Spring Break! Part 1: Terminus/Georgia Invite (3/14-16)
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Loading ...aka “You spin me right round, baby, right round, like a (frisbee/tornado) baby, right round round round…”
aka the first of two Dartmouth tournament wins over the course of spring break.
As you may or may not be aware, Atlanta was smack dab in the middle of some nasty storm action during the weekend of Terminus. The weather cut games (and the tournament) short; a 2-hour delay followed the first two rounds (we didn’t have a game scheduled ’til the third round, and had only just finished warming up when the horn send us packing) and the tournament ended with a whimper as there were two more shorter batches of play before weather again forced games to a halt, this time permanently. Even polo fields have their limits.
Terminus Game 1: vs. NC State
Granted, our one game against NC state was shortened/interrupted by weather, but we played hard, they played hard, and we won 8-5 against them, making us the first team to beat them since we met (and beat) them at CCC in the fall. Maybe we just match up against them better than any other team out there they ran into in the intervening time. At any rate, with our 1-0 record on the day and our win being an upset of the tournament’s top seed, we went to bed Saturday night as the self-proclaimed winners of Terminus.
Sunday saw us heading to…somewhere. The name of the park escapes me at the moment, but it was a good hour and a half away from our hotel–at any rate, we played with several of the teams who were in power pools and were looking to salvage a weekend having come all the way to Atlanta. We were set to play three games but wound up with two, as Wisco-Whitewater left early to return home. The two games we did play, though, provided tight games and definitely made what had looked like a lost weekend into a productive one.
Georgia Invite Game 1: vs. Georgia Tech
Or simply “Tech,” as they often referred to themselves. This is a week+ ago’s recollections, so my mind’s highlights have faded. We won by a couple points, on the strength of our defense as always. Tight downfield defense and lots of pressure on the resets leads to a lot of turns.
Personal highlight: at one point we had a turn where I laid out in a failed effort to catch a dump pass. My defender, seizing the opportunity, immediately takes off deep while another Tech player runs up to the disc to huck it to him. He puts up a long floater into the endzone–at this point I’ve already gotten up and begun to chase maybe 3-4 steps behind. The disc sails into the endzone, and the Tech player is all but prepared to reach out and catch the disc, when I catch him, making a chest-height layout at full extension for the D. Definitely my best successful defensive bid in a high-level ultimate game. Other teams were apparently talking about how fast I was afterwards, which is pretty sweet. Yes, Cabo/Socks/others who scour my blog for self-calls, my top speed was higher, and yes, this is a shameless self-call. Like you’d expect any less.
Game 2: vs. Minnesota
Duck, duck, gray duck. Why gray ducks? Damned if I know. Why are we the pain train? It’s all arbitrary.
In contrast to the last game, in which we were in control from the get-go (I do believe we started off with a break against Tech), Minnesota caught us off-guard, with very quick disc movement challenging our marks with the throw-and-run. They jumped out to an early lead, but we battled and battled and battled our way back to force a universe point which we lost on. Despite the game’s result we were left with a pretty good sense of what we’re capable of, and it definitely affirmed the resolve and belief in the team to come from behind in any circumstance against any team.
Our third game would have been against Wisco-Whitewater, another team that’s right at our level and would have made for a great game, but they rolled out to head home.
After the day’s games, we drove to Charleston for a week of fun in the sun. Expect a short Follywood recap followed by a longer Southerns recap (the short version: we won!), potentially in two parts, over the coming day or two.
It’s gonna be one hell of a spring!
Great job this week. The stuff you guys put together at Folly was awesome.
I had a great time playing you guys at Southerns, congrats on winning and good luck in the series.
thanks, Jackson (do you go by Ariel or what?). Thanks again for introducing yourself, I have to say I was definitely caught by surprise when you mentioned that you read my blog.