Thoughts.

Yeah, we only had 5 at the fields 10 minutes after our first game against Boston was supposed ot start. Yeah, we technically lost 17-2, since they assessed two points and that third point we scored came back on a travel call. But we 9 came to Devens and fought against the 20-something, and our names will go down in the SRT.

We had a great day, though. With a skeleton crew we persevered through three games, in what were ultimately losing efforts but were a lot more fulfilling than that. There are few things better than playing a full, hard day of ultimate with your friends.
Highlights of the Boston game:
-Dorner following the play on a huck to Grahm and picking up the mac’d disc just before it hit the ground, before getting up to throw our first score.
-Crew making a jump to grab the upline pass from the dump, in double-coverage, and just toe it in inside the endzone for our second score.
-Me making a beautiful IO forehand huck in flow to Graham going deep, who proceeds to catch it in the endzone and then send it back when Seig calls a travel.
-Crew going deep on a Boston player after I catch a poach on an upline dump and huck it to him, making the read and getting his hand on the disc above him, almost completing the sky for the goal (instead he just mac’d it away and almost got the layout grab

Our second game was against Colt .45 after a bye. Best game of the weekend. Highlights include Socks playing like a rockstar on O and D for them, along with the fist ’05, the bursts of points where Dartmouth would really get working and a ragtag collection of 10 took it to a team of 20+ that’s been practicing all summmer (we were more or less even for the first half, and went on a good run at the end of the game as well), and a multitude of sweet plays by just about every Dartmouth player there. We had hucks and skys and Ds and a few sweet grabs to boot. It was pretty apparent to us, at least, that had we so chosen we could have played to our studs and REALLY given them a good game and possibly won, but we kept things loose and sassy and lost by 6ish.

We finished up with a game against Rebelles, who we played to finish sectionals as well. We lost to them again, but we also had a much better time this time, again playing loose and punishing their lazy D when we had the disc. Had they not assessed three points on us due to our late arrival at the fields (we had to drive over after going into cap time in our previous game–by all accounts, the Canadians hadn’t even put 7 on the line but merely told us they had assessed when we arrived, but we let it go), it would have been a tight game and we might have decided to make a late push for the win–instead, we really opened the game up and Nick Root ’11 (who took some great pictures jumped in along with Ana ’11 to give us a couple extra bodies and we lost by 4 or 5 as I recall.

Finally, we finished up with a 7v7 (or 8v8, I can’t remember) Cat-Microwave-Tinfoil showdown with UVM, as both of our teams were undermanned and too tired to play another full game. UVM pulled off the win, 4-3 or 5-3, I think.

Saturday evening saw the Wagon boys and the Sugar Shack girls and myself and Crew, along with Dai and Ludi, heading out for dinner–which wound up being remarkably hilarious for remarkably un-hilarious reasons, in retrospect. Watson could not figure out how to reconcile cash and credit payments on the check with tipping, and everyone was a bit high on life or something. Remarkably entertaining. Dinner was followed by a prompt passing out of everyone at Pooh place.

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.