White Mountain Review
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Loading ...8-0 is a pretty solid return to competitive ultimate. Great squad to play with, too–true to form, Ballometrics is, in fact, full of ballers.
Game by game:
Saturday:
Hellgate. Good warm-up game. Some decent athletes, but their decision-making wasn’t justified given their skills. 13-2.
Spice. Dartmouth ’11s are so cute! Better marks (well done, Dartmouth!), but deficient in Baller. 13-2.
Bye. Lunch/hangout.
Super Huevos. Toughest game of the weekend, in score and mentally. We went up early (6-1 or so?) but started to panic when Huevos came back and took some control. We scored two to break away from a 10-10 deadlock in cap time to get the 12-10 victory.
7Express. Coming straight off of our last game and determined not to repeat our past mistakes, we nonetheless made this a game early on. However, the final 13-10 score belies a game that ultimately wasn’t nearly as close as against Huevos–we applied good pressure on D and generally felt more in control when things were tight. 13-10.
Grey Till (crossover). They were not as good as Huevos or 7Express. We were really hitting our stride at this point; ran away with it. 15-4, and a first-round bye for Sunday. Ballin’.
Saturday night:
I live here. A bunch of Ballometrics crashed with me; we had a party at my place, with one of my housemates supplying music loud enough for the whole neighborhood (outdoor party). Introduced the n00bs to pong. Good night.
Sunday:
Jug Handle. They were coming off of a universe-point win; we figured they would come out fired up, and they did. We came out very flat, with some unforced turns and lazy D leading to an early 3-0 deficit. Timeout huddle:
Buck: “Alright, let’s win this game 15-3.”
…final score: 15-3.
Disaster. Good team, bunch of UMass guys I recognized from college. Word on the sidelines was one of their players plays with Bodhi. D’d him up a couple times; generally this was a pretty good game for me, finally started to feel a bit more in control on D, and we stuck with straight stack on O more and I started hitting my stride cutting more too (also getting more used to running a spread again–it’s been a couple years).
Game ended with controversy; receiving on 14-9, the aforementioned Buck (one of our captains) goes to stop the blading pull–rather than waiting for a decisive ground hit though, he smacks it, seemingly out of the air, just before it hits the ground. The entire (Disaster) sidelines are screaming “Turn! Turn!” while the offense proceeds to work the disc up and score in 5 passes or so on a long one to, who else, Buck. Brief temper flaring ensues, but hands were shaken without major incident.
Never let a cutter stop the pull. 15-10.
Enough Monkeys. Enough for 2nd, at least*. For those who have never played against them, the Monkeys are notorious zone fiends–they all but refuse to play conventional man defense. Knowing this coming in, we resolved to play patient, take 100% throws, and keep the disc moving, all of which led to (I think) 0 turnovers on offense the entire game. We found enough holes to work it up the field, and even when they switched up defenses, manning up on our guys and poaching our women, we kept it under control and worked it. Offensively they love to chuck it and found some good success there (they’re well practiced); ultimately it came down to efficiency on O and we got the job done (we were less tired than they were, which helped too). 15-9.
*I kid because I love.
Goals. Met/Missed?:
- Step! On all throws. Met. I worked pretty well to this end; no issues with my throws turning over in-game, though I did have a too-bladey misfire on a forehand huck at one point and an over-step on an IO huck attempt. Yes, that’s a decision issue more than an execution issue.
- Don’t fall in love with the throws–do it with the legs! Mixed. Outside of that one ill-executed IO huck attempt my throws were pretty well within myself–still wound up throwing a handful of goals on long shots, made a few break throws here and there when necessary, but generally stuck to taking the easy option. That said, I definitely had a few throws to the other gender that need more calibration–wasn’t borne out in results, but the process needs to improve on that a bit more yet. Did it with the legs a fair bit, but not as much as I could’ve. Solid, but the level needs to come up.
- Back to basics on D; first, play hard dictating man-to-man. Then, look to help (phrased negatively: don’t get burned on poaches). Missed. Got burned way too much. Had some good moments–I got better as the tourney went on, made some good plays in crunch time–but the lapses were too plentiful and not even for good cutting (though I did bite on a pretty good juke at one point–that’ll get locked down in time too, though). Need more reps and perhaps some visualization (I’m thinking a return to cutting schematics). Part of it was also fitness; missing that fifth gear, had a couple shoulda-D’s because I was giving margins I can’t make up just yet.
- Communicate with the new teammates and build some chemistry! Mixed. Off-field, Ballometrics is a great squad, good group of players and a lot of really stand-up, fun personalities. On-field I’ve perhaps laid the groundwork for some communication but didn’t do a ton–I’m still talking on the field in-point as much as I usually do, but coordinating between points was lacking, especially in terms of cutting (what I’m looking for, etc).
Take-aways: Calibrate throws further. Get the reps dictating on D. Keep getting my ass in shape! May aim to Chesapeake, with over a month to keep working before Regionals thereafter. Can’t wait to rep the throwback jerseys.
If you're at Chesapeake, you may finally earn your (pin)stripes.
You teaching someone to play pong is like me teaching someone how to wear a skirt.
See you at Chesapeake, I hope.
"Alright, let's win this game 15-3." …final score: 15-3.
Ha! That's awesome.
Dusty,
What are the conditions requisite in earning said stripes? Finding Pike's field location on a bracket?
Owen,
I should clarify that Dorner was there too. The lack of an "I" in the "introduced the n00bs to pong" was intentional.
CJ,
We were pretty surprised too. I don't know that even our captain really believed it when he said it.
I played Pong some in college, good to see that you didn't just label Beirut pong.
I'm curious, what are the reps and drills you do to improve man D? I find my defense one of the strongest elements of my game, and I'd like to invest more time to take my defense to a higher level.
CharGeorge,
That depends on what kind of defense we're talking about here. Man? Zone? Playing tight, hard man D, or looking to help with a timely poach?
The short answer is that I pick things to focus (work) on when I'm playing–if it's man D, this is often dictating using my body and getting comfortable defending at a close margin (while simultaneously being heads-up enough to notice when somebody's wide open deep and needs help). If we're talking about zone, my focus is usually more on improving my communication, and generally learning to read the other team's tendencies and respond in a way to prey on them or make them more difficult.
In terms of drilling, you have your generic 1v1 or 2v2 man D drills, dump drill, and the like. I don't know that there's anything special to them other than choosing to key in on what works (this also means re-playing your reps and figuring out where exactly it was that you were beaten–it can often be a lot earlier than you think, for instance being led to be in a position where you had to respect cuts in two directions rather than only having to respect one direction while you take the other away with your body).
Is that sort of what you're looking for?
Mackey forgot to mention that when your really fast and can jump high you can play people under. The rest of this is just sweet talk to make other people believe he works hard. We all know that athletic ability is pre-determined and that working hard and thinking on D have nothing to do with being successful.
Brian "O'Line" Buck