Thoughts.

You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you win ‘em all. This was one of those times. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Day 1 was pretty straightforward for us, with several games that were not terribly challenging and our hardest game coming from Northwestern, which we still won 13-9.

More on each game:
Game 1: vs Rutgers
Ariel (hi, Ariel! Thanks for introducing yourself at Folly. You may be the only reader I have outside of people I already knew) was really Rutgers’ only threat to do anything dangerous with the disc, and we did a good job of putting enough pressures on the handlers and downfield that he wasn’t able to hurt us to any large degree. We had a fairly open rotation at this point in the day as I recall. We went into the weekend wanting to play a full weekend of ultimate, never mailing it in against any team, and we did so successfully all day Saturday, playing two complete halves against Rutgers for a 13-5 win.

Personal note on this game: maybe late in the first half, I got kneed in the calf playing defense. I know, right? Kneed in the calf, what/how the hell? I turned more quickly than the cutter as he changed direction (I was behind him) and he kneed me.
Southerns Injury Count: 1

Game 2: vs Northwestern
We played NUT twice around this time last year at Ultimax, narrowly winning our first meeting and comfortably winning our second. This year we were better prepared for them, jumping out to a lead fairly early on with a few breaks and a rock-solid O-line in the first half (i think we went into half up 7-3 or so). Second half, we stumbled almost immediately out of the gate, as our O-line was broken straight away and gave up another break right afterwards, letting NUT creep back into the game and making the second half a bit more passionate as NUT tried to get themselves amped up enough to get back in it. We kept our composure, however, and our D-line (my D-line) got the breaks back as we went 6-6 in the second half to close out a 13-9 win.

This game, I was covering a particularly body-ful NUT cutter. I play pretty good body defense these days, getting in the way of the deep cut, but this guy instead of running around me, or trying to set me up somehow, would invariably move out into a cutting lane before stepping into me, often with an arm pushoff, and heading in. I kept warning him about the foul possibility there, and when I finally did call it he flipped out, giving me sass about “[I] was moving so it’s a foul on [me].” I countered with the fact that a) his pushoffs were taking away my capability to make a play and b) his elbow caught me in the throat on the foul call in question and we agreed to disagree. (Southerns Injury Count: 2) He came and spoke to me after the point and we reached an understanding that was much better than the somewhat contentious exchange we had on-field, so that was a good way to settle things before stepping back on the field against one another and a really great move on his part to come talk to me after the point.

Bye: Got lunch, watched the Discomfort Trolley. Man those guys develop. Some great freshmen waiting in the wings…

Game 3: vs LSU
We played these guys at CCC, and they were about as impressive then. We went into this game really focused on improving with every point we played, and our commitment to playing hard defense really showed in this game. Layouts all over, several layout D’s, and a point block by yours truly. (According to Dermo, later: “I was covering that guy for the second time, and after he got it the first time I was like, ‘this time I’m DEFINITELY going to get a layout D on you on the in cut.’ And then you went and point blocked the handler and beat me to it. Thanks a ton! Now I’ve got to get a layout D in the next game, I haven’t gotten one yet today!”) Incidentally, I also layout D’d Dermo’s guy at a later point.

This was the game, I think, where I had a layout D attempt that missed (you ever get those, where you’re right on top of a guy, but the disc is placed juuuust so so that you can’t get the D without laying out entirely around the guy? That’s what this was like), and as I got up after the bid, Chase was running past following his man and his knee caught me square in the back of the head. Southerns Injury Count: 3

Game 4: vs. Ohio
Another game we went into with keen focus and came out of as 13-4 victors. We really opened things up in the later stages of this game as I recall. I don’t remember a ton of specifics about this game (I’m getting some cognitive confusion here with Ohio st, whom I have very clear recollections of and who we played on Sunday). At this point in the day we threw a bit more zone (also in the LSU game) with very good success. Having a consistent group of people who play zone D together really enhances the chemistry and effectiveness of a teamwork D like that.