Thoughts.

I’ll keep this short.

I’ll leave it at that for now. Coming in ten minutes or so, some words on my workout plan for the summer.

Not gonna do a full post, I’ll just put here what I was going to send out to my fuel cell before I trimmed it for posterity.

I went to chuck wagon practice on Wednesday and had a good showing (I’m still technically in “tryout” status, since I could only make one of the tryouts before school ended in the spring); the posterior training I’ve done over the past several weeks really paid off, I was running faster than I ever have. No joke. Still need to get the endurance up at the new speed, but it’s exciting.

Took another step towards working out a program for the summer, I’ll be sure to post about it when I finally finish it. Probably Wedsnesday or Thursday after I’m over the Orgo Lab hump in my week.

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.

Apologies to…nobody, really. I started this for me and despite harboring aspirations for something more, this remains primarily a place for me to record my thoughts.

Don’t really have the time for a more analytical post just now. Bio and Orgo are always calling…I’ll definitely make time for a post-season perspective, though that might be a ways off.

…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

Travelled across the border to Vermont on Saturday to play at an indoor facility with some sweet, cleat-bearing turf.

The game was four corners, a combination of hotbox and boot. Teams of 3 (2/1 M/F ratio, sub on the fly), team on O tries to clear the disc into a circle in the middle of a perhaps 30×30 yd field, then scores a point by knocking over a disc at any of the four corners of the field. Interesting game, requiring a fair bit of handler-squirrely-type play, and a great excuse to get out and run around and get lots of touches.

I played with a pretty underwhelming team, as I was the second or third tallest person on our team, and our tallest guy doesn’t play particularly tall either. That said, though, we played pretty solid defense for most of the tourney, and eventually got some good offensive flow going. It was a pretty solid defensive exercise, working on taking away a particular cut whilst also trying to be in position to make a play on any dump/swings. Took us a while to find our rhythm on offense, though, as we only wound up winning one of our four games on the day.

Had a blast, though–felt nice and strong, didn’t have any ankle concerns despite playing in cleats, which was really my primary goal in playing. Also got some sweet doublewide armbands that are really perfect for layout cushioning/protection, which was just a bonus.

A few things I need to work on, from this tourney (not all of these are readily applicable to ultimate, but it might be handy next year when I go play 4C again):
-better touch on straight leads. It’s much easier with curving leads, but thanks to walls etc a lot of the time a straight lead to one of the cones was the only possible throw and often these throws were too hard to be caught up to.
-playing the receiver, not the handler (when my man is the receiver). I tried to bait a lot of D’s by letting my man get to a point where the handler would put it, but this wasn’t always somewhere I’d be able to get the D. Hehe…not quite that fast, despite how good I was feeling.
-better blades/pushpasses/throws that are much higher-percentage indoors. I forget how useful these throws can be in the right situations, mostly because I’m used to playing in conditions where those throws aren’t often my best option. For 4C, though, it’s often the only way to get through a good defense and into the circle.

That about covers it. Coming soon: the term in review.

Phew. Quite the weekend.

Two days of full ultimate–4 games on Saturday and Sunday–and then 1 last game to cap it off on Monday. Boy, are my dogs tired. Dartmouth went 4-5 on the weekend, 5-5 if you count our win by default over UChicago on Monday. We were 3-1 in universe point games (4-0, if you subtract a play by this guy, more on that later), which was a good sign, though we also lost a couple games by fair margins that we really shouldn’t have to UChicago on Saturday and Tufts on Monday.

But hey, that’s how it went down. Take what’s happened for what it’s worth and build on it. For a pretty well-depleted squad of Dartmouth players that was missing over half of its studs we certainly didn’t embarass ourselves.

I’ll go through the tourney game-by-game.

Saturday:
vs Colorado- My first point in (second point of the game, D point), we forced a turn from Colorado with our zone near the zone and were primed to get the break. I made the first cut, got open against Beau [EDIT: according to Crewser, game film was checked and it was, in fact, Colorado's Beau look-alike, and not Beau himself, I got open on. Meh well, I would've gotten open either way], and was poised to make the catch in the endzone, but the throw was a little long and out of bounds. Having committed to getting the disc, I was in accelerate-to-layout mode, but couldn’t slow in time as the disc went out and wound up making a sort of half-assed fall-layout-thing, bruising the palm of my left hand (which still hurts) and tearing my red plaid skirt I was planning to make a statement with. I feel like this is a pretty good analogy for the tourney as a whole–flashes of potential, but ultimately lacking in proper execution and ending up a bit worn down. We came out fairly strong for it being our first game of our first tourney in a good while (Williams Turf Invite notwithstanding), but were still pretty flat, and Col got several breaks on us while our first opportunity to break was probably our best. 13-5 or so, Colorado.

vs. UChicago- I don’t have too much to say about this game. Saturday in general was a very flat day for the team, and for me–I don’t know if it was the heat, the sun bearing down, the lack of sleep Thursday on the flight over, the 1 1/2 of practice in the sun on Friday, or what, but probably 80% of the tourney as a whole I was playing feeling like I had no juice, no fire to kick my game up to the next level. This would be an adequate way of summing up our game against Chicago, as they went up a couple breaks and never really looked back. I think the final score was 13-9 Chicago or something like that.

vs. UMass- Just what we wanted, a regional matchup early in a tourney we flew across the country to play in. While we had a bit more fire for this game, we still didn’t have enough to get ‘er done. No idea what the final score was, but we dropped this game and dropped out of the top-tier (top 32 team) bracket.

vs. San Diego State University (I think that’s what SDSU stands for)- This game was under the lights, as the sun had already set. We played better this game. I felt pretty strong throughout the game, due in part to the bye beforehand and also due to the cooler temperature, I think. Personal highlights include a very nearly disastrous play where I spiked the disc after milking a pass into the endzone that turned out to be a pass that was contestably on the line rather than past it. Worked out all right, thanks to sideline support from Pov and good persuasion from Seigs, and one would have hoped that I’d learn my lesson from that and start checking line more carefully. Not so. Anyways, we won this game on universe point, SDSU threw zone and a couple redonkulous hammers and cross-field floaters later we’d shredded the zone and salvaged a bit of dignity on the day. 11-10 or 12-11, Dart.

As an aside–Poverty called me out on “the cockiest spike I’ve seen since Seigs” after a (admittedly pretty sweet) sky against Cal on Sunday–I just want to say that when I spike the disc, it’s always the same upside-down, over-my-right-shoulder throw. It comes pretty naturally and has become my preferred method of getting rid of the disc after the score. The magnitude of the spike is not a reflection of cockiness as much as how pumped I am after making the play. I was real stoked about pre-emptively skying two guys who were closing behind me on a deep put, ergo, the force I put into the throw for the spike sent it really high. I was really surprised when I turned around after the play to find the disc was just on its way down. When I start busting out the curtsy spike (gonna have to put the skirt to use somehow), then you can call me cocky.

Sunday:

vs. Stanford B- we showed up flat to start this game, but fortunately Stanford was ill-equipped to take advantage of it. We rattled off a couple early breaks to give ourselves a nice cushion, but then we got lazy and Stanford gave us a wake-up call with a couple breaks. In the end we rolled them pretty hard though, coming out strong in the second half. 13-7, us, I think.

vs. Cornell- this was a tight game. Both teams did well to avoid getting broken for most of the game–I think we each got one break on the other, leading to a universe D point for Dartmouth. Highlights include lots of hucks to Elliott, mostly from Seigs, with a reversal of roles at one point where Ell put it to Seigs instead. In the end, Dart got it done on defense, taking universe point in a great game. 11-10, us, I think.

vs. Cal- An interesting parallel with last year’s winter tourney where Dartmouth beat Cal (who were defending Nat’l runner-ups), making a statement about the team’s strentgh. The game actually went pretty similarly this time, too, as we were poised to take half on Cal 7-3 or 7-4 on a break, as Seigs put a short gainer to me in the endzone. But–me, being a) confused about the precise field position and ergo, the endzone position, b) always eager to generate some good flow with a quick upfield continuation, and c) not having learned my lesson to check feet, quickly spun around and fired a backhand to Sunshine, who, also influenced by a), milked the throw out of the back of the endzone instead of into it, resulting in a turn on the continuation. Cal went on to get a couple breaks on our O before we took half, and we more or less traded points leading up to universe, where Dartmouth struggled repeatedly to seal the deal in the zone, with something like 5 turns before Cal managed to pull off the break and the win. A real tough loss, especially for yours truly, though I don’t really kill myself over the play. Little point in getting myself down over something like that that was a result more of confusion and less of any particular fault in my execution or judgment (though of course, I’ll make damn sure to be more aware in the future). 11-10 or 12-11, Cal (meh…)

vs. UMass, again- tough rematch. Probably one of the last teams we wanted to play again at this point in the tourney. But we stepped it up and avenged our previous loss, with solid zone D forcing a lot of turns and the D line converting on enough to keep Dartmouth in the game. This one wound up going to universe point too, since for some reason we seem to be incapable of beating A-teams without a one-point catalyst to force our hand, and we got it done this time. 12-11, us, I think.

Monday:

vs. Tufts- Disappointing game. We showed up shortly before the game, with little time to warm up…I was playing flat, I don’t know about how the rest of the team felt, but generally everybody seemed too detached. While we didn’t play poorly, we just didn’t have any fire. Even when we had timeouts, halftime, trying to get pumped up, the motivational speeches were all pretty flatline, matter-of-fact, and I found myself trying to picture a more rage-tastic Seigs and Yi getting pissed to try and get my adrenaline flowing to little avail. Started to get some of the fire our very last point, but I couldn’t put touch on a dump pass to Socks (my second botched dump of the game, the former being an upline to Zargham that got layout D’d–should’ve looked for a better option), causing the final turn on the endline (we had too many of those on the D line that game) as Tufts took the game 12-9 or so, I think.

vs. UChicago, round II- Chicago had to catch a flight home, so we wound up winning this one by default and without a fight. Kinda a lame way to end the tourney, though we did get to watch a lot of swilly hucks with some nice highlight-reel plays to get the goals in the Fla-Carleton finals.

General notes: On a personal level, I made a few looks I was perhaps not ready to execute on properly. I had more than a few throwaways. While some of the turns were not necessarily 100% my fault–things like tiredness of the cutter going for the disc come into play–I definitely should be able to make better puts to make those discs less contestable or easier for a cutter to chase down. Certainly my forehand needs more polish at all ranges–I’ve definitely lost some of my feel for it over the winter. Backhand is pretty solid, been working on my reach and extension to get a good around/IO break with it, not that I’m often in position to have to make those sorts of breaks. As a cutter, I had a couple drops/Ds due to poor execution on cuts. Again, not all the turns were 100% my fault, but there’s still lots of room for improvement. I had more than one turn because I was adjusting a cut, either cutting off a deep cut for a gainer or an open cut to streak deep as the disc moved, only to find the one with the disc put it to me on the first cut because I was open on it. I feel like I have a pretty good sense for the temporal and spatial limits of my effectivness on cuts, but sometimes it’s more prudent to stick with the open cut I have, rather than trying to adjust and make for a more effective cut–because open is still open, period.
On that note, I have a pretty good feel for how I played this weekend. Not up to my standards in terms of success, though overall it was a great learning experience. I really was in a position to be a much bigger playmaker than I’d previously been on the A-team level, and while I didn’t exactly flourish in my efforts, I didn’t flounder either. Just another stepping stone on my way up–an assessment that I think applies to the whole team. Everybody elevated their game, and I think we all got to see where our ceilings are right now. I’m certainly not satisfied with what I’ve got right now, and I doubt the rest of the team is either. With any luck, we’ll elevate our games as the season progresses, be that much more capable and effective as a team when our usual studs come back and push us down on the depth chart, and similarly we’ll be that much better prepared to take on larger roles in years to come for the experience we had this weekend.

That’s my hope, at least. I’ve written far more than enough about this already. In terms of non-ultimate Vegas action, I slept. Lots. Watched the Olympics. Mostly slept, though…1-2 subs on D means I played close to half our points for the tourney. Lots of 50-80yrd runs…

Pretty solid practice, we got time in the midday this week so it was sunny and surprisingly warm. Really beautiful. Makes it all worthwhile, being able to play on a bright sunny day with a bunch of people who are not only sweet dudes, but also people you can play with and play well with.

Had a couple botches, mostly focus drops. Not a lot else I feel needs to be said regarding play. We worked break throws for a bit, which was really good–but being a cutter, I don’t exactly get a lot of situations to do it in-game. But hey, well-rounded players are useful players. Did some running too, good stuff. Gotta get better at keeping focused when I’m tired, the sprints were definitely a factor in my drops.

Really nice to see things coming together; we’ve improved a fair bit, and we’ve still got plenty to work upon. Vegas will be a nice challenge for the team.