Terminus Day One.

Before I give any specifics, I should write the outcome. In short, we won Pool B. Four wins, no losses. A great start to the Zoodisc tournament season. I'm pretty exhilarated right now.

Yesterday's drive wasn't bad, even though it took almost 17 hours. That isn't really terrible, though. 1,050 miles in 17 hours means that we didn't really hit any traffic whatsoever. We pretty much just got on the road and cruised. Even though it meant going a long time without sleep and many hours behind the wheel, it didn't feel as terrible as you would expect such a long car ride to feel. I wasn't in bad shape when we finally arrived, and that's especially nice considering the fact that my knees usually lock up after only a couple hours in a confined space. I ate at Waffle House twice yesterday - once in South Carolina and once two blocks from our hotel - and Sonic Burger once today, so we're rolling through the bouquet of southern fast food that lies ready for eating before us.

Last night was pretty sedate. We played a word game called Contact that Ryan taught us and then got to bed before eleven. I needed that, after getting almost no sleep for two nights before that, and our first round bye allowed us to sleep in. We finally left the hotel at about 9:45, with our first game at 11:40. It was a nice and relaxing morning. I felt good, especially since we gave ourselves plenty of time for a long and gradual warmup. Even though we ended up standing around for a bit before our first game, when I would have rather just rolled straight from warm up to game play, I think that we did a good job using the time and space that was available to us.

We had our first game against George Washington. We got off to 5-2 lead, but came off the gas a little and let them stay close to us for longer than they should have. I think that we took half 7-4. I wish that we had managed to do a better job keeping our intensity and had really stuck it to them, but we kept our heads enough to take control of the game through the home stretch. I'm not sure what the final score was, but I think that it might have been 11-5 or so. This game was really good because we were able to open up the rotation a little and were still successful. I definitely played with a couple of lines that didn't look like they were going to score, but we managed to get it done almost every time that this happened. It's a real confidence booster when a couple of inexperienced players can get onto the field, grab a d and then march it down for a score. I don't think that we gave some people enough opportunity to prove themselves today, but I'm pleased that some of our young guys took good advantage of the limited playing time that they were allocated.

Our second game was against Indiana. We'd watched them play against Missouri while we warmed up for our first game, and they really didn't look that great. They gave us some trouble, however, as this proved to be a fairly difficult game. They had one handler who was pretty good, and he was able to break our marks with limited effort. Their entire offense was based out of a deep ho stack with one iso in the middle of the field, and this iso would cut into the force side. If we covered him to the force side, he just doubled back to the break side and took the pass from their one decent handler. It was almost worse to defend this iso to the force side, as this allowed him to catch it on the break side and take one quick look to the deeper cutters coming in or out on the break side. We gave up a couple breaks near the beginning of the game, which put us at a bit of a disadvantage, but we pulled out of that hole and took half 7-5. We didn't exactly trade for the rest of the game, with each team giving and taking a couple breaks, but we managed to pull out to 11-9 or so by the end. It would have been a slightly better win, but we came off them a little during the last few points of the game. The soft cap blew, we had a decent lead, and it seemed as if the people on our team decided that the game was already over. Well, it wasn't over, and Indiana pressured us enough to make me a little nervous by the end.

Our third game was against Missouri. We expected them to be a piece of cake, since they had just lost to George Washington 13-5 or something. However, we lost a lot of intensity during that game and the outcome remained closely contested until the end. Our sidelines really fell off during this game, as a lot of the team wasn't getting as much playing time as they would have liked and seemed to grow dispirited. I hate not playing everybody equally, but the truth is that not everybody has the same set of skills, talent, and experience. Had we pulled away from Missouri, we would have been able to open up the lines a little, but we never took clear possession of the game. We always had to make sure that we had at least one or two good handlers and at least one or two good cutters on each line. Once those positions were taken care of, there were very few spots left on the field to plug some of our younger players. Anyway, the point is that we really lagged during this game. Often, we had nobody cutting from downfield, which made our handlers make stupid, nervous, and impatient decisions. We turned the disc over more than we should have and played lazy defense after the turn, which kept Missouri with us until the end. We finally broke a couple times in a row to pull out a 12-10 win.

Our final game was against Georgia. I don't think that I need to write about how good Georgia has been the past few years. They have been in National contention every year that I have played College Ultimate. Season after season they have proven themselves to be a competent and competitive program. I knew that we would have to play our asses off to defeat Georgia.

We started hot against this game, scoring on our first several offensive possessions. We took two breaks, but then gave one back, to take half 7-6. Our sideline finally seemed excited to be in a game, rushing the field after every score and yelling their hearts out. Georgia seemed to have no answer for our deep game, which we used to score most of our points against them, and we struggled to stop Georgia from working the disc down the middle of the field on in cuts. We traded points for most of the second half, finally earning our first break to make the score 11-9. In the next couple of points, Georgia broke back but we broke again, ending our game at a score of 13-11. A solid win over an excellent team.

I think that we showed a lot of good things and a lot of bad things today. Our deep game was fairly dominant. The handlers made some great throws and the cutters got it done downfield. Most of our hucks were leading passes that the cutters had to sprint on to, rather then jump balls that would have required them to sky their opponents. On the other hand, our in cuts weren't clicking for most of the day. Our handlers often had to work the disc back and forth amongst themselves until one of them caught an up-line dump to throw it long from the power position. Had one of our opponents managed to challenge our deep game, we would have had a lot of trouble running our offense through in cuts.

We also had great defensive intensity. I don't know how many layout d's we got today, but it was way more than I ever would have thought we'd get in our first tournament. Lack of layout d's was something that struck me as a problem last year. So often, we got within a fingertip of a d block without forcing a turnover. This really wasn't a problem today. We had kids flying all over the field, thwacking the disc and bowling through the cutter. It was amazing. However, we struggled to shut down our opponents' offenses when we didn't get a block. Most of the scores against our team happened because we allowed our opponent to walk down the field with completely undefended force side in cuts. We're going to have to find a way to stop biting on fakes and letting our men cruise free on the force side. It often seemed as if we were either getting a huge block or letting the other team score as if there wasn't any defense at all. If we were able to stay with our men a little more consistantly, I think that we would cause even more turns than we already have. I hope that this is something that we can improve during this trip.

Finally, our focus was both good and bad. At times, our entire team would be totally in the game. Everybody would seem totally pumped when we scored, rushing the field and yelling their fucking heads off. They would yell encouragement and give up calls and all that other bullshit that really helps a team out. During those periods it felt like we were really part of a Team, working together towards a common Goal that was better than any single one of us. At other times, though, our focus seemed to flag. Players on the sideline had their hands in their pockets and a bored look on their faces, or they lazily tossed a frisbee back and forth, or they sat in a chair under our tarpaulin. During these points, play on the field seemed notably less focused as well. Throwing decisions worsened, cutting grew stagnant, defense was lazy. As a team, we need to work on being focused and in the game together. It's okay to lose our focus temporarily - it is impossible to stay completely focused for an entire day of gameplay. When it happens, though, we need to find a way to get our focus back, and quickly. Hopefully, in tomorrow's bracket play, the competition will always be difficult enough that we don't think that we are better than the teams that we will be playing. We won't get complacent, and we will manage to keep our focus. Hopefully. I want our team to develop a strong mental game, to be confident and focused in a way that Zoodisc has never been.

Like I said before, I really wish that we had done a better job getting playing time for the younger members of our team. There are a handful of people who got almost no opportunity to play at all, and that strikes me as a notable tragedy. I know that we were trying to sub competitively, and that makes it difficult to get everybody in, but I think that we could have done a better job of it all. It would have been, like I said before, good for our less experienced players to have gotten a bit more of an oppotunity to get into a rhythm and learn how to play with some of the better players. Our tight rotation also had a partially negative effect on our performance. A handful of our core players (John, Babbitt, Henry, Mitch, Ryan, Alden) played a zillion points over the course of the day. It tired them out and made them less effective at times, which I think helped contribute to closeness of each game. I wish that we'd played a little deeper into our roster during those first few games so that we could have been a little more fresh for that final game against Georgia. Subbing is really difficult, though, and while I understand that Babbitt and I struggled a little in finding the time to open up the lines, I need to cut us a little slack. It's rough having to focus on the entire team while I'm trying to focus on my own playing. I find that both suffer - my individual playing as well as my ability to lead the team - when I try to do both.

Personally, I think that I had a medium day. I made some decent plays on offense - throwing a few scores, including a hammer to Babbitt, a couple hucks, a couple to breakside endzone cuts - but I don't think that I was active enough offensively. There were definitely times where I stood in the stack, waiting to cut off of somebody else when I should have taken control and made the cut myself. I also think that there were times when I played really good defense, shutting down my man's cut or staying right in his hip pocket. I did, however, get beaten for four scores, which is an upsetting statistic. One of them was particularly frustrating, and it happened near the beginning of the Georgia game. They set up in a ho stack, and I was guarding the force side wing. He made a shitty cut that didn't really occupy me, so I wheeled into the lane right as the thrower released the disc. It was a perfect throw to me. I mean, perfect. It was as if he was throwing it to me on an in cut. All I needed to do was go to. Instead, I was so happy that the disc was coming to me that I stood flat-footed and waited for the disc to come to me. The man it was intended for sprinted right past me and made the reception. My man then cut deep and caught a huck for a score. So I went from getting an easy poach d to being scored on. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I marked in the zone a bit, but we mostly ran man and our zone wasn't so fantastic. I don't think that I did exceptionally well on the mark, though I don't think that I did exceptionally poorly either. I caused a couple throwaways, but I also had moments where I just wasn't as quick on my toes as I should have been and I allowed an easy throw to get the other team off the line. As a zone, we forced a few turns, some of which we were able to convert into scores. A lot of times, though, they just broke around our wall and worked it through the zone for an easy score. Before our zone becomes something that we can count on, it's going to take us a lot of time and practice, and we're going to have to make a few decisions as to what are going to be the wall's duties and what are going to be the wings'. But I'm sure that we'll work that out sooner rather than later.

Overall, a great day. Far better than I expected. I may be sounding a little negative in this post, but I really am ecstatic. I hope that we can continue this run during tomorrow's bracket play. I am, however, realistic about our team's performance. While there were plenty of things that we did properly, there were plenty of things things that we did improperly. Everybody is going to improve between now and Regionals. And, frankly, we are going to have to play better teams at Regionals than we did for most of today. If we are going to have a snowball's chance in hell of making it through our Regional competition, we need to close up the holes in our game and learn how to play like the champions we all know we are in our hearts. We can do it. But it's going to take a lot more work before we get there.

I'm fucking excited, whatever tomorrow might bring.