Sectionals.

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I kept meaning to get on this thing, but my life has been pretty hectic and time has (as usual) gotten away from me to some extent. I'm going to skip a lot of that period in this post, but hopefully I will be able to backtrack and better document that time when/if I get around to throwing together an end of the year summary.

I guess I should start my Sectionals recap by talking about our Series Staches. This year, at Robin's behest, nearly all of Zoodisc is attempting to grow out playoff mustaches. The one problem with this plan is that it wasn't officially announced to the team until the Tuesday evening before Sectionals. Since our team mostly consists of prepubescent schoolgirls, very few of our members were able to rock full and noticable mustaches for this weekend. Only Henry, Josh (who already had a mustache), and I, to be specific. Several other people displayed some ragged peach fuzz, though I hope that the two weeks between Sectionals and Regionals will give them enough time to grow full and manly mustaches. Robin and Ryan bought Just For Men beard dye, which they thought that they could use to accentuate the fuzz on their upper lips, but they experienced mild allergic reactions and only succeeded in dying brown streaks of skin. It was hilarious.

As per the schedule, Saturday of Sectionals pitted us against three easy teams before we ended the day against Middlebury. I believe that these were wins against Williams C (15-1), Westfield State (15-5), and Amherst College B (15-1). While I was happy that our team managed to remain (somewhat) focused and intense throughout these beatings, they really didn't say much about our team. We played with completely open defensive lines and managed to get turns and score at will, even when we didn't exactly play good offense or defense.

Our final game of Saturday was against Middlebury. Based on their past results this season, we knew that Middlebury was going to be a tough opponent. They have a lot of height and a lot of speed, which helps to make up for their high-risk offense. Middlebury has always had a knack for completing big throws to covered receivers, and this year is absolutely no exception. They came out fired up for this game, but so did we. For the first couple points, we basically traded. I think that we might have given up a break on our first offensive possession, but we held fast and got a break back few points later. Maybe we gave up another break, but I think that we were only down a point or so - and very much in the game - when tragedy struck. Josh lobbed a pass into the middle of the field to Mitch, not seeing that another cutter's man had poached out into the lane. Though it looked like the Middlebury defender tried to duck away from the contact, his head smashed directly into Mitch's leg just above the knee. The next thing we knew, Mitch was writhing and moaning on the ground. We probably spent the next ten minutes or so trying to figure out the extent of Mitch's injury before we finally sent him to the emergency room and resumed the game. I believe that the doctor's still don't know exactly what sort of injury that Mitch sustained, but one theory is that a bone chip lodged itself into one of the ligaments in his knee. Whether or not this is actually the injury is incidental, however; my main thought and hope is that Mitch can recover from his injury quickly and without complication.

The team was visably shaken after Mitch left the field. In retrospect, we should have taken a little extra time to have a team huddle and to try to recover some of our intensity, but I didn't really think of it at the time. Mitch has been a huge part of our team all year, both as a cutter on the O Line and as a leader on and off of the field. His loss has a tremendous impact on the team, but we should be able to fill the void left by his presence. I mean, we wouldn't really be much of a Team if we collapsed at the loss of any single player. Mitch's loss, however, impacted our performance more than if he (as a player) merely wasn't there. In watching us play, it was obvious that everybody on our team was thinking about him as much as they were thinking about the game. Our cutting looked timid, as people seemed afraid to be injured in a similar manner. Defense was less physical and less intense than it was at the beginning of the game. Our throwing decisions and our overall level of concentration lapsed, and we had a number of uncharacteristic turnovers and blown defensive assignments that lead to easy goals. Middlebury easily scored the point after Mitch's injury and then went on to break three or so times to take half. After half, Middlebury continued their run. They broke time after time when they pulled to us, and they either worked it down the field or hucked for a score whenever they got the disc. We continued to look timid and unfocused, and Middlebury capitalized on our mistakes. I think that we only scored three times after Mitch left the field, giving up a crushing 15-7 loss.

On the bright side, our loss to Middlebury came at the best possible time in our Series run. We didn't have any games after this loss on Saturday, which gave us plenty of time to go home that night and forget about our frustrations. Instead of having to bounce back immediately from such a tough loss, we were given the opportunity to forget about it and move forward into Sunday with minimal consequences.

Sunday's play kicked off against Vermont B. Vermont B is a pretty good B team, but they are still a B team and we walked to a 15-2 win. This brought us to our semifinal matchup against Williams College.

Williams, as a team, is rather similar to Middlebury. While they have the ability to work the disc under and move the disc among their handlers, they usually rely on height and speed in an impatient and high risk offense that takes a lot of chances and moves the disc quickly down the field. Traditionally, there is a lot of animosity between our two teams, and both of us started this game hard and fast.

We began the game with a lot of desire and emotion, though this sometimes seemed to work against us offensively. We had a couple of early turnovers when a thrower tried to do too much with the disc, squeezing a throw to a tightly covered man or overthrowing a receiver on a difficult throw. Defensively, we surged past our men on several different occassions to nail spectacular layout d's, but we were not often able to convert these defensive efforts into goals. I think that we went down three breaks before our offense really got going and started working the way that they should. Our defense was able to get a break back, and Williams took half 8-6. We were down a couple of points, but we felt as if we had the momentum to come out and take control of the game in the second half.

Boy, were we wrong. Williams came out flying after halftime, and we weren't able to stop their O Line from scoring its first point. Our O Line, however, was quick to show its mortality. Throwaways and drops characterized our offensive effort as Williams broke us several times in rapid succession. These mistakes seemed to worsen as the game went on, as our players were clearly rattled. On several occassions, a cutter pulled up on a cut as if to make sure that he wouldn't drop the disc, only to be layout d'ed by a Williams defender. These instances demoralized our team and pumped up Williams. In a scene that was eerily reminiscent to the end of our game against Middlebury, we were only able to score once in the second half, yeilding a 15-6 loss.

This devistating loss made it impossible for us to obtain our Section's first or second bid to Regionals, but the third (and final) bid was still within our grasp. Luckily for us, our capitulation to Williams left us with plenty of time to relax before our semifinal game in the third place bracket, which was to be against Vermont. Each of us, in our own way, had the task of forgetting about Williams and getting ready for our first game. We warmed up as a team as if this would be our first game of the day, and managed to get pretty fired up to play Vermont.

Zoodisc came out flying against Vermont. We played some of our best defense of the year against them in the early going and then played good offense against them once we got the turn. I think that we broke to take the first three points of the game, scored, and then broke again to burst out to a 5-1 lead. Our O Line was not to be outdone, however. Though they never fully allowed UVM to tie or take a lead, they seemed determined to give back any break that we wrested from Vermont's hands. We refused to let this happen, however, and took more breaks than our Offense managed to surrender. In our 15-12 game against Vermont, the D Line managed to score 7 or 8 points, which is highly unusual (to say the least). It was clear that the Offense still wasn't playing to their full potential.

Our final game of Sectionals matched us against Amherst College, our hometown rivals, for the third bid to Regionals. While Amherst doesn't have the depth and athleticism that we enjoy, they have a couple of exceptional players and a fantastic zone defense that gives a lot of trouble to a lot of quality teams. On Saturday, Amherst managed to beat Vermont 13-10, and they lost 17-13 to Williams after being up 14-13 or so. Furthermore, Amherst College had strolled to a win over Westfield State while we battled against Vermont. Amherst is a dangerous team that was better rested than we were, and we knew that we would have to bring our best to secure a victory - and a berth in Regionals - over them.

As with the start of the Vermont game, we came out flying against Amherst College. We went up a couple of breaks early, with exhilerating defensive stops and tight offensive performances after we got the turn. Unlike the Vermont game, however, our O Line didn't demonstrate any desire to blow the show. They cut hard downfield, made good throwing decisions, and executed well. I don't believe that we gave up a single break the entire game. While we had to work for every goal that we scored against Amherst College, they were unable to hang with us and we pulled ahead to a fairly substantial lead. I believe that we finally ended up winning to the tune of 15-8, earning our way to Regionals.

While we didn't always play the way that we expected, I am pretty happy with our performance this past weekend. It's difficult for a team to recover from a demoralizing loss, and we managed to recover from two of them. Many teams, including past Zoodisc teams that I have been a part of, would have struggled to pull themselves together mentally and prepare for success in these circumstances. I am very proud of our team. While we certainly aren't where we need to be in order to be successful at Regionals, I know that we are going to continue keeping a positive attitude and continue moving towards our goals. Most of our team's improvements this year occurred within two weeks of Sectionals, and I expect to see similar improvements in the period leading up to Regionals. Nobody expects us to win our Region, but I Know that we are going to give a game to anybody that we encounter.

The travesty called Roll Call, and other Events.

We headed down to D.C. last weekend for the Roll Call tournament. It took us about 7 hours to get there, but this drive seemed insignificant compared to distances we covered for spring break. We finally got to our motel in Southern Maryland at about 1am, planning to wake up at 6:50am to get ready for the first round. This was about the last thing that went as expected.

I woke up at 6:40 to the sound of my phone ringing. It was one of the tournament directors, who was calling to let me know that Saturday's play had been "suspended" due to the torrential downpour that had apparently struck the area just after we went to sleep. It was still raining, but only slightly, so I asked if that meant that the tournament was officially canceled. The guy refused to say anything more conclusive than "games have been suspended", a phrase that he repeated as an answer to all of the follow-up questions that I thought to ask. We went back to sleep.

At about 9:15, I received a second phone call. This call told me that the first round was set to start at 10:35, with a mandatory captain's meeting at 10:15. Since our hotel was a little under half an hour away from the fields, this meant that we needed to get up and on the road pretty much immediately. We rushed the the fields, arriving at about 10:15 only to learn that the captain's meeting had been pushed back to 10:45, that the first round would start after that, and that our team had received a first round bye. Since the first round of play would be an exploratory round, after which they would assess the damage the the fields and determine whether the tournament could continue, it was far from assured that we would get the opportunity to play at all. We found a small area next to our designated field and warmed up.

The mud was intense. In spots, your feet would sink three inches into the gloppy mess. In other spots, you weren't so lucky and five or six inches of mud would suck at your shoes. Not playing (due to my ankle tendonitis), I was wearing jeans and sandals. My sandals were sucked off of my feet every few steps or so (in a particularly painful manner), and my jeans might be ruined, imbued with the clay-like soil of our nation's capitol.

Nevertheless, the tournament directors decided that the first round was successful enough to allow for games to continue. Our first game matched us up against George Mason, a small college that went deep into the March Madness tournament a couple years ago. They weren't the most experienced or athletic team, but they worked hard and didn't let the conditions get to them. They also had a girl, but she was certainly not the worst player on the field.

We, on the other hand, were absolutely affected by the elements. Our team struggles to forget about uncontrollable factors, and this game demonstrated this perfectly. The uncertainty over whether we would get to play hurt our warmup and shook our focus. The mud didn't just get in our cleats, it got in our heads and made people not want to play. Our team underestimated George Mason, writing them off as an easy victory that we could attain with limited effort. Additionally, a lot of our usual leaders on the field were absent (Babbitt, Ryan, Jeff Kelly, and I were all sidelined with injuries, Henry and Robin couldn't make it down that weekend, there were a few other people who were missing...), which made it more difficult for those who were playing to maintain their focus on the game at hand. And this all showed. We came out flat on offense and defense, throwing the disc away unnecessarily and playing lazy defense. In a game where we should have been able to stifle each and every one of George Mason's force side cuts, we let them cut all over us. We let them score force-side goal after force-side goal. It was utterly embarrassing. I think that we took half up one break and then finally gutted out a 13-9 win. Bah.

Our second game was against Cornell B. We started this game with a little more fire, but Cornell B was a little better than George Mason. We went up a break and then traded for the first couple points before a tournament director rolled by on a golf cart to let us know that the tournament was officially cancelled at the end of that point. Our final score was 5-4 over Cornell B. Hardly a commanding win but, well, hardly a game at all. We returned to our motel, muddy and dissatisfied.

After getting hopped up on vanilla lattes that the motel office was giving away for free, a bunch of us decided to go into D.C. for some evening sightseeing. We drove into the city, where we dropped Brandon off with his mother and his older brother for the night. We then continued on to a place called Jumbo Slices, where we each bought one of the biggest slices of pizza that I have ever seen. For five dollars, I was able to buy a slice of pepperoni pizza that was probably three and a half feet long, from crust to tip. It was enough pizza to last me for dinner that night as well as breakfast and lunch the next day. I didn't see the size of the pizza that this slice came out of, but it must have have a diameter of over seven feet. We then met up with one of Galen's friends, who goes to George Washington University. He seemed pretty cool, albeit a big stoner, and he agreed to show us around the monumental district of the city. We started at the Washington Monument - from which we could see the White House, Capitol Hill, a bunch of State Buildings, and all of the major memorial monuments - and then walked around the Potomac to the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. We then walked through the Vietnam Memorial and back to the car. All told, it was a great walk. The monuments are all extremely moving, though for very different reasons (the Jefferson was grandois, the FDR was meditative and thought provoking, the Lincoln evoked thoughts of self-sacrifice and patriotism, the Vietnam was mind-bogglingly intense), and I'm glad that we made the effort to go see them. I was worried that people would be too bummed from the cancelled tournament to make the trip, but at least a handful of people remained upbeat enough to make something out of the trip.

We checked out and headed back to Massachusetts the next morning. I was in Nick's car, but he was complaining that his back was sore so I agreed to drive the entire way back to Massachusetts. Along the way, we learned that Nick is a heartless bastard (he has no sympathy for people who are born into lesser circumstances, and he would like to kill every human on earth but lacks the courage or conviction to do anything about it). Steve O. also peed in a bottle. Galen told Steve that he could produce a higher volume of urine, which prompted Steve to pour the bottle of piss out the window on the Jersey Turnpike and make Galen fill it with his own. I think that Galen didn't fill the bottle quite as high, but he did manage to piss all over himself and the back seat of Nick's car. Galen also made the mistake of putting a candy bar wrapper into the microwave at a gas station, causing the microwave to erupt in sparks after about a second or two. To the incredulity of the gas station employee, Galen had the gall to ask for a replacement candy bar. He didn't get it. I managed to make it all the way back to Northampton, and then promptly crashed Nick's car. We came to a part of the highway where the two lanes divided and were seperated by a jersey barier. Right at the beginning of this division, I almost ran into an enormous pot-hole in the road. Worried about blowing a tire, I tried to make a quick maneuver around the pot-hole, but the car fishtailed on the slippery road and headed straight towards the cement partition. I managed to regain some control over the vehicle, but still creamed through one of those big plastic barrels full of water that they place at the edge of the road in construction areas. It put a little dent in the side of Nick's car and scraped a white line of plastic down the passenger side, but no real harm was done.

Monday's practice was terrible. The rain had prevented our fields from opening quite yet, so we headed to Northampton for one final road practice. And only 8 people showed up for the start of practice. We decided to make lemons out of lemonade and play hot box. Little Steve showed up, decided that he didn't want to play hot box, and went home. He is a gigantic pussy and I hope he chokes on his own pubic hair. By the end of practice, we had enough to play 5 on 5, but I was still pissed about the whole thing. I sent an irate email, letting the team know that we would now have practice on Saturday since so many people had decided to take Monday off. I'm still pretty annoyed.

Practice on Tuesday was much better. Perhaps galvenized by my email, most of the team managed to come out to play. Additionally, our fields officially opened, which helped to bolster our spirits. We ran a ton of sprints and played a tough scrimmage. I was totally bushed by the end, and Wednesday morning I struggled to get out of bed.

Wednesday, we had a scrimmage against Amherst High. I don't want to talk too much about this scrimmage except to document that this was a loss. We played poorly on both sides of the disc, but especially on defense. Nobody on our team managed to lock down their man, and Amherst High cut pretty much wherever they wanted. We also turned the disc over more than we should have -through exexcution error as well as through bad decisions - and were completely unable to do anything to get it back once we turned it over. It was a disaster. Luckily, it happened now, so we can do something to prevent it from happening when things actually matter.

Yesterday's practice also went pretty well. We had enough players for two full teams with a couple subs, which is nice. We ended up practicing red zone offense and defense for a while and then settling into a nice long scrimmage. My team got off to a bit of a lead, but then we completely collapsed. We got a little too loose with our decision making and threw the disc away several times on really tragic looks. I think that we also got a little into our own heads, as we had a number of drops and turfed passes that should have not happened. I think that we - both teams - did a good job moving and staying upbeat, but our defense was still poor. We have to find some way of getting our team to play hard, lock down defense, but I don't know how we are going to start doing this. It is a puzzle, but hopefully we can find the solution in the next couple weeks of practice.

It's sort of a dreary day, but we are planning on practicing as usual. The addition of a practice on Saturday means that we are basically going two straight weeks without a day off. I know that this is sort of a precarious situation, since we certainly don't want to work people to the point of injury and we don't want people to become burnt out on too much ultimate, but we have much to work on and little time to work. I only ask that people stay strong and committed for the next couple weeks while we bang ourselves together as a team. A couple weeks isn't really all that much to ask, is it?