Regionals
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Loading ...Yes, regionals.
Culmination of our season (Nationals would’ve been icing on the cake if we’d made it, in my mind). The results of all of our work together, sweating together in the gym, in the field house, on the turf over the winter, and pushing each other on the field. All the training and conditioning was brought to bear in a single weekend’s time.
It was worth it.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited to play or had so much fun. Started on D most every point in our two biggest games against Brown and Tufts, and ran my ass off, completely and utterly. I hated for it to be over, especially after only one game on Sunday, but I can honestly say I did the best I could.
As a general recap, Dartmouth:
-Beat Midd
-Lost to Brown, 12-14
-Beat MIT
-Rolled Amherst
-Lost to Tufts on Sunday on universe point
I’m only going to talk about the second and final games, since those were the ones that mattered most, for obvious reasons.
Brown. Great game, great, great game. I spent all but maybe two or three of my points in on D covering Brown’s Mike Vandenberg, which was a great challenge. Lots of O ran through him, and he was their primary hucker in the Colin Mahoney connection. I’d be lying if I said I shut him down–he’s got some solid, solid throws, the low-release flick for a huck to CMo their first point and later for a break score (that hovered 2-3 inches off the ground, where he’d released it under my hand) in particular stand out in my mind–but I feel like I did a pretty good job making things difficult for him getting the disc or otherwise moving it around. He runs hard, and covering him was a challenge, but that’s what made it so exciting for me. Overall the game was close the entire way.
We went down a break midway through the first half, but got it back to take half (I caught the score. self-call). Second half was without breaks until 12-12 and time cap, at which point Brown broke us twice to seal the deal.
We played pretty well. On O, we had a fair number of turns, but Brown’s D line O/our O line’s D kept the breaks from occuring. Generally I feel like our O line had a lot more turns than Brown’s, as we only got the disc on D maybe 3 times the whole game to my recollection, but at the same time, our D forced a lot of desperation hucks that CMo brought down, and likewise we were not so fortunate with our own desperation hucks for the same reason. Given that Mahoney caught the overwhelming majority of Brown’s scores, we can certainly come away from the game knowing that we outplayed a good team with a game-dominating (I use this term in a relative sense) tall guy.
One thing i do want to write about with regards to the Brown game was a line call in which I conceded a turn. I’m well aware that every posession the D-team can get is precious, but even so, the situation was ambiguous: I had bobbled the disc and when I had control of the disc was uncertain, as well as the exact positioning of the line with bunches of people crowding to watch the game. My reasoning in conceding the turn had a few justifications in my mind: 1, that there was ambiguity in whether the play was good or not, 2, that had I simply caught the disc properly instead of bobbling it to the line there would’ve been no question, and 3 (most importantly) I didn’t want us to be playing and winning on sketchy calls. Seigs later brought up a good point in that Brown had had another similar ambiguous up/down call go in their favor, and that there was thus good justification in us getting this call in our favor, which is a good arguement. Another player on the team simply said that we can’t let them “win it on the calls” or something to that effect, which is NOT something I feel comfortable engaging in. If another team is making questionably-spirited calls in a game against me and my team (I’m not saying this was the case with Brown, because I don’t think it was–on the whole, a great, intense, relatively well-spirited game), I’m not going to lower my game to their level and start arguing or making petty calls. If I had conclusively thought myself in, I would’ve stuck to my guns; as it was, I wasn’t certain if I was in or not. In retrospect the fact that Zip called for a line check from the sideline, when the line was obscured, is a bit questionable, but there’s no sense in living in the past about the decision.
The Tufts game was a bit harder loss to stomach. We came out fired up to play, ourselves conceived as the underdogs, and got two upwind breaks (and the accompanying downwind scores) right off the bat, putting Tufts in an early hole going into halftime. I think we had some jitters going into the game too–I had a turn early on, and a miscue when I was cutting cost us another turn–but we still got it done. After half, however, the tables turned, and our O struggled a bit to deal with Tufts’ zone in the windy weather. Tufts came back to even on breaks, and took an upwind break as cap went on. Needing two to win it, the O line battled to score going upwind to force a decisive universe D point. We ran a suffocating 1-3-3 in the wind, trapping on the sideline in the endzone and forcing a desperation huck for a turn, but we jumped the gun a little too soon off the turn and immediately gave Tufts the disc back on a wind-deflected huck up the sideline. We again set a tight zone and forced another throwaway; this time, however, Tufts came down the with the 50/50 disc, and worked the disc up the field to score and eliminate us.
Tough loss. Really, really tough loss. Unlike the Brown game, where both sides were battling at an even keel, this game was a much bigger roller-coaster ride of emotion, from the high of the early breaks, to the refocused intensity and excitement of playing, to concern when Tufts battled back, to doubt when they went up on us, to a do-or-die fire as I came in on the last point of our season.
I don’t need to say too much else about how I played–covered one of Tufts’ handlers mostly, got beaten more than I should’ve, but definitely shut him down on the dump and on the mark more than once, forcing throwaways or turns otherwise. We were much more in control of this game, which made it harder to bear the loss.
Mostly, though, it just sucks to be over.
On the one hand, I’m glad the season’s finished–no more having to put schoolwork and studies at risk/at late hours to accomodate practice, lifting, tourneys, etc. No more having to worry about eating right every day, taking care of my body 24/7 for the team (it’s still a concern, of course, but I’m better with breaking my usual rules).
On the other, it’s over. No more riding for hours and chatting with people about life. No more discussing x or y while we stretch down or warm up. No more taking comfort in knowing that I can always count on seeing the same group of people coming out to play and work together with. Without a unifying force, we return to our pedestrian, day-to-day lifestyles.
It’s not completely over, of course. Next Year has begun. New bonds will be formed. But that unique group of people will never be the same. Closed chapter.
It’ll be a while before I’m fully ready to re-commit to the sport. I’ll still play, sure, but my batteries need to recharge before I go full in again.
Nice post.
It’s gratifying for me to see that at least one of you guys got enjoyment out of the season. Most all of the feedback I’ve been getting of late has been pretty negative.