Southerns Saturday.

I went to Health Services yesterday and spoke to a doctor. He confirmed Tim's diagnosis of tendonitis in my ankle, and told me that I shouldn't play through the injury. The doctor basically said that I would probably be able to run on the ankle for another four weeks, but that it wouldn't support any weight after that point and I would be out for the rest of the season trying to recover. This means that I would be able to play right up to the point where the season starts to matter (Sectionals) and then would be done. I think I'd rather sit this week out and play when we need to win. But it is Very frustrating, to put it mildly.

Southerns started with more of a gasp than a bang, as we arrived at the fields to discover that there had been some sort of mix-up with our tournament check. I had thought that we had mailed them our payment weeks earlier (it seems that I may have been wrong?), but they had us on record as having not yet paid. By the time that I had waited around to have that straightened out (the tournament directors were unable to find their treasurer, so they took my phone number and told me that they would talk to me later if they weren't able to sort it out on their own - since they didn't try to contact me after that point, I guess that the issue solved itself) and then had my ankle taped, our team was already through with warmups and we were set to begin our game against Carleton GOP.

Now, don't let their name fool you. Carleton GOP is in no way affiliated with CUT, the excellent ultimate program that is always mentioned amongst the top teams in the nation. No, GOP is a rival program based out of Carleton College, the kids who want to play ultimate but don't want to take it as seriously as CUT. They're sort of a subversive hippy movement at an otherwise respectable ultimate school. And they are almost the polar opposite of the National Republican Party.

Though they have some pretty good players - a decent handler, a couple kids with some athleticism - GOP couldn't hang with us, and the game quickly grew unbalanced. As we demonstrated in High Tide, however, our team currently lacks the mental fortitude to bear down and play our own game when we aren't faced with any sort of adversity. I think that we may have taken half 8-2 or 3, but we lost a bit of our focus and intensity in the second half and let them score a few more goals than they deserved. We finally limped out a frustrating 15-10 victory against a team that was inferior to us in every way.

The final point of this game was notable in my memory, even if most of the game was characterised by sloppiness and lack of intensity on our part. Babbitt was annoyed (rightfully) that we weren't getting many d's on GOP, and he put himself in to show us how it's done. I was covering a handler who was standing off to the side for a dump. Deciding that I didn't need to pay too much attention to him, I poached into the lane and would have had a pretty easy block if not for my hesitation. I saw Babbitt flying past his man for the layout d and pulled back just to take the crown of his head directly to my testicles with enough force to knock me flat on my ass. I groaned and slowly stood up while the rest of the players on the field raced past me to the endzone. "Fast break!" somebody yelled from the sideline, and I replied, "No, slow break," as I limped over to the disc. I allowed the stack to set and threw a force side throw to the first cutter who punched it in for the winning score. It was a ridiculous way to end the game.

Our second game was against Wisconsin B. There isn't much to say about them except that they are a B team, even if they are a B team in a fantastic program. They had a couple fat kids, a couple slow kids, a couple pretty athletic kids with absolutely no field sense... the usual. Our intensity dropped a notch further this game, as our play was characterized by drops, stupid throwaways, stagnant cutting, and lazy d. Our team knew that we would ultimately prevail over Wisconsin's B team, and we let our play get sloppy and lazy. The final score was 15-5, but it was a much uglier win than the score would suggest. I was truly worried that these first two games would prevent us from building the energy we would need to dominate our third opponent, South Florida, who was much better than the first two teams combined.

Well, I was wrong. Zoodisc came out flying against South Florida. We stuck it to them early, we stuck it to them hard, and we stuck it to them for pretty much the entire game. This was a heartening victory, since South Florida had a lot of height and athleticism and a couple pretty good throwers. This really was a team that could have given us some problems, but we outworked and outran them from start to finish. The result was a satisfying 15-7 win in which we dominated South Florida in every facet of the game. This was also a pleasant game because the guys on South Florida seemed to be fine, upstanding gentlemen. There was never really a point in the game (except, maybe, when Steve O. got tangled up with a South Florida guy after layout d'ing him and the South Florida player pushed up hard on Steve's back to get himself back up - something that you would see from a dirty football player, for instance, at the end of a play) that I felt angry at the other team or that it felt like they were trying to cheat to win. They were pleasant and gracious in defeat, which is not something that can be said about many ultimate teams. I truly respect South Florida, and I wish them the best of luck in the remainder of the season.

Our fourth and final game of Saturday was against Central Florida. Like South Florida, they had a number of tall, athletic players and a handful of pretty decent throwers. Unlike South Florida, they were not a terribly pleasant group of guys to play against, and I often felt that they were trying to cheat to gain an advantage. Which isn't to say that we didn't respond with a chippiness of our own - about two thirds of the way through, the game threatened to devolve into a call-fest of borderline egregious bullshit.

The high point of this animosity occurred when Steve O. tried to tell the Central Florida sideline to calm down. I think that this was shortly after Nick made a particularly questionable pick call that put an end to a Cental Florida offensive attack, and a Central Florida coach was livid. Standing on the line before the next point started, Steve merely said that everybody just needed to take a deep breath and relax. This coach resorted to schoolboy name calling, asking Steve if he was even old enough to play college ultimate. He repeated this several times, clearly trying to rile up our unflappable Steven Oleski. There wasn't a chance of this succeeding. I then asked this coach (I didn't know he was a coach at the time, he looked like an injured player on their team or something) what the fuck was wrong with him, why didn't he cleat up and get in the game if he was so upset. He then said that he wished he could be on the field but that he was out of eligibility. He told us that he would teach us a lesson if we ever played him "on the club circuit". The funny part was, he was proudly wearing a Ronin jersey. Ronin is a perenially mediocre club team, the sort of team that I have little to no respect for. Last year, for instance, they took seventh at Regionals. Nice work, Ronin. Maybe, if we do meet this guy "on the club circuit", it won't be him doing the teaching. But whatever, I just thought that this was an interesting happenstance.

We traded breaks with Central Florida for most of the game. First we went up a couple, then they battled back and went up a few, then we rallied and scored the final few points to win 13-11 at the cap. Though it was a contentious game, it really was a ton of fun. To Central Florida's credit, they understood this (especially after they realized that the outcome of the game only meant the difference between two seeding spots in the Championship Bracket) and we shared a laugh with a few of their players after the handshake. This was a good note to end Saturday on.

I have to go now, but I'll try to do a write-up of Sunday's play and some closing Spring Break thoughts soon. Sorry, but I'm being booted from the Calipari Room in the Library, which has apparently been booked by a class....