After the weekend's break, this week's practices started off right this afternoon. For what seems like the first time in a while, I had fun at practice! I started warmups to discover that, though my shins were still a little tight, my legs no longer felt too tired to reach a full sprint or pivot with any real conviction. Being able to extend my stride without feeling like I was about to collapse was an absolute joy and I really made the most of it. This feeling of well-rested happiness was coupled with an uneven division of teams for our scrimmage. My team (the dark team) had much of our experienced talent, and we had enough players to split into an O and a D line (loading the O line). Words cannot describe how much more fun it is to play with guys who know where to cut and don't drop or throw away the disc over half the time that you throw it to them. And guys who actually play defense after we turn the disc over. It was great. We routed the other team and I managed to go the entire practice with only one turnover. That single turnover was a stupid one, but I managed to shore up my game after that and played well for the rest of practice. We were doing a 5-pull with the defense playing zone and I was trapped on the sideline. I saw Henry open on the far sideline, so rather than dumping it to John so that he could swing it to Henry I stepped around the mark and tried to hit Henry directly with a skip pass. I forgot that the wind was directly behind me and tried to snap the throw off quickly to Henry. The result was a throw that went well over Henry's head and out of bounds. But, like I said, I didn't turn the disc over after this.
We've been having some serious discussions over who should be put on the A team. I believe that the tentative plans are to have the team divided out for the beginning of next week or so. The angry little man inside of me is clamouring for the split to come immediately, but he can be subdued for the next few practices, I think. Especially if we can have a few more practices like today's.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Practice again.
Yet another frustrating practice. We just can't seem to get anything going, and it doesn't help that I've been exhuasted all week. Today we started with hands/no hands, a marking drill that I usually enjoy, and I just couldn't react quickly enough to feel effective. I was slow on the mark, and my legs felt like jelly while I was trying to pivot. Weak sauce. But I do have a full weekend to rest, so hopefully I'll feel better on Tuesday.
There were a couple times when we managed to get some good disc movement, and though I was fairly inneffective cutting on offense and covering defense I don't think I made too many terrible mistakes. I didn't get scored on more than a couple times, and generally held the force. There were a few times when I thought that a cutter was doing one thing and threw the disc only to find him running in the wrong direction, but I don't think I was usually to blame for that mistake. If I throw it to the right place and the cutter runs somewhere stupid, I can't take all of the blame. I also threw it deep several times without noticing a man poaching off for the defense, which is stupid. I think a lot of these mistakes come from me being frustrated with our stagnant offense and trying to make a big play. Which is not a good excuse; but I don't think I'll make most of those mistakes in a real game.
At one point I ran down on the pull to play defense against the force-side dump. I jumped into the land when I saw Brent lining up to throw it and could have taken a D, but I saw Robin and Mitch sprinting in and decided to stay out of their way. I think Brent must have seen me, because he threw it low, causing Mitch to slide down and Robin to trip over him. Robin seemed rather hurt, as he has been playing with a small fracture in his shin, but Mitch looked much worse. I think Robin stepped on his ankle as they tangled together, and Mitch said that his ankle popped. It grew swollen and looked pretty bad for a while, but he was able to walk around gingerly by the end of practice and he looked alright at dinner.
Right now I'm just glad to have a little time off. I'm feeling very tired, and I hope that next week treats me much better than this week did. Now I just have to bang out a bunch of homework and it's onto the weekend.
There were a couple times when we managed to get some good disc movement, and though I was fairly inneffective cutting on offense and covering defense I don't think I made too many terrible mistakes. I didn't get scored on more than a couple times, and generally held the force. There were a few times when I thought that a cutter was doing one thing and threw the disc only to find him running in the wrong direction, but I don't think I was usually to blame for that mistake. If I throw it to the right place and the cutter runs somewhere stupid, I can't take all of the blame. I also threw it deep several times without noticing a man poaching off for the defense, which is stupid. I think a lot of these mistakes come from me being frustrated with our stagnant offense and trying to make a big play. Which is not a good excuse; but I don't think I'll make most of those mistakes in a real game.
At one point I ran down on the pull to play defense against the force-side dump. I jumped into the land when I saw Brent lining up to throw it and could have taken a D, but I saw Robin and Mitch sprinting in and decided to stay out of their way. I think Brent must have seen me, because he threw it low, causing Mitch to slide down and Robin to trip over him. Robin seemed rather hurt, as he has been playing with a small fracture in his shin, but Mitch looked much worse. I think Robin stepped on his ankle as they tangled together, and Mitch said that his ankle popped. It grew swollen and looked pretty bad for a while, but he was able to walk around gingerly by the end of practice and he looked alright at dinner.
Right now I'm just glad to have a little time off. I'm feeling very tired, and I hope that next week treats me much better than this week did. Now I just have to bang out a bunch of homework and it's onto the weekend.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Another day, another practice.
We had another incredibly frustrating practice today. The issue is that we can't divide into A and B teams immediately since we haven't had enough good people show up at practice. If we culled the bad players, we wouldn't have enough left for a quality game. And certainly not with subs. This is especially true with the number of people who are either legitimately hurt or just been whining bitches. Every day, it seems, we have a zillion people to begin practice. But when we finally get to scrimmaging, so many people stand off to the side (cough Patuluk cough) and talk about how they want to go slowly because they arent 100%. What they don't seem to Get is that standing on the sideline goofing off is not the reason to strengthen and get back to 100%. It's a way tighten up and reinjure themselves when they finally decide to man up and start playing. Plus, them not playing means that players like me need to play almost every single point in order to give the line even the slightest chance of success. I've been playing pretty hard every day the last two weeks and I'm not in the kind of shape to do that. Going fast with no recovery time means that I am constantly sore and tired. People need to start to understand that playing a sport necesarilly means that you are going to get sore muscles and rolled ankles. It happens, they have to learn how to play with it.
Henry was being a total bitch today. He has a "tweaked" hamstring, though he never seems to show that when he finally starts playing. So often he yells at one of us to run faster, or makes the entire team do six sprints in the middle of a hard-fought scrimmage, without ever running himself. Which is really frustrating to take. Today, I saw Little Steve cut up line and the thrower lofted one far in front of him (which is a Dangerous pass, though people seem uninclined to listen to me). I could have gotten an easy D but I didn't want to risk colliding into Steve, so I flashed in front of him just to prove my point and then backed off. Henry later approached me and told me that he didn't want me to go for that poach D, even in a real game. He tried to tell me that I've hurt people in the past going for D's like that (which is rather unfair - I once tried to dive out of Bob's way when I saw that my D would result in a collision, and I've been very responsible in most ways during my playing carreer). When I explained that, Henry told me he didn't want me to poach because it took me off my man. Henry is absolutely the poachiest player I have ever played with. He gets D's, but almost never on his own man, and he more often gets torched because he isn't looking at his own man. I, on the other hand, do a pretty good job sticking to my man. I don't get a lot of D's, but I play conservatively, containing so that I don't really get scored on that often. When I do poach (such as on up the line cuts) it is infrequent and in situations when I am likely to get the D and my man is unlikely to burn me for not being on his hip.
But that's enough of my griping.
We had another sloppy practice today with very few high points. Joe, Brent, Luke, Trevor, and Zack showed up to play with us, which significantly upped the level of play. Some of the injured guys played fantasy, picking one player each for their team, and I joined in at halftime even though I was still playing. I picked myself (of course) and Joe. We were not very successfull as a team, netting 3 points maybe. Ah, maybe 4. I had no turns and one D in that second half, Joe had a couple turns and a few scores. I don't think I scored during that period, but maybe.
Tonight, hopefully, I'm hitting the town with Zack and anybody else who'd like to come, which could be a good time.
Henry was being a total bitch today. He has a "tweaked" hamstring, though he never seems to show that when he finally starts playing. So often he yells at one of us to run faster, or makes the entire team do six sprints in the middle of a hard-fought scrimmage, without ever running himself. Which is really frustrating to take. Today, I saw Little Steve cut up line and the thrower lofted one far in front of him (which is a Dangerous pass, though people seem uninclined to listen to me). I could have gotten an easy D but I didn't want to risk colliding into Steve, so I flashed in front of him just to prove my point and then backed off. Henry later approached me and told me that he didn't want me to go for that poach D, even in a real game. He tried to tell me that I've hurt people in the past going for D's like that (which is rather unfair - I once tried to dive out of Bob's way when I saw that my D would result in a collision, and I've been very responsible in most ways during my playing carreer). When I explained that, Henry told me he didn't want me to poach because it took me off my man. Henry is absolutely the poachiest player I have ever played with. He gets D's, but almost never on his own man, and he more often gets torched because he isn't looking at his own man. I, on the other hand, do a pretty good job sticking to my man. I don't get a lot of D's, but I play conservatively, containing so that I don't really get scored on that often. When I do poach (such as on up the line cuts) it is infrequent and in situations when I am likely to get the D and my man is unlikely to burn me for not being on his hip.
But that's enough of my griping.
We had another sloppy practice today with very few high points. Joe, Brent, Luke, Trevor, and Zack showed up to play with us, which significantly upped the level of play. Some of the injured guys played fantasy, picking one player each for their team, and I joined in at halftime even though I was still playing. I picked myself (of course) and Joe. We were not very successfull as a team, netting 3 points maybe. Ah, maybe 4. I had no turns and one D in that second half, Joe had a couple turns and a few scores. I don't think I scored during that period, but maybe.
Tonight, hopefully, I'm hitting the town with Zack and anybody else who'd like to come, which could be a good time.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Practice today.
Practice today was extremely frustrating. For me, personally, it was incredibly difficult to keep myself moving after such a rough weekend. Rebounding after tournaments will grow easier as I get more into shape, but right now I just feel stiff and beaten. I know that some of my teammates had similar problems today.
But fatigue isn't the primary source of my frustrations. We have not yet divided into an A and a B team (and I don't know when exactly we plan to do that) and the sure B teamers are making life rather difficult. It is hard to play offense with players who are never in the right place and always obstructing everybody else's cuts. It is hard to play offense with players who rarely look back for a dump at the right time, or who seem incapable of cutting within a system no matter how many times the system is explained to them. It is hard to run your ass off on defense only to have some schmuck drop the disc or toss it away on something ridiculously miserable.
New recruits are good for a program. Cutting some new recruits is good for a team.
I just feel as though nobody is able to progress when we have a practice like today's. With so many bad players on the field, it is hard to demonstrate proper strategy and technique to the promising new players who require instruction. It is hard to continue running hard when you know that four of the seven people on the line at any given time are humongous liabilities.
...but maybe a lot of my frustrations have to do with my own fatigue. I didn't seem to have so much trouble running last week, when I was a little bit fresher. Maybe my enthusiasm will return tomorrow after another night's rest. Or maybe the whole situation is really just wearing on me.
All I can say is that I can't wait for cuts.
But fatigue isn't the primary source of my frustrations. We have not yet divided into an A and a B team (and I don't know when exactly we plan to do that) and the sure B teamers are making life rather difficult. It is hard to play offense with players who are never in the right place and always obstructing everybody else's cuts. It is hard to play offense with players who rarely look back for a dump at the right time, or who seem incapable of cutting within a system no matter how many times the system is explained to them. It is hard to run your ass off on defense only to have some schmuck drop the disc or toss it away on something ridiculously miserable.
New recruits are good for a program. Cutting some new recruits is good for a team.
I just feel as though nobody is able to progress when we have a practice like today's. With so many bad players on the field, it is hard to demonstrate proper strategy and technique to the promising new players who require instruction. It is hard to continue running hard when you know that four of the seven people on the line at any given time are humongous liabilities.
...but maybe a lot of my frustrations have to do with my own fatigue. I didn't seem to have so much trouble running last week, when I was a little bit fresher. Maybe my enthusiasm will return tomorrow after another night's rest. Or maybe the whole situation is really just wearing on me.
All I can say is that I can't wait for cuts.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Club Sectionals
We took a tryout team to Club Sectionals this past weekend, which is always an interesting time. Since we won't split between A and B teams for another couple weeks, our club sectionals team always has a disorienting mix between established A team players, freshmen who will certainly make the A team, freshmen who will almost certainly not make the A team, and lifetime B teamers without a prayer for promotion. This year in particular showcased a dearth of returning A teamers, as many of our players are playing for other club teams or just decided not to attend. As a result, it was difficult for us to establish any real cohesion on the field and many of our lines contained absolutely pathetic liabilities. Kids who are unable to defend the slowest cutters on the other team and who seem to turn the disc over any time they look at it.
Looking at our roster for this tournament, it was clear that we had to lower our expectations.
We got off to a horrific start against UVM. Our cutters couldn't get open, our handlers couldn't get on the same page, our defenders couldn't stop anybody. I don't know what the final score of that game was, but it was a pretty good drubbing. A highlight of the game, in my mind, was Jeff getting stripped by his mark about as hard as you can be stripped. The mark somehow got it into his mind to contest the call, which was ridiculous. This stip was so obvious that everybody else on the field thought that the stall was going to come in on zero; rather than looking to make a dump cut immediately, I gave the downfield cutters a few seconds to get open before I started to move. Suddenly, I heard the low-talking mark say "8...9..." and Jeff had to throw the disc away into the endzone. I told the mark that he was a terrible player and a worse human being for contesting that call. He tried to give me lip and I just shook my head and said, sadly, "Terrible... terrible...." The man who I was guarding agreed with me, quietly, and we moved on with the game. Shame on Jeff for not raising a stink when that shittard contested his call.
We then played against Chuckwagon, a mediocre club team that's been around for at least the last bunch of years. We got waxed even harder by Chuckwagon, scoring maybe three or so points. We did show some high points, though, with much improved cutting and defense all around. John, my brother, played that game to test out the elbow that should be going under the knife sometime soon. He said that he didn't want to have surgery without first seeing if it miraculously healed itself. John played well for the rest of the day, but it seems as though his elbow is still pretty messed up. Too bad. A highlight of the game came when Alden, Little Steve, and myself managed to put up a pretty good handler weave in the redzone before I tossed a blade to Babbitt to score the point. Somebody had caught a deep throw a few yards out of the endzone and then called time out. After the time out, however, Chuckwagon tightened up their defense and nobody was able to get open in the endzone. Steve, Alden, and I reset and swung the disc over and over and over, never getting nervous or tossing up a low percentage throw, until a narrow gap finally opened and we scored. There were a few other pretty decent plays as well. I thought that I was going to get a semi-layout d on a floater, but I came up short, for example. Nick made a couple disgusting catches, one of which on a hammer that I rifled just over his head. And we had some lines that managed to shred Chuckwagon's clam, though the majority didn't fair very well at all against this defense.
Then we moved on to face Dartmouth. Dartmouth College is having a rebuilding year, having graduated a lot of their experienced players, and they just began school this week. Just like us, they came to Sectionals with a lot of inexperienced players filling key roles, and we matched up very well against them. After a fairly close game, we tightened up our rotation and pulled out our only win of the tournament. I think I probably played 6 of the last 8 points, or something like that, which tired me out pretty well. I didn't really exercise much at all this summer, and I find myself in fairly horrendous condition to start the year. In a couple months I think that I will be able to play a number of points in succession; Saturday, it just burned me out.
We then had a bye, during which we went to watch the end of a Ladyzoo game. Nithya had broken her collarbone earlier in the day and returned at that time. We played flutterguts, John and I against Little Steve and Mitch. It was one of the worst flutterguts games I can remember being a part of, and my team got dominated. Theme of the weekend, I suppose.
After the bye, we had a lot of trouble getting motivated to warm up for our final game of the day against McGill. McGill is from Canada, and Canadian College Regionals are coming up, so they are well-conditioned, well-practiced, and at the peak of their season in pretty much every other respect. That said, they aren't the most dominant ultimate players in the world, but they were ready to go against us. With out lackluster start and a decision to give equal playing time to everybody on our team, McGill lept to a pretty big lead against us. 11-5, I believe. At that point, I guess we decided to try to win. We completely tightened up our rotation, and a few of our most experienced players played the rest of the game without rest. With a couple big blocks and a resurgance of energy, we quickly closed the gap. A couple of our players had pretty big sky d's and layout d's, and I had one of the most savage point blocks of my life (I flexed and screamed "FUUUUUCK YEAH" as I frolicked down the field after the play, suitably demoralizing my opponent). And we had some big plays in the endzone. Mitch and Babbitt made a couple huge catches, and Nick finally seemed to start using his size and jumping ability to rip some discs out of the sky. Babbitt had a big d, leaping in front of his opponent to snatch the disc out of the air, but the McGill kid fell into his ankle and broke a chunk of bone off of his leg. Babbitt is almost certainly done for the fall and could require surgery, we shall see. We did continue our comeback after his late exit, though it is obvious that we started it a bit too late. McGill only needed to score two points, and they finally did this in spite of our effort. They floated a disc over the heads of three of their players and one of ours about five yards out of the endzone. I poached off of my man and elevated over the entire pile (big surprise, I have no idea how I did that) and spiked the disc with authority as I crashed through a couple McGill players. However, one of them was already on the ground and the disc landed right on his chest. He clutched it tight to his breast and threw the winning goal. Final score 13-10 or 11. That play was very similar to a play that Alden would be involved in the next day, when he spiked a disc right into the arms of a random Amherst High player. Luckily, in Alden's case, the Amherst High player had a foot on the line, but it still seemed marvelously unlucky.
Saturday pretty much killed me. Like I said before, I was in laughable condition going into the tournament, and I was wholly unprepared for a rigorous day of playing. Sunday got off to a pretty abysmal start. With our key players feeling the fatigue of the previous day and a couple of our stars unable to play Sunday, we didn't have very much hope. We had a pretty terrible warmup and got dominated by Amherst High. We all had a couple bad throwaways and drops (Jeff dropped the pull on our first O point) and several members of our team seemed unable to resist the temptation to let their man score unopposed. It was pathetic. I had a couple bad throwaways, but none of them were bad decisions. The worst, a slow toss right to a three foot tall teenager playing in their zone's front wall, was a wide-open pass that I threw really, truly poorly. Oh well. We were all ill-prepared to play tired, something that will change as the season progresses. Halfway through this game, I learned how slow Jeff really is. I mean, I didn't think he was very fast, but.... I threw him a pretty easy leading pass into the endzone, a pass that I expected him to be able to stroll onto. Instead, he made a huge layout that seperated his left shoulder. He went to the hospital, was given a spiffy sling, and learned that he would be able to start playing again in a week or so. About as good as we could have expected.
We then lost big to Double Dragon, a club team. But they were pretty nice guys, so it was a pretty fun game. I made a couple nice throws and played alright defense, and we threw some guys into roles that they had never played before. It was an interesting game.
Finally, we went on to play Middlebury, who I cannot stand. Fuck them. Like most of the other games we played this weekend, we gave up a big lead to start. Still giving kids different roles and mixing things up, we actually managed to close the gap, but not enough to win. Again, I felt like I played alright. Highlights of the game included a couple of layout d's by Sam, who really looks like he's starting to get it. Nick was also a pretty dominant cutter, and the other Nick did alright handling - he always got open on the dump (though didn't seem to understand the optimal places to cut to; we can teach that) and didn't throw it away too much, though he didn't really make plays with his throws. At one point, I picked the disc up on the sideline and saw that Tall Nick would be able to get to the endzone with just his defender and little chance of help. Even though the mark tried to stop me, I hung one about ten or eleven feet over the endzone and Nick made his man look the fool. I was pretty pumped. The second to last point of the game, the wind turned against us and started gusting hard right as somebody else was catching the pull, with me to get the centering pass. As my man was approaching, I casually noted, "Looks like God doesn't want me to throw this deep." He set up his mark and I continued, "What God doesn't know is that I don't really care what he wants right now." My mark instantly understood and went straight up against me, but I got the throw off anyway and it went pretty well. Nick caught it on the goal line and threw a stupid floater to Ramsdell to turn it over in a terrible manner. We got it back, though, and I fired a strike to Sam to score the point. The other line then gave up an easy score to end the weekend.
That's more than enough for now. Maybe I'll offer a couple concluding thoughts with my post tomorrow. Boy am I tired and sore....
Looking at our roster for this tournament, it was clear that we had to lower our expectations.
We got off to a horrific start against UVM. Our cutters couldn't get open, our handlers couldn't get on the same page, our defenders couldn't stop anybody. I don't know what the final score of that game was, but it was a pretty good drubbing. A highlight of the game, in my mind, was Jeff getting stripped by his mark about as hard as you can be stripped. The mark somehow got it into his mind to contest the call, which was ridiculous. This stip was so obvious that everybody else on the field thought that the stall was going to come in on zero; rather than looking to make a dump cut immediately, I gave the downfield cutters a few seconds to get open before I started to move. Suddenly, I heard the low-talking mark say "8...9..." and Jeff had to throw the disc away into the endzone. I told the mark that he was a terrible player and a worse human being for contesting that call. He tried to give me lip and I just shook my head and said, sadly, "Terrible... terrible...." The man who I was guarding agreed with me, quietly, and we moved on with the game. Shame on Jeff for not raising a stink when that shittard contested his call.
We then played against Chuckwagon, a mediocre club team that's been around for at least the last bunch of years. We got waxed even harder by Chuckwagon, scoring maybe three or so points. We did show some high points, though, with much improved cutting and defense all around. John, my brother, played that game to test out the elbow that should be going under the knife sometime soon. He said that he didn't want to have surgery without first seeing if it miraculously healed itself. John played well for the rest of the day, but it seems as though his elbow is still pretty messed up. Too bad. A highlight of the game came when Alden, Little Steve, and myself managed to put up a pretty good handler weave in the redzone before I tossed a blade to Babbitt to score the point. Somebody had caught a deep throw a few yards out of the endzone and then called time out. After the time out, however, Chuckwagon tightened up their defense and nobody was able to get open in the endzone. Steve, Alden, and I reset and swung the disc over and over and over, never getting nervous or tossing up a low percentage throw, until a narrow gap finally opened and we scored. There were a few other pretty decent plays as well. I thought that I was going to get a semi-layout d on a floater, but I came up short, for example. Nick made a couple disgusting catches, one of which on a hammer that I rifled just over his head. And we had some lines that managed to shred Chuckwagon's clam, though the majority didn't fair very well at all against this defense.
Then we moved on to face Dartmouth. Dartmouth College is having a rebuilding year, having graduated a lot of their experienced players, and they just began school this week. Just like us, they came to Sectionals with a lot of inexperienced players filling key roles, and we matched up very well against them. After a fairly close game, we tightened up our rotation and pulled out our only win of the tournament. I think I probably played 6 of the last 8 points, or something like that, which tired me out pretty well. I didn't really exercise much at all this summer, and I find myself in fairly horrendous condition to start the year. In a couple months I think that I will be able to play a number of points in succession; Saturday, it just burned me out.
We then had a bye, during which we went to watch the end of a Ladyzoo game. Nithya had broken her collarbone earlier in the day and returned at that time. We played flutterguts, John and I against Little Steve and Mitch. It was one of the worst flutterguts games I can remember being a part of, and my team got dominated. Theme of the weekend, I suppose.
After the bye, we had a lot of trouble getting motivated to warm up for our final game of the day against McGill. McGill is from Canada, and Canadian College Regionals are coming up, so they are well-conditioned, well-practiced, and at the peak of their season in pretty much every other respect. That said, they aren't the most dominant ultimate players in the world, but they were ready to go against us. With out lackluster start and a decision to give equal playing time to everybody on our team, McGill lept to a pretty big lead against us. 11-5, I believe. At that point, I guess we decided to try to win. We completely tightened up our rotation, and a few of our most experienced players played the rest of the game without rest. With a couple big blocks and a resurgance of energy, we quickly closed the gap. A couple of our players had pretty big sky d's and layout d's, and I had one of the most savage point blocks of my life (I flexed and screamed "FUUUUUCK YEAH" as I frolicked down the field after the play, suitably demoralizing my opponent). And we had some big plays in the endzone. Mitch and Babbitt made a couple huge catches, and Nick finally seemed to start using his size and jumping ability to rip some discs out of the sky. Babbitt had a big d, leaping in front of his opponent to snatch the disc out of the air, but the McGill kid fell into his ankle and broke a chunk of bone off of his leg. Babbitt is almost certainly done for the fall and could require surgery, we shall see. We did continue our comeback after his late exit, though it is obvious that we started it a bit too late. McGill only needed to score two points, and they finally did this in spite of our effort. They floated a disc over the heads of three of their players and one of ours about five yards out of the endzone. I poached off of my man and elevated over the entire pile (big surprise, I have no idea how I did that) and spiked the disc with authority as I crashed through a couple McGill players. However, one of them was already on the ground and the disc landed right on his chest. He clutched it tight to his breast and threw the winning goal. Final score 13-10 or 11. That play was very similar to a play that Alden would be involved in the next day, when he spiked a disc right into the arms of a random Amherst High player. Luckily, in Alden's case, the Amherst High player had a foot on the line, but it still seemed marvelously unlucky.
Saturday pretty much killed me. Like I said before, I was in laughable condition going into the tournament, and I was wholly unprepared for a rigorous day of playing. Sunday got off to a pretty abysmal start. With our key players feeling the fatigue of the previous day and a couple of our stars unable to play Sunday, we didn't have very much hope. We had a pretty terrible warmup and got dominated by Amherst High. We all had a couple bad throwaways and drops (Jeff dropped the pull on our first O point) and several members of our team seemed unable to resist the temptation to let their man score unopposed. It was pathetic. I had a couple bad throwaways, but none of them were bad decisions. The worst, a slow toss right to a three foot tall teenager playing in their zone's front wall, was a wide-open pass that I threw really, truly poorly. Oh well. We were all ill-prepared to play tired, something that will change as the season progresses. Halfway through this game, I learned how slow Jeff really is. I mean, I didn't think he was very fast, but.... I threw him a pretty easy leading pass into the endzone, a pass that I expected him to be able to stroll onto. Instead, he made a huge layout that seperated his left shoulder. He went to the hospital, was given a spiffy sling, and learned that he would be able to start playing again in a week or so. About as good as we could have expected.
We then lost big to Double Dragon, a club team. But they were pretty nice guys, so it was a pretty fun game. I made a couple nice throws and played alright defense, and we threw some guys into roles that they had never played before. It was an interesting game.
Finally, we went on to play Middlebury, who I cannot stand. Fuck them. Like most of the other games we played this weekend, we gave up a big lead to start. Still giving kids different roles and mixing things up, we actually managed to close the gap, but not enough to win. Again, I felt like I played alright. Highlights of the game included a couple of layout d's by Sam, who really looks like he's starting to get it. Nick was also a pretty dominant cutter, and the other Nick did alright handling - he always got open on the dump (though didn't seem to understand the optimal places to cut to; we can teach that) and didn't throw it away too much, though he didn't really make plays with his throws. At one point, I picked the disc up on the sideline and saw that Tall Nick would be able to get to the endzone with just his defender and little chance of help. Even though the mark tried to stop me, I hung one about ten or eleven feet over the endzone and Nick made his man look the fool. I was pretty pumped. The second to last point of the game, the wind turned against us and started gusting hard right as somebody else was catching the pull, with me to get the centering pass. As my man was approaching, I casually noted, "Looks like God doesn't want me to throw this deep." He set up his mark and I continued, "What God doesn't know is that I don't really care what he wants right now." My mark instantly understood and went straight up against me, but I got the throw off anyway and it went pretty well. Nick caught it on the goal line and threw a stupid floater to Ramsdell to turn it over in a terrible manner. We got it back, though, and I fired a strike to Sam to score the point. The other line then gave up an easy score to end the weekend.
That's more than enough for now. Maybe I'll offer a couple concluding thoughts with my post tomorrow. Boy am I tired and sore....
Fall, 2008
So I mainly started this blog because of a suggestion by Joe. At pond pickup two weeks ago, he told me that he had been trying to write down something every day to document his training for the upcoming frisbee season. He suggested to me that I do the same, telling me that it would offer a great motivation to keep training and leave me with a tangible result when it all comes to an end. As a player entering my fifth year on the A team, Joe pointed out, I have the opportunity to provide a perspective on Zoodisc that few other people could claim to match.
Now, had Joe's suggestion come in a vaccuum, I probably would have said, "Yeah, sounds like a great idea," and then promptly forgotten. However, this semester I happen to by taking a class on full-length nonfiction book writing and publishing. In this class, I am required to write a book proposal that can be submitted to a publishing agent. I'm not sure that I am going to write a book about Zoodisc (nor am I sure that such a book would be accepted by a serious literary agent) but it is an option that I would like to keep open, and keeping a log of this final year of college ultimate gives me a halfway decent start on a book should I actually choose to go in that direction.
In summary, here is my idea: I am going to try to post something, at least a little something, every day that I do something with Zoodisc. I'll also probably interview members at some points, and certain alumni at some other points. When this season is over, I want to be able to read back through this and read the things that I thought during different parts of the season.
That's all. Let's see how it actually goes.
Now, had Joe's suggestion come in a vaccuum, I probably would have said, "Yeah, sounds like a great idea," and then promptly forgotten. However, this semester I happen to by taking a class on full-length nonfiction book writing and publishing. In this class, I am required to write a book proposal that can be submitted to a publishing agent. I'm not sure that I am going to write a book about Zoodisc (nor am I sure that such a book would be accepted by a serious literary agent) but it is an option that I would like to keep open, and keeping a log of this final year of college ultimate gives me a halfway decent start on a book should I actually choose to go in that direction.
In summary, here is my idea: I am going to try to post something, at least a little something, every day that I do something with Zoodisc. I'll also probably interview members at some points, and certain alumni at some other points. When this season is over, I want to be able to read back through this and read the things that I thought during different parts of the season.
That's all. Let's see how it actually goes.
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