So, Spring Break…
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!)
Loading ...…was good.
Great, even. Dartmouth went to Southerns, then mosied over to Savannah for the week, where the B-teams played in High Tide, the A-teams practiced, and everybody lived it up in some sweet beach houses on Tybee Islan, and finally the A-teams flew out to play in Centex while the B-teams travelled to NC to play in Beasterns and Biohazard.
By all indications, people had a great time. I know I did.
We started at Southerns, which we (we being Dartmouth A) struggled a bit at. We had some pretty good success the first day, with some close games and strong performances, but the second day was decidedly more flat. Lots of holes in our game were recognized. We wound up finishing a good bit below seed after losing to U of Central Florida the first game on Sunday, and we tanked pretty well after the loss. One could point to fatigue, demoralization, or any number of factors, and sure, they’re factors, but we need to learn as a team (and I need to learn as an individual) to focus less on extenuating circumstances and more on putting in my full effort for the point at hand, whether that’s on the field or the sideline.
After Southerns came Tybee. I played in the High Tide hat tourney the first day we were there, which was a lot of fun–fewer teams than in years past helped to ensure that the overall level of playing ability was relatively low–I was easily the stud of my team, which was a lot of fun. Got to more or less run the offense, making lots of hammer (our team name) and blade looks, as well as more than a few hucks, with a pretty good success percentage. We didn’t fare too well as a team, partly due to people like Zargham and the Carr who defeat the point of a hat tourney by playing with all their friends and shitting on their orignal teams to stack their new ones, but I had a great time and I’m definitely feeling pretty confident about my throws, so it was definitely a worthwhile day spent.
The other days were spent practicing in Savannah, which was really productive. Again, my confidence was boosted pretty considerably; I played well in practice, getting open with relative ease on O and doing a better job on defense as well. We got to watch the B-team play at one point, which was great to see–there’s definitely some talented freshmen, hopefully they keep coming out this spring. Non-ultimate activities on Tybee were fun too. I get the impression that the freshmen really had a great time and got to know each other better, with any luck it’ll keep them coming out.
After Tybee, came Austin. Centex. The closest thing to The Show Dartmouth will see short of Natties itself. We played well. Our pool wound up being very competitive, with lots of teams flip-flopping seed, us included. We went from being seeded 6th in our pool and last overall to finishing 4th in our pool and 15th overall, beating UCSB and UBC, our pool’s top two seeds, as well as giving semifinalist Oregon a run for their money and giving Georgia Tech and Michigan State good games as well. Saturday was quite possibly the best day of ultimate I’ve ever had–we played really well, were never out of any of our games, and wound up doing better than anybody expected, I think. Having Ben of DoG around as a coach helped a ton too. Great advice, really helped us stay focused on our own game and staying involved. Sunday was a bit more disappointing, as we lost first game to Harvard by a couple breaks, which was unfortunate–we had a couple bad breaks despite playing pretty solidly, in my opinion, though there was plenty to improve upon. I’ll certainly be looking forward to our next rematch. After Harvard came Carleton, their presence in the B bracket a bit surprising. They took us to task, as we struggled to deal with their zone in the now upwind/downwind conditions. I don’t think our D got a single break, which was a bit disappointing. After the loss to Carleton (which was roughly the same score as Harvard, though Harvard felt a lot closer than Carleton did), we were set to play UCSD for 15th, but they wound up forfeiting, ending our run.
All in all, I felt really good about Centex. We learned a lot about things to work on, dumps being a big sticking point, zone being another, and of course there remains plenty of improvement to be had with O and D in broader terms. Personally I felt great about my showing at Centex. I wound up covering handlers a ton, which worked really well for me–I’m real confident in my mark, so I feel like I can contribute a lot to the D by holding a hard force and containing the other team’s O to one side of the field, and then once we get the turn, I’m almost always mismatched against a handler and wide open all day. Got to contribute a lot on both sides of the disc. Still need to work a lot on covering cutters, I’m not anticipating anywhere near enough, but I can do a pretty good job on handlers most of the time (though I still need a fair bit of work there too).
The Good
-cutting, throwing (generally), marking
-the shape I’m in. Not ideal yet, but definitely getting there.
The Not-As-Good
-staying focused and fired up on D and on the sidelines
