to the cold Colorado weather and get warmed up to play UCSB. I knew my knee was a time bomb and I anticipated would give me trouble at the end of the day, hopefully only on Sunday, but I started feeling the pain during our first game. Knowing it would only get worse, I spent an outrageous amount of time rolling out my IT band throughout the day and took a bunch of Ibuprofen. UCSB is clearly the top team in the Southwest region and had a virtual lock to go to Nationals, despite their shocking second place finish at Sectionals. Our next game was our third matchup with them of the season, so we had a good idea of what would be required of us to contend with them, but weren’t going down without a fight. We began the game up 2-0, but UCSB was unfazed and tied the game up at two points apiece. During the next point, UCSB was nearing the endzone when they threw a high swing pass and Guano jumped up for a D. She got tangled up in the UCSB player and fell to the ground in pain. The trainers evaluated her and diagnosed a bad knee sprain with a possible partial LCL tear. Guano would not return for the rest of the weekend, an enormous loss for us since we relied a great deal on her to handle in the unfavorable weather. Later, her doctors diagnosed her with a torn ACL, a huge setback for someone with such an active lifestyle, but she pushed herself in the following months with her physical therapy and was able to recover remarkably fast. As the game carried on, UCSB ran us to the ground with their superior fitness level, making deep cut after deep cut and moving the disc around with ease. As they tired our starters out, they were able to substitute additional strong players and proved that they were the deeper team. The final score was 7-16, which placed us second in our pool of three. We spent our bye scouting the game between USC and Claremont, knowing that we would face the loser of this game in the first round of bracket play. Claremont strategically rested their strongest players during this game and sacrificed a big loss to USC in a game they decided they didn’t have a shot at winning in order to be at their best when they faced us. This tactic proved to be beneficiary, since our game was indeed hard fought and came down to the wire. Kacto was a force to be reckoned with on defense, letting nothing get past her and never looking tired. Sir Robin had spectacular puts all day and Meeko’s long pulls gave us solid field position time after time. In the end, we got our revenge on Claremont. This 12-10 win placed us in the second place bracket, and was their last game of the day. In one of the semifinals games on Saturday, Colorado surprised UCLA with a one-point win and secured their bid to Nationals, which unfortunately meant that we would be matched up against top-seeded UCLA on Sunday instead of Colorado as we expected. Our teams seemed well matched as we traded points in the beginning of the game, but UCLA pulled away with five straight points and took half 8-4. We surged back to bring the score to 10-11, but UCLA found a weak link in our man-on-man defense and scored on a pass to the open side in the back corner of the endzone on game point and won 12-10. This loss moved us down into the fourth place bracket, which meant that one more loss would eliminate us from Nationals. Long Beach State was the next hurdle we needed to surmount on the track we hoped would lead us to Nationals. Tambler let me sit out this game to save me for our upcoming important games since I was hurting a lot. What was a sunny morning turned into a gloomy, windy afternoon. Once again, sloppy play drew out the game longer than it had to be, but we pulled it together in the end and took a relatively easy victory. In our ensuing game, we faced off against Claremont for the fifth time of the season. We had each beat the other twice, but both teams were thinking more about earning a spot in the “game to go” than their pride, as the winner of this game would have to win just one more game to make it to Nationals. The wind had picked up between games and played a huge role. We broke out our four-man cup and had great success with it. Joule’s mark frustrated even the most seasoned handlers by trapping them on the sideline and not allowing them to swing the disc back across the field. Ferris threw some incredibly accurate hucks to Joule in the gusty wind and repeatedly shut down Claremont’s strongest cutter on defense. We won the game 9-4, but long points with numerous turnovers our legs down before our last and most important game. Everything we’d worked for this season came down to our final game against USC, who had just lost to UCLA by a larger margin than we had earlier that day. The rain began to fall ominously as USC jumped out ahead, scoring the first couple points and making us look confused and tired. We wouldn’t give up that easy though. We scored a couple points, but never cut too far into USC’s lead. Each team played a zone defense that cut off most upfield throws, but USC was able to rely on the athleticism of Lindsey Cross and a few other key players when they did get a longer throw off. Loryn was instrumental in working the disc around through USC’s zone and Ferris made crazy grabs all over the field and in both endzones, helping us produce a slight comeback, but it wasn’t enough. USC ended the game with a score to the front, left side of the endzone and their sidelines erupted onto the field as we walked off drenched and crushed.
Despite the devastation of having our goal within grasp and then seeing it fall away, we did accomplish a great deal over the season. Only a year after our suspension, we made a run at Nationals, which few outsiders expected from us. Next year, we should have a few less doubters, but also higher expectations of ourselves.
Friday, November 27, 2009
BRO Life
We won CSULB No Regrets' first year tournament, BRO Life (Best Regret Of your Life) a long time ago, but I’ve been lazy with this blog and not posted about it. We mainly played in this tournament to support Igloo and Long Beach State in their effort to get it going, but ended up having an amazing time and coming away as champs. Our plan was to send an all-returner team, and thought we talked UCLA into doing the same thing, but UCLA dropped out of the tournament a few days prior to it. We came in as the top seed, and unlike the round robin format of the UCLA One Day Tournament allowed us to, we could play to win this tournament. First things came first though.
We decided to get all bro'd out. This meant sporting muscle tees, headbands, bro hats, and most importantly, a bro attitude. No one on our team took warming up too seriously, so we strolled up with Robit blasting the Space Jam theme song a half hour before the first round game against SDSU, cleated up, took a quick lap, and huddled up. In the first couple points, it was clear which team warmed up for an hour and which team brought four discs. They went up 3-1 and then we realized this tournament wouldn’t be a walk in the park and we would actually have to play hard to win. We buckled down and started playing our own game. It didn’t take long for us to catch up and pull ahead. Somewhere in between our mini comeback and winning the game, a girl on SDSU bid for a disc intended for me and instead hit me around the knees and flipped me over. I held on to the disc but landed hard on my head and can't remember much of the end of this game or the next. We played Cal Poly Pomona and won, probably by a lot. They're a first year team led by two third year girls that used to play with the men's team. Our third game was against Long Beach. We always have fun playing them and this was no exception. They gave their rookies a lot of playing time, so the number of times Igloo broke me inside was minimized. Cuervo was a D machine in this game. She just wouldn't let up. I’d never really played with her before, so I didn’t expect this and she blew me away. My play of the game was a face plant from tripping on my girl's cleats. I think
Igloo thought about that and laughed at me every time she saw me for the next two days. I’m not sure what the final score was, but we won handily. Our last game matched us up against the second seed, Cal Poly SLO. They came out pumped up when we weren't and went up by a lot in the beginning. Then they took half 7-2 or 7-3. Our end wasn't pretty and they were playing well. I don't know any of their names, but they had one player that was making great decisions with the disc and seemed like seasoned. However many rookies they had out there weren't getting in the way or disrupting their flow. We mustered up a little bit of a comeback, probably because they were low on subs as well, but it wasn't enough and we lost 8-12 on hard cap.
On Sunday, we were down three players (Tidal, Ritz, and Mahi) but were up two (Penny and Kacto) with fresh legs. In our first game against Redlands, our play looked clean again. We quickly won 13-3 and had plenty of time to watch the Cal Poly SLO - SDSU game unfold. SDSU was down by
two and pulled it back to a tie, but then lost by two. Cal Poly SLO would be the first seed, we were second, SDSU was third, and Long Beach was third (they had the same record, but SDSU won the head-to-head matchup). If SDSU had won that game, it would have been a three way tie for first and would have come down to point differentials, which would have either gone our way, putting us in first and matching us up against Long Beach in the semis, or come out the same as it did. We played better in our semis game than we did in our first game against State. Loryn threw scores over and over again and was so good that I’m fairly certain they called timeouts entirely to talk about how they could minimize her damage. We won 13-7 and moved onto the finals. I've made it to quarters at Pres Day, semis in DUDE, and the C-Bracket finals at Lei Out, but I've never actually won an ultimate tournament, so I was ready to tear it up. It was a fun game, mostly because I love winning. We jumped out to a 4-0 lead before they scored, but I didn't feel comfortable until we took half 7-1. It was a really tiring game since most of us had to play nearly every point, but we pushed through and it was completely worth it. Since Loryn threatened to put it deep every time, they desperately tried to prevent that and it was easy to get open on an in cut. We'd easily get two or three passes up the open side and then dump it back to Loryn and have her throw the score. A couple times more than we would have liked, we turned it in the red zone, but usually would get the disc back with good field position and were able to score on our next possession. The final score was 10-1. Overcoming the loss from Saturday made the win that much sweeter, but a tournament victory on any terms is fine by me.
We decided to get all bro'd out. This meant sporting muscle tees, headbands, bro hats, and most importantly, a bro attitude. No one on our team took warming up too seriously, so we strolled up with Robit blasting the Space Jam theme song a half hour before the first round game against SDSU, cleated up, took a quick lap, and huddled up. In the first couple points, it was clear which team warmed up for an hour and which team brought four discs. They went up 3-1 and then we realized this tournament wouldn’t be a walk in the park and we would actually have to play hard to win. We buckled down and started playing our own game. It didn’t take long for us to catch up and pull ahead. Somewhere in between our mini comeback and winning the game, a girl on SDSU bid for a disc intended for me and instead hit me around the knees and flipped me over. I held on to the disc but landed hard on my head and can't remember much of the end of this game or the next. We played Cal Poly Pomona and won, probably by a lot. They're a first year team led by two third year girls that used to play with the men's team. Our third game was against Long Beach. We always have fun playing them and this was no exception. They gave their rookies a lot of playing time, so the number of times Igloo broke me inside was minimized. Cuervo was a D machine in this game. She just wouldn't let up. I’d never really played with her before, so I didn’t expect this and she blew me away. My play of the game was a face plant from tripping on my girl's cleats. I think
Igloo thought about that and laughed at me every time she saw me for the next two days. I’m not sure what the final score was, but we won handily. Our last game matched us up against the second seed, Cal Poly SLO. They came out pumped up when we weren't and went up by a lot in the beginning. Then they took half 7-2 or 7-3. Our end wasn't pretty and they were playing well. I don't know any of their names, but they had one player that was making great decisions with the disc and seemed like seasoned. However many rookies they had out there weren't getting in the way or disrupting their flow. We mustered up a little bit of a comeback, probably because they were low on subs as well, but it wasn't enough and we lost 8-12 on hard cap.On Sunday, we were down three players (Tidal, Ritz, and Mahi) but were up two (Penny and Kacto) with fresh legs. In our first game against Redlands, our play looked clean again. We quickly won 13-3 and had plenty of time to watch the Cal Poly SLO - SDSU game unfold. SDSU was down by
two and pulled it back to a tie, but then lost by two. Cal Poly SLO would be the first seed, we were second, SDSU was third, and Long Beach was third (they had the same record, but SDSU won the head-to-head matchup). If SDSU had won that game, it would have been a three way tie for first and would have come down to point differentials, which would have either gone our way, putting us in first and matching us up against Long Beach in the semis, or come out the same as it did. We played better in our semis game than we did in our first game against State. Loryn threw scores over and over again and was so good that I’m fairly certain they called timeouts entirely to talk about how they could minimize her damage. We won 13-7 and moved onto the finals. I've made it to quarters at Pres Day, semis in DUDE, and the C-Bracket finals at Lei Out, but I've never actually won an ultimate tournament, so I was ready to tear it up. It was a fun game, mostly because I love winning. We jumped out to a 4-0 lead before they scored, but I didn't feel comfortable until we took half 7-1. It was a really tiring game since most of us had to play nearly every point, but we pushed through and it was completely worth it. Since Loryn threatened to put it deep every time, they desperately tried to prevent that and it was easy to get open on an in cut. We'd easily get two or three passes up the open side and then dump it back to Loryn and have her throw the score. A couple times more than we would have liked, we turned it in the red zone, but usually would get the disc back with good field position and were able to score on our next possession. The final score was 10-1. Overcoming the loss from Saturday made the win that much sweeter, but a tournament victory on any terms is fine by me.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
UCLA One Day Tournament
Our first tournament of the season was the UCLA One Day Tournament and we were split up into X and Y. I don't know which I was on, but I wish we called ourselves either Xoryn or Yoryn instead of letting Tambler name us after how much fun we had on Saturday night. We played 
Hawkins and Jolie's UCLA team first and went down a couple points in the beginning. I wasn't paying too much attention to the score all day, but before one point, Tambler came to the line to get us pumped up by saying she'd take off her shirt if one of us got a lay out D. While I was running for a disc that Chiral tipped on the mark, I was considering slowing down, laying out, and smacking it down, but I decided it would be too much of an asshole move, so I just caught it and then realized I was in their end zone. Callahan! We pulled our way back into it and won by a couple points. Our rookies had their first game under their belts and we moved on to our next game against CSULB, my favorite team that isn't us. It's a good thing I like them so much because I'm pretty sure during that game Tambler told me I'm cut and that I should see if they'll take me. It was a fun game and may have crossed the line into too silly, but it was mostly Igloo's fault and I support that in these preseason tournaments. Igloo got two successive foot blocks on one point and ended the point by grabbing a Callahan because she loves to steal my thunder. At least two of our rookies legitimately bid on a discs. Neither of them caught them, but it's so great to see that they're already not afraid of hitting the ground. When someone else was taking Igloo or she wasn't on the field, I didn't pay much attention to our matchups and kept matching up against their really short players. I still haven't heard the end of that. We took the lead of that game in the beginning and won by a decent margin. Before our third game, Tambler and Meeko switched coaching positions and we lost a couple players to the other Psycho team that had suffered a few minor injuries. Out third game was against another UCLA team that I thought was a lot better th
at the first. In the past, UCLA has been in better shape than we have later in the day, and that may have contributed to this, but I think there was a lot more to it. The big players on their team were Beans, Sapphire, Slavia, and maybe one or two others I forgot about. They had good flow for a first tournament and forced us to make D's instead of having a ton of drops like other teams. UCLA was playing better than we were, but we stepped up our game to play on their level, so I think we were playing better than we had been in the morning. Both teams still had a lot of turnovers, but not as many as our first two games. On one point, Loryn had five D's in the same spot of the endzone. It was insane. We were low on numbers and tired and it showed. UCLA beat us by about four points. Irvine was up next. We're used to them being a lot of fun, but they had a lot of new faces we didn't recognize. Still, they lived up to our expectations. Mel, one of our rookies, showed that she is better in most ways than the old Mel when she got a monster D in this game. She also laid out for a bad throw from me and looked pretty awesome all day. Don't tell her I think she's good though. We won that game by about six, so we went 3-1 on the day. The other Psycho team (was it Xonds or Yonds?) also went 3-1 as they beat Caltech, Irvine, and the third UCLA team, but lost to the UCLA team we beat. When I was a rookie, I didn't go to any preseason tournaments, but after this one, I think starting the year off with a one day tournament is an ideal transition into the season and a great way to give the rookies a taste of what it'll be like to be a college ultimate player.
Thanks to Igloo for the pictures.
Hawkins and Jolie's UCLA team first and went down a couple points in the beginning. I wasn't paying too much attention to the score all day, but before one point, Tambler came to the line to get us pumped up by saying she'd take off her shirt if one of us got a lay out D. While I was running for a disc that Chiral tipped on the mark, I was considering slowing down, laying out, and smacking it down, but I decided it would be too much of an asshole move, so I just caught it and then realized I was in their end zone. Callahan! We pulled our way back into it and won by a couple points. Our rookies had their first game under their belts and we moved on to our next game against CSULB, my favorite team that isn't us. It's a good thing I like them so much because I'm pretty sure during that game Tambler told me I'm cut and that I should see if they'll take me. It was a fun game and may have crossed the line into too silly, but it was mostly Igloo's fault and I support that in these preseason tournaments. Igloo got two successive foot blocks on one point and ended the point by grabbing a Callahan because she loves to steal my thunder. At least two of our rookies legitimately bid on a discs. Neither of them caught them, but it's so great to see that they're already not afraid of hitting the ground. When someone else was taking Igloo or she wasn't on the field, I didn't pay much attention to our matchups and kept matching up against their really short players. I still haven't heard the end of that. We took the lead of that game in the beginning and won by a decent margin. Before our third game, Tambler and Meeko switched coaching positions and we lost a couple players to the other Psycho team that had suffered a few minor injuries. Out third game was against another UCLA team that I thought was a lot better th
at the first. In the past, UCLA has been in better shape than we have later in the day, and that may have contributed to this, but I think there was a lot more to it. The big players on their team were Beans, Sapphire, Slavia, and maybe one or two others I forgot about. They had good flow for a first tournament and forced us to make D's instead of having a ton of drops like other teams. UCLA was playing better than we were, but we stepped up our game to play on their level, so I think we were playing better than we had been in the morning. Both teams still had a lot of turnovers, but not as many as our first two games. On one point, Loryn had five D's in the same spot of the endzone. It was insane. We were low on numbers and tired and it showed. UCLA beat us by about four points. Irvine was up next. We're used to them being a lot of fun, but they had a lot of new faces we didn't recognize. Still, they lived up to our expectations. Mel, one of our rookies, showed that she is better in most ways than the old Mel when she got a monster D in this game. She also laid out for a bad throw from me and looked pretty awesome all day. Don't tell her I think she's good though. We won that game by about six, so we went 3-1 on the day. The other Psycho team (was it Xonds or Yonds?) also went 3-1 as they beat Caltech, Irvine, and the third UCLA team, but lost to the UCLA team we beat. When I was a rookie, I didn't go to any preseason tournaments, but after this one, I think starting the year off with a one day tournament is an ideal transition into the season and a great way to give the rookies a taste of what it'll be like to be a college ultimate player.Thanks to Igloo for the pictures.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Lists Vol. 2
Grossest Psychos
1. Dada
2. Penny
3. Ferris
4. D-Wade
5. Cuervo
Biggest Partiers
1. Zeta
2. Ziggy
3. Cuervo
4. Maple
5. BC
Biggest Hippies
1. Nala
2. Quito
3. Mahi
4. Bonds
5. Penny
Best Beer Pong Players
1. Bonds
2. Austen
3. Meeko
4. Sir Robin
5. Ziggy
Wannabe Psychos
1. Igloo
2. Shy
3. The Anil8r
4. Amy
5. Monstro
1. Dada
2. Penny
3. Ferris
4. D-Wade
5. Cuervo
Biggest Partiers
1. Zeta
2. Ziggy
3. Cuervo
4. Maple
5. BC
Biggest Hippies
1. Nala
2. Quito
3. Mahi
4. Bonds
5. Penny
Best Beer Pong Players
1. Bonds
2. Austen
3. Meeko
4. Sir Robin
5. Ziggy
Wannabe Psychos
1. Igloo
2. Shy
3. The Anil8r
4. Amy
5. Monstro
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Lists Vol. 1
I hope practice isn't rained out tomorrow so I can hear you guys complain about which lists you did or didn't get on.
Psychos most likely to eat 12 tacos
1. Lindsey
2. Tidal
3. Molica
4. Dada
5. Ziggy
Ultra’s favorite Psychos
1. Sir Robin
2. Bowie
3. Meeko
4. D-wade
5. Bonds
Psychos most like Ultra
1. Ultra
2. Meg
3. Ferris
4. Beesley
5. Joule
Creepiest Psychos
1. Joule
2. Austen
3. Tidal
4. Hannah
5. D-wade
Straightest Psychos
1. Ashley
2. Spipit
3. Godiva
4. Loryn
5. Penny
Psychos most likely to eat 12 tacos
1. Lindsey
2. Tidal
3. Molica
4. Dada
5. Ziggy
Ultra’s favorite Psychos
1. Sir Robin
2. Bowie
3. Meeko
4. D-wade
5. Bonds
Psychos most like Ultra
1. Ultra
2. Meg
3. Ferris
4. Beesley
5. Joule
Creepiest Psychos
1. Joule
2. Austen
3. Tidal
4. Hannah
5. D-wade
Straightest Psychos
1. Ashley
2. Spipit
3. Godiva
4. Loryn
5. Penny
Sunday, October 11, 2009
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.
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.
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