Short Regionals Recap
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Loading ...One week later, the recap. Gonna keep this real short.
Game 1, v. Metro Boston All-Stars of NY (which is to say, don’t know whos from don’t know wheres). Wagon starts off sluggish, is down 1 at half, picks it up a bit in the second half to win by a handful. I played a bit. Personal highlight was D’ing up on a terribly crappy dump cut around the back of the disc–guy lofts up a floating lead, thinking the dump will beat me–he doesn’t. I bid the tangent to make a chest-high layout grab for the D. I think we start sluggish here (and later) because of a lack of a good, concrete warmup to get us ready for game situations. We do some running and throwing drills, sure, but that’s the extent of it.
Game 2, v. GOaT, Wagon’s best game of the three. We go down 0-2 off the bat, but come out firing on all cylinders, get a couple short turns on D, and generally capitalize. Eventually GOaT gets their shit together and puts us away, but we ran a tight rotation and tight until a bit after half. I only played a few points, and wasn’t involved in much–all zone-man transition points.
Game 3, v. Gunslingers (aka McDermo’s squad). We come out weak again, both sides are playing sloppy early and middle. at 9-5 or something we open up our subbing rotation, and, surprise! we bring it back to 9′s. Funny what a difference fresh legs can make. We close the rotation up at this point and continue to suck it up and drop the game and any chance and progressing; McDermott and co go on to lose to Red Tide in their next game.
Good time, overall. Got to watch DoG hose Metal, Seigs threw and caught a score, I think. Good to watch some high-level ultimate, where receivers catch just about everything in their vicinity, throwers throw to space, and O generally looks pretty, nothing really forced. DoG looked really good. Keeps giving me something to aspire to. I remember specifically seeing Zip at one point as a wing in the zone; throw goes over the top, cross-field forehand to his man on his side–Zip closes something like 15 yards in the span of a couple seconds with his man, just in time to leap and get the D. Quite honestly, it was jaw-dropping how quickly he closed. Helps me realize that there is SO much benefit to be had simply from being more fit than your competition, helps me to know that if I keep working, by this time next year I could have 8-10 more lbs of muscle on me, and just be a monster. Motivates me to train hard, and train smart. I’m getting there–with flexibility and strengthening, the source of my knee woes is slowly coming into clear focus. Another month of strengthening and stretching, and I think I’ll be money–of course, then I’ll have all winter too…looking forward to being home without the distraction of classes this winter and continuing to whip myself into better and better shape. Wagon was a worthwhile experience for sure–it’s definitely enhanced my appreciation for some finer aspects of the game, and allowed me to look beyond simply how Dartmouth does ultimate to see hat there are many roads to the same destination (the endzone). though I can’t say it compares to the level of investment one feels in a college team.
That’s all for this post, I’ve got reading to do. Next weekend, Purple Valley, should be a blast. I’ll be looking to rein in my game a bit from Yale where I was looking to test myself on hucks and breaks a bit–as we solidify our roster and get our system in place it’ll be a lot easier for me to do my thing out of the stack and rely on my teammates to carry things through–simply put, I’ll have less impetus to be a playmaker and more impetus to be a player. If that makes sense. That’s my hope anyways; with this still being a tryout tourney, I’m sure there will still be ample opportunity for me to open things up. Decision making will be the primary focus.
8/5: Mike’s hat
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We won. Need I say more? Perhaps I should.
…yeah. It was a lot of fun, had a pretty good (but not great) turnout, several of the non-sophs (Dermo, Rem, Owen, Molly, Charlie) and alums (Pnut, Tommy Dickie, Orsi, Liz) came back up to play; definitely good to see people. My team was admittedly stacked, not in the sense that anybody cheated, but in the sense that we just had a pretty solid level of talent across the board, with a plethora of handler-capable folks who could chuck it upwind or down, and several people with legs to run.
We started off winning out our pool, our closest being a hard-capped game we won on universe point (we let them back into it); this game was also highlighted by s point that took a good 20-30 minutes; at one point a timeout was called and we took a good five minutes before we went back to it–and then it still took five turns before I ended the misery catching a callahan.
Finals was pretty exciting, there was a decent-sized crowd watching. I got to make some nice looks, some swilly looks that worked (that were not swilly in my book–I threw a blade for a score in transition at one point), and some other looks that didn’t work, in large part due to Rembert being within, you know, 30 yards of where I was throwing. Got to show off a bit, which was nice. Me and hat tourneys get along pretty well, if the High Tide hat and Mike’s hat are any indication–I have a lot of fun being able to run the show to an extent and work on my game.
Been fairly active the past week. Haven’t lifted since Tuesday, but I had CW on Wedsnesday, where we played basically savage for a few hours, and then did more or less the same thing against Enuf Monkeys in a Dartmouth scrimmage Thursday. Took Friday off, had the hat tourney today, and tomorrow comes more CW practice, as well as a scrimmage with New Noise. Hopefully we get good numbers so I can take it easy-ish. It’ll be a good tourney-simulation to do back-to-back days like this, but at the same time if I want to get right back into training on Monday I don’t want to be killing myself tomorrow. We’ll see.
Mars
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Went to Mars in Pittsburgh this weekend with the Dartmouth 08s, henceforth known as the “Booyaks.” Played five games in all–it was a 3-day tourney, but we left to get back in time for Monday classes and had to skip the final day’s games, as well as the final game of our third day (we didn’t want to wait after a thunder/rain delay).
I played pretty well. We were completely free subbing, I didn’t play as much as I would’ve liked to perhaps but it wasn’t bad at all. We played well overall, still developing some synergy, but we’ve got a lot of talent and lots of little bits of chemistry going so that’s a plus.
I didn’t keep track of too much–I considered keeping a point diffy for when I did play, but didn’t think of it until the second day and I couldn’t keep track. I could, however, keep track of my huck success %, which was a solid 7 for 9 going into the last game of the tourney before I flubbed a forehand huck (which I never do anymore) and had a huck to Sadie poached by some tall guy on the other side of the field, and only barely. I was 4 for 5 on Saturday, 3 for 6 on Sunday. Sunday had more wind, Saturday was pretty calm, but overall I’m pretty happy with that kind of success percentage. None of them were bad looks, I think, the only turns I did have were execution errors, save the poached D.
For the record, improving my deep looks is probably priority #1 when playing with the 08s this summer. Working on deep cutting and defense should come with Chuck Wagon, I’m hoping.
Defense was not a primary consideration for me this weekend (hi Dusty), though it certainly wasn’t horrible. Had more than a couple lapses either due to a lack of focus on playing from coming up with a good heckle (hi Dusty) or looking to poach and getting burnt for it.
I’ll leave it at that for now. Coming in ten minutes or so, some words on my workout plan for the summer.
Easterns & Chuck Wagon
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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.
However, I re-rolled the ankle I rolled at classwars early into our scrimmage chasing down a miscued huck after I planted to come in (clipped somebody else’s foot trying to run around them–my ankles and others’ feet don’t go well together) and I had to sit the rest of the time. I wanted to run a bunch more, so it was a bit frustrating.
Went with Wagon to Easterns as well, ran into former Dartmouth stalwarts such as Seigs (we watched him pull OB twice against Clapham from England), Agan (who was also recouping from a rolled ankle, and in the midst of Potomac tryouts), Shmi (playing for Brute squad), Liz (playing for NBT, “New Boston Team”), Orsi (playing for Rogue), Hoffman (playing for New Noise), Ryan Abraham (playing with HOV, a mid-tier DC team), the Fist (playing for the Colt .45s), and some older folk I didn’t know, one of whom played for Pike wearing an old Dartmouth Ultimate light (Mizuko, apparently?).
I tryed playing with a brace on for the first couple games and played ok. My first touch was in the endzone (self-call), that I bobbled and dropped (self-hangup) because I was wide open and had too much time to think about it (self-call?). I only got sporadic pt because of my tryout status (Chuck Wagon gives preference to its “core” players and ringers before letting developmental players and tryouts play), but that worked out ok since I could go on, run my ass off for a point, and recoup since I didn’t really have the gas to keep going for more than one point at a time. Played some decent D, though I definitely need to learn to anticipate the riskier throws, since lots of teams either have veterans who will make and complete said throws or are low-level enough such that they take their shots regardless of whether they’re there or not. Wagon’s got some solid veterans who will put the disc most places, which is a nice change of pace on O. My cutting was solid when I was playing, nobody can guard me. The O’s still a bit disjointed, continuation cuts and stack position are less than ideal but it should all start coming together over the coming months.
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.
Regionals
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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.
Bit of a hiatus.
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...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.
Some brief recaps of the past couple weekends:
-UMass: my main thought coming out of this tourney was “man, I need to stop getting pointblocked.” pretty swilly/shitty tourney, on the whole. I had several poor-execution moments on O and D.
-Yale: overall, pretty solid. Played a shitton, ran more than probably 90% of the team playing point in 1-3-3, marking handlers in clam, and cutting when we got the turn. This was probably when I realized my hucks aren’t as solid as I thought they were–I swear they were better in the fall, I feel like I’ve regressed a fair bit thanks to indoors/less throwing in general over the winter.
I felt really, really good about my D though–the first time in a while I’ve felt legitimately confident in my D ability. I feel like I’m finally getting “caught up” in terms of playing good D against A-level players instead of the standard b-fare we usually ran against last year. I also feel like I’m getting back into the sort of shape I’m used to, on the ground at least, which definitely helps a lot in terms of reaction ability. Anticipation’s gotten better too, I’m getting a better feel for the cutting lane and the disc position and starting to play more to my strengths and less to “not get beaten,” with good results. And of course running 1 in 1-3-3, which has been pretty solid for the most part. Still room for improvement–I don’t think I have the tools to be a threat on the mark like Socks, but I can do a better job of avoiding the quick break as I’m setting the mark and on anticipating/perhaps even baiting the short 2-foot handler-weave dump pass for some D’s on the mark with a well-timed bid. But that’s for later.
-Sectionals: not much to say here; we rolled our competition without too much trouble. I played a ton, but less than the previous two weekends with the games being less close in general. Hucking still needs some polish, need to be a bit more deliberate with those in the future, but overall pretty solid. I’m already feeling the general improvement in my throws in windy weather, don’t think I had any non-huck throwaways. Getting out and low a bit better and it’s getting a bit more instinctive, though there needs to be more polish there. Didn’t get pointblocked, unless you count one throw I had that my mark got a hand on because I made a last-second adjustment on my huck to avoid hitting the people on the sideline (stupid stoned clown posse). I don’t count that, by the way. I do count it as progress.
-Now: That’s where I’m at, more or less. Looking to work hard these next two weeks and cap off a strong season at regionals, one way or the other (natties would be icing on the cake).
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.
So, Spring Break…
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...…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
2-25: four Corners
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...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.
