Fall Wrap-Up

Fall ended on a strong note with a good showing at SoCal Warm Up for Smaug. We brought two teams, Team Hip and Team Bro. Because we lost Sean Ryan as a try-out tourney, we had me and Bishop captain Team Hip as a tryout team with all the guys trying out for the A team that we wanted to watch more closely. Arby and Knuckles captained team Bro, which had more returning A-teamers, but with both teams having a full 30 people, they ended up being pretty evenly balanced.

Hip went 4-1 in pool play, losing at 8 AM to a UCSD Z team in a pretty sloppy game. We won games against USC, Redlands, Irvine and Arizona Y (who was more of their B team). This put us in the 5-8 bracket on Sunday, which mercifully started at 11 AM, so we got to enjoy ourselves Saturday night. It was windier Sunday morning, and we faced a Long Beach team with only 10 guys that ran zone every point. It was not a very fun game. We played an extremely fun game against the Squids Rick Roll team, which had a lot of hucking and exciting plays. We scored the last point of the game, but hard cap ended us at 11-10.

Team Bro went 3-2 in in their pool, beating UCSD Y, USD and Northern Arizona, but dropping games to SDSU X and Arizona X. On Sunday in the 9-12 bracket, they lost a tight game to Azusa Pacific, who also ran a lot zone, per usual, but had also picked up three ringers from SLO who were looking for a team to pick up with. In the last game, they lost a tough game against Claremont on universe.

SDSU Y ended up winning the tourney over Arizona X. SDSU has had an extremely successful fall, and are looking to be dangerous this season. I am pretty surprised to hear that they haven't been accepted to the SB Invite yet. I think people remain skeptical of fall tourney results, though, which can produce some pretty odd results. It's all about the season.

We've finally (almost) set our A team. We're still waiting to see BSOD and Avatar, who spent the quarter abroad, and Syntax, who had the flu during Warm Up and couldn't play. Otherwise, Smaug will look something like this:

Attica
Avatar
Bishop
BSOD
Da Vinci
Eraser
Falco
Fawkes
Knuckles
Machina
Mongoose
OJ
Pagoda
Rachet
Scarecrow
Spectre
Syntax
The Arbiter
The Curse
The Flood
The Fuzz
Thor
Turok
Vector
Vonage
Whiplash
Zodiac

The squad is really big this year, athough Thor recently had ankle surgery to fix a severe high ankle sprain that he suffered at WarmUp, and he might be gone for the season. We made an effort to bring more youth to the team, because next year Smaug is losing 12 guys to graduation/eligibility. Still, competition for playing time will be stiff, and we expect everyone to earn their way onto the field at every practice.

We have 3 new players who we're really excited about. Our true rookies are Mongoose and The Fuzz. The Fuzz is the shorter of the two, and extremely quick with good field sense and sick lay outs. Mongoose is smart athlete, with surprisingly good disc skills and nice hops. Whiplash is new to the program, too, but he played a year with Santa Cruz' B team and transferred to UCLA, so he'll have 3 years in the program. He got probably 5 or 6 sick lay out D's over the weekend. The most important thing about our three rookies is that they have great work ethic, and I think all of them will contribute this year.

What really excites me about this team is our overall team athleticism. We have a lot of speedy and tall receivers, and a good squad of huckers to get it to them. Our D lines are going to really get after it, and we have a relatively large number of guys that we would be comfortable putting on the other teams best player.

We lost a lot of experience last year - lots of guys with high level club experience. They will be tough to replace, but I think our ceiling this year will be as high as we we want it to be. Last year, we were knocking on the doorstep of getting there. If people decide that Smaug's success is important to them, and put in the necessary work in the gym and throwing outside of practice, we can make a lot of noise this year.

We're running two different offensive systems this year, a vert stack borrowed from Strike-Slip and a split-stack borrowed from Condors. The vert stack will be very systematic and put our handlers in position to play aggressively and control the game. The split stack will open up a lot of space in the middle of the field and will give our cutters more freedom to take over with their athleticism.

The Southwest will be tough this year. There's a good chance we will only have 2 bids after UCSD and UCSB struggled at nationals last year, but the UPA is still working on a new plan to make the regular count for bid allocations, so we've been working hard to be ready to go in January.

Squids, Tide, Arizona and Colorado are the big dogs in the region, but the next level of teams have a lot of talent and will be a threat every time we play them. CSULB, SDSU, Claremont, SLO, UCI, and Colorado State are all dangerous, and I'm sure I've forgotten another good team or two.

I can't wait until January when we finally get to play as one squad at Santa Barbara. Until then, make sure that you're working out over break, and if you want to see us do well this year, call up a Smauggy and make sure they're doing the winter break workouts.

Sean Ryan Fail

I was so pumped to go up to Sean Ryan last week. We had been prepping and planning furiously, organizing rides, practicing zone and getting people pumped up.

Tuesday morning I got a text from Big Jake saying that he was forwarding us the Santa Cruz email. I thought he was referring to the captain's packet or schedule or something, so I thought nothing of it. After all my classes, I went to check my email and find this gem:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: CSULB Ultimate <>
Date: Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Subject: Fwd: Sean Ryan field Trouble
To: Smaug Ultimate <>




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Slug Ultimate <>
Date: Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:24 PM
Subject: Sean Ryan field Trouble
To: [a bunch of teams not including Smaug]


Hey All,
The UCSC men's Soccer team make the DIII playoff tournament and decided to host the first round at our lower fields. This means, that in spite of the Ultimate team having the field reserved for the last two months, as of last weekend we are suddunly very cramped for space. In order to solve this we are cutting the number of teams we are inviting to twelve for each division. Im sorry for the inconvience, the 12 teams invinted were chosen based on past attendance and proximity.

Thanks for all of your intrest hopefully we can avoid being screwed by our university in the coming years.

Here are the teams invited, in seed order:

Stanford
UCSC
California-Berkley
California-Santa Barbara
California-San Diego
California-Davis
Las Positas
Humbolt State
Cal Poly-SLO
Claremont
Chico State
Santa Clara

--
Cassidy, Russell, Max
Slug Captains 09-10

Keep in mind that this is Tuesday and we're supposed to leave Friday morning. I spent the next few hours seething and trying to find the phone numbers of any of the UCSC captains to call them and get some more info.

I found 2 of their numbers, and called about 10 times with no answer. I left voicemails for them to call me. I wrote a very angry email to them listing our complaints and asking them to call me.

Still, it took until late that night before Arbiter reached one of them and asked if they could adjust the schedule to accomodate for the teams that got booted. No, they couldn't do that.

My complaints:

1. Not telling a team that's planning to move 30 people that they're spot has been canceled 3 days before they leave.

2. They said the reasons for cancellation were proximity and continuity. We've been going since 2005 [edit - Kiosk thinks since 2000]. UCSD and Claremont are farther away.

3. Last year we finished in the top 8, beating squids and losing to Stanford 11-9. Crappy teams got in ahead of us.

4. It impacts teams that are further away more than it impacts teams that are closer. We have to plan more for the trip and commit to hotel reservations.

5. They couldn't man up and return any of my phone calls. I can understand that your school screwed you. At least be men and return my phone calls.

6. It seems like the right thing to do here because of the short notice would be to change around the schedule and share the burden between all the teams. Saying "F you" to 4 of the teams is not the better option.

The whole thing kind of took the wind out of my sails for the week. We were counting on Sean Ryan to be our tryout tourney for our A-team, and now we only have SoCal Warm Up before winter break, which were sending a split squad to.

I was so angry, and it was even more frustrating because we were totally at their mercy. There's nothing we can do about it, and it's not even likely that we'll play them this year because they're out of region.

Basically we had to bend over and take it.

Thanks Santa Cruz.

Rookie Practices

We've been running practices 4 nights a week, 2 for the rookies and 2 for the A team tryouts. It's a lot of practice, and it's a lot of practice to plan. Bish, Trog, Yugo and I have been dividing up the duty, but it's tough coordinate a consistent message for the week.

It's been kind of tough to go from club regionals to teaching people that have never played ultimate before. The two worlds couldn't be more different, and it can be kind of frustrating at times. I get really excited when I see our big players make plays because I'm looking ahead to the Spring.

Today, though, I was totally happy when our rookies took the lessons of the day and executed them really well in our scrimmages. We were working on teaching them to recognize power position, throw dish passes, and make cuts from the front of the stack in our endzone offense.

We ran a dish to huck drill for probably 15 minutes, and did some mini end zone games. During the scrimmage, I noticed people when I got the disc in power position, there was almost always someone streaking deep for me. Our vets handler movement improved from running the handler set on the endzone as well. It was very satisfying to see such immediate results from our designed practice.

I think our drills have been giving too much autonomy to the rookies as players on the field. We should be designing drills for them that teach the simplest processes that veteran players don't even think about as they do. We forget that rookies don't have the basic instincts to cut for the swing or for the break throw.

I think it was someone from Florida that wrote on The Huddle that you have to put your rookies in the position to succeed by giving them the tools that they need right now. It's a balance between teaching rookies what they need to do to win at a tournament this weekend and what will make them the best possible player a year from now. For right now, I think we need to focus on what will make them win this weekend -- the most basic fundamentals.

Once we start playing our tournaments, they'll see what ultimate is all about and they'll improve by leaps and bounds. We met tonight and picked our teams for Sandwich Day this weekend. There was some smack talk and I think people are pretty excited. And our team names are awesome:

Goat-c, Bicurious George, and Up Town Brown.

My Third Club Regionals

So we lost in the the backdoor game to go to nationals to San Diego, finishing 3rd in the region. I feel very split about the weekend, because we pulled out close wins in 5 of our 7 games, and we made it as far as I thought we would make it. We showed great heart along the way, and we had some pretty clutch wins.

On the other hand, we didn't put of that great of a fight in the game to go. Even though it doesn't seem likely that we could have overcome San Diego's talent, I still feel regretful about how we did. I felt the game slipping away from us the entire time, and I felt like there must have been something we could have done.

Playing with Strike Slip on the whole was a great experience. We went full circle from overconfident, to beaten down, and built back up to confidence. Winning sectionals was a huge accomplishment for us. We showed people that LA Open is back on the map.

Congratulations to the TWO LA co-ed teams that got bids to natties this past weekend (I wish San Diego decided they didn't feel like going to nationals after beating us!). That's a huge accomplishment and it shows the talent that our college programs are developing, and the increasing dedication to high level ultimate in LA.

Anyway, it's time to transition back to my last season of college. We're still getting about 100 people out to our rookie practices, and it's a crazy transition to go from club regionals on Sunday to teaching what a mark is on Monday.

I'm still recovering from the weekend, and I might want to give my body and mind just a little time off from ultimate and make sure I'm focused on school enough before I jump into the college season. We have lots of rookie tournaments coming up and it's going to be a grind, but at least a fun, silly kind of grind.

First A team practice of the year tonight. We'll see what we've got.

Club Regionals Preview

It's late so I'm gonna make this quick.

Our pool is:

1. SS
2. Sweet Roll
3. Condors
4. Sprawl

Overall a nice draw for us in pool play. We lucked out by not having San Diego in our pool. I guess they were trying to avoid a sectionals rematch? We just have to be efficient and take care of business on Saturday. I'm guessing that our games will be long, because the other pool has 5 teams. Our 10:45 start time is pretty awesome, although Bob was pulling to go to the field early to watch the Bravo / Street Gang first round match-up. I think the more we stay out of the sun and heat, the better, but I'm tempted.

The other pool looks pretty brutal. Johnny Bravo, San Diego and Monster are three tough games. Hopefully they SD has tough games against JB and Monster on Saturday. Monster gave SD a run for their money at sectionals (13-10), and I really hope they rise up to the occasion again.

Anyway, if things go like they should, it should be Strike Slip/Street Gang in semis, and Johnny Bravo/Condors in the other game. Then things get really interesting. If we win in Semis, we play Bravo in finals. I'm not going to say that we don't have a chance to win, but it might be smart to concede this game and rest for the backdoor game. If we lose in Semis, then we have to win two more games ( 1 decent team, and then probably Condors/Monster) to get to the 2/3 backdoor game to play the loser of finals.

It's really tough to beat a good team twice in one weekend. We worked so hard to beat SD at sectionals, it's tough to imagine it happening two more times. They've probably been planning for us and will give us some different looks next time we play. However, the game that really matters is the last one.

It's going to be hot, and even though we'll have a bigger squad than at sectionals, it's still not very big. The key to our weekend will be to have both our O and D line stay very efficient on offense so we can minimize our time on the field and in the sun. I'm already hydrating now, and I know it will be a challenge to take care of my body in the heat. However, the weather report is saying that it could possibly be in the high 80s, which would be inifitely better than 100.

Good luck to BCBC and Metro! 3 bids! There's room for all of us. Let's represent LA.

Like I said before, I just want to find myself in the game to go and go balls out.

What Smaug can learn from Strike Slip

There are at least three things that I can think of that Strike-Slip does well that Smaug can benefit from. In descending order:

1. Run a System

We sort of ran a system last year, but it was not not nearly enough. The offense should be well thought out and documented in advance. It doesn't have to be rigid, but there should be no guesswork involved for the offensive players on the field. We can beat inferior teams with no system, but when we play teams that are as athletic and talented as us, we need every advantage we can get.

2. Have called plays

This follows closely with point #1. Taking the guess work out of running an offense is an easy benefit.

3. Huck Smart

Hucks are green lighted, but only on the right kind of look. We want to lead our receiver with a flat throw, and the receiver should be to the opposite side of the field that the receiver is cutting from.

4. End Zone Mentality

Our end zone offense needs to change from focusing on a one-man iso to running off give-and-go handler movement, looking for quick horizontal cuts off the front of the stack. This isn't set in stone; the important thing is, we need to move away from a system that doesn't work as well.



The question now is, what should Smaug's offensive system be? I want us to be able to run both a vert stack and some form of ho. There should be as much similarity between the two systems as possible for simplicities sake. The handler motion is the most important part to lock down because it must be the most reliable and it should be the most frequently used part of the system.

I'm not sure if the Strike-Slip vert would work with college players. It's pretty simple in concept, but it might require more throwing skill than we have. Time will tell.

UCLA is a team full of very smart people, but I feel like we've haven't used our intelligence in the right way. Memorizing plays would be a good use of our brain power. Over thinking things would not be.

On the Eve of the First Day of Practice

Smaug's first practice of the new school year is tomorrow night, 7-9. We have no idea how many rookies to expect, because the turnout to the informational meeting was pretty low, but we have a ton of email addresses on our list. Last year it was something like 70 rookies, and I'm hoping that we can at least equal that.

Since most of our players will have never played before, we're going to start off with 15 minutes of vets showing rookies how to throw. Then we're going to break into 4 groups and teach them:

1. How to mark
2. How to cut in
3. How to cut deep
4. Defensive positioning

After rotating through these drills, we'll take as much field space as we can and play some small scrimmages, maybe 4 on 4, for the remaining 45-60 minutes.

The idea is that we'll start to give the players the individual skills they need before they can learn team-wide strategies. The drills should give us a chance to see who are the more athletic rookies that we should take a look at for the A-team, too.

We don't want to throw too much at them too quickly, but we want to show them that we're a serious team and that we're going to work hard this year.

The Best Play I've Seen in Person...

Bofa's layout D near the end of the game in Sectionals finals.









Thanks to Meeko for the picture!

Awww Hell Yeah....!

Thanks to Adam Newon for the pictures!

The pictures say it all.

Strike-Slip came together this weekend in a way that none of us were really expecting. The D line converted their scores, the O-line was efficiently, and, most importantly, everyone was very positive at all times.

Our only real test on Saturday was against the Condors, which turned out to be a shorter game than we'd expected. We won 11-5, and after that game we took a few moments to appreciate the fact that it was the Condors first loss at Sectionals in 12 years.

On Sunday we seemed to have lost a bit of our swagger. We had to finish playing 6 pool play games to 11, mostly against college and pick up type teams, and it was hard to stay motivated. We had an especially long break between the end of pool play and going straight to finals. The loser of finals would have to go on to play a 2/3 game - just a little extra incentive for the winner.

Earlier in the day, George had layed out into my knee and ankle. I thought I heard a pop and I was sure for a few moments that my year was over. After a few seconds on though ground calling injury, I got up and realized that I was nowhere near the level of pain that would mean serious damage. I really lucked out - my massive calves come in handy for something I guess. I spent our long bye icing my joints down and popping ibuprofin.

We did almost a full warm up again, with 3 man mark and a lengthy, intense end-zone game to prep for the game. In the first few points of the game were a shock because we hadn't played anyone of Streetgang's caliber for a long while. They got a few breaks on us and we went down 2-5.

There was a small upwind/downwind aspect to the game, and going in the downwind direction the SD didn't hesitate to bomb it to Rookie or a few of their other athletes. We didn't really have an answer for their deep game, but we didn't have to.

We clamped down on their dumps and forced them out of the middle of the field. Our D-line caught fire and got a series of poach blocks and pressure throw-aways and we took half 8-6.

I know the UCLA guys at least gave a few passing thoughts to the Squids game at sectionals where we took half on them, but then gave up a late lead to lose on universe. I definitely felt the pressure of the game when I was on the sidelines. But when I got on the line, I took a few deep breaths and did 4 years of repetition took over and I played unconsciously.

Our O line played a strong possession game for the rest of the game. Our handlers were unstoppable with our dumping swings and give-and-go's. The D line got 1 more break, but we got broken near the end of the game and gave it back. Streetgang was playing a poachy transition zone, so point after point I would run to the back of the endzone and wave my arms around and try to get the deep deep to respect me. I cut as hard as I could every point, but I hardly had any touches. Bobble was on D and he was doing a good job and our throwers were respecting him. Alan broke deep for a couple huck scores, one of which was a full field bomb from Bofa.

Near the end of the game, one of the SD handlers put of a bladey OI huck that didn't have quite enough on it. Bofa got one of the sickest D's I've ever seen in my life. He bid upwards and tipped it away by his fingertips while Keenan was bidding parallel to him on O. Keenan came right down on Bofa's head and shoulders and he was down for the count. The trainer was over him for probably 5-10 minutes, and we were are really worried for him. Amazingly, he got back and seemed to be OK, coherent even. He iced down his shoulder for the rest of the game.

Eventually, we got the game to 14-13, with us receiving going downwind. I put my head down and was running big deep and under cuts. I got faked under and was coming in wide-open at Bob. He put up an low OI flick that wasn't quite leading Linux. Linux came flying in sideways with the bid pictured above and made an amazing catch with his hand literally on the ground. His entire body lifted up onto his neck from his momentum, but he was holding the disc in his hand! Our sidelines went wild and we rushed him with a huge celebration. It was the biggest win of my ultimate career, and the first competitive tournament that I've ever won.

I've felt all season that people have been too quick to write us off as a team. We have too many players to not be good. Something happened this weekend, though, where everyone started to believe. We let go of our mistakes and worked towards making the next great play happen instead. We picked up our teammates and supported each other. Individually, everyone played the best ultimate I've ever seen them play. It was special.

In a sense, no matter what happens now, I will consider our season to have been a success. We've seen what our team can do, and what we have to do to as individuals to get there. Our goal isn't to win every game, but instead to play every game as well as we can. Winning comes naturally if we can achieve this, and we should expect to win every game we play.

I hope we can roll into regionals and continue with our "nothing to lose" attitude. San Diego is great team, but now we know with no uncertainty that we can beat them, and that we have a legitimate chance at making it. The idea of going to club nationals seems so strange to me after just a few years ago, I was shedding a few tears with my teammates on the Ghettobirds after losing a heartbreaking game to advance to college regionals.

My first priority right now is healing my knee and ankle, and then it's back to work in the gym and on the track. I'm looking forward to regionals, and I really want to get to the game to go. From there, we'll give it our all and see where that takes us.

Sectionals Preview

Pools have finally been posted. No guarantee that they'll stay the same, but seeing as to how it's Wednesday already, I'll go ahead and give a few thoughts:

Pool B:
Strike Slip
Condors
Old Men from the Sea
Las Vegas
Santa Barbarians
Claremont
Ghettobirds

Interesting that they went with 2 big pools instead of lots of pools and a bunch of bracket play. I guess we'll have a lot of short games and lots of down time between games. It's can be a tough to keep focused playing a schedule like that.

Street Gang is the #1 seed overall, no surprise there. I am a little surprised to see that we got the first spot in our pool over Condors after our scrimmage last weekend, but I don't think it really makes a difference either way, other than that we get to stay on the same field for all our games.


We have three consecutive games, a bye, and then our big match up of the day against Condors. I don't have much to say about this game. We will have to be mentally tough to pull out another win.


The seeding for the teams outside the top four is pretty arbitrary. Most of the teams are college guys (that aren't playing club) or pick-up kind of teams. Old Men from the Sea are a some older Long Beach guys, I think. I know I've played them somewhere or other, but I don't remember exactly where. Las Vegas, Santa Barbara and Claremont should be quick games.


The only other thing that I'm excited to see on our schedule is that we're in the same pool as the Ghettobirds. I love playing the Birds. It's my old team and I love seeing them get better. I'm glad that they're playing Open this year instead of Mixed; it's a sign that they're taking more steps to get better. Hopefully they can get enough people out on Saturday to play a game - last year it was an issue.


That being said, we should bagel them. The game might last 20 minutes.

Santa Barbara Scrimmages

This past weekend, Strike-Slip went up to Santa Barbara to scrimmage the Condors and the Beyondors. We played in a softball outfield across the street from beach, with an ocean view. I'm jealous of how easy it is to get field space in just about every city but LA.

We arrived at about the halfway point of the scrimmage between the Oldors and the Youngdors. The game looked pretty intense and I saw Husak get about 3 D's during my glances towards the field while we were throwing and warming up. The Beyondors won about 15-12 or so.

The Beyondors:

The Beyondors are the Master's team put together by Steve Dugan, the coach of the Burning Skirts. Dugan seems to bring success with him wherever he goes, and the Beyondors should have a great run in the series. Greg Husak and Brandon Steets, both coming off national championships with Jam, are their big name players, but they have a number of older ex-condors that tooled on us. However, they don't have a ton of depth, and their star players had to play nearly every point.

The game started off with us going up a break or two. Knuckles had a nasty layout D on the first point of the game, bruising his ribs, but played like a stud for the rest of the game. Linux hit me with a flick huck over Steets for our second point of the game. It seemed like we were cruising, but we got broken on the next O point to bring the game back even. I picked up a swilly overthrow but quickly turned the disc back over with a shot to BOFA streaking towards the back cone with not enough touch on it. I had three turns on the day - too many.

They started playing zone against us, and it got them a few easy breaks. Our handlers were having trouble moving the disc around their double and triple team-ey cup, and they ran the score up to 7-2, Beyondors. We switched up our handler looks to have Orin and Bob do more handling and things turned around.

Our D line was the star of this game, getting tons of turns against the older dudes. We started picking up some steam and I think we rattled off a couple breaks before they scored another point to take half, around 8-5 or 6. We had smaller numbers this weekend, maybe 14 guys, so as we started gaining momentum we opened up the lines as our D played multiple successive points.

We brought it back to about 10-10, then 11-10, then 11-11, when our "hard cap" was called. Universe point. We were pulling on D. We were playing very physically and both teams were making lots of foul calls. One dude threw an upwind janky backhand that floated into a crowd and got D'd, but called it back on a foul. They moved the disc around their handlers for a few more throws until Dugan saw Husak cut deep and ripped a backhand, for what I was sure was going to be the game winning score. Instead, Orin, playing heads up defense, saw it happening and picked up Husak deep and skied him by getting better position on him. So clutch.

We worked it to midfield. Sultan caught the disc on an in-cut and turned to see Bofa streaking deep with 2 defenders on him. I was screaming "Sultan Nooooooooo!" as he threw a downwind backhand huck. It was out in front, and Bofa made an incredible layout catch past both of his defenders for the win.

The Condors:

The Condors seem pretty thin this year. They rely heavily on Ian Meyer, Jeff Silverman and Dan Bellinger to be the core of the team. They weren't at full strength Sunday - Dan wasn't playing as well as a few of their Tide guys. The Arbiter had also arrived in SB from Costa Rica at 2 AM the night before, and he looked pretty tired.

We were feeling good coming straight out of our last game, and we rolled out to an early lead. We went up a few breaks to start off the game and cruised into half up maybe 8-6. We relaxed and hydrated and I took some pleasure in hearing one of their captains going ape-shit in their huddle, screaming about how they needed to play better defense. It must have worked because they came out of half fired up and broke us a few times with some transition poachy zone looks to bring the game to 9-8 or 9's. But then, for maybe the first time, Strike Slip toughened up and put away the game by going on a run. Soft cap sounded at 11-9 and we got two quick D's to finish the game 13-9.

It was a solid win for us, and for the first time in my life, I can say that I've beaten the Condors. It was two really solid wins for us. It was great to see Strike Slip finally gut out some games and come through in the clutch. I don't want to put too much stock in these games, but I feel like it was something that we really needed as a team.

People forget, but this was only the third weekend that we've played competitive ultimate together. We've played Colorado and Chico, and that's about it. It takes much more time than that to build the chemistry that winning teams need to have. People have been bummed about not winning right away, but I have faith that our team is good. If it doesn't happen this year, then next year, but it will happen.

That being said, the Condors at Sectionals are going to be better than the team that we played on Saturday. I expect them to bring their A-game and I know that it's going to be a battle.

Sectionals are in Long Beach on the 19th and 20th. There are going to be 14 Open teams, including SD, SS, Monster, Condors, UCSB, Claremont, USC, CSULB, SD2, Las Vegas and a few others. It should be a good time, and I would recommend coming down to hang out by the blue pyramid.

One last thing: I made my car stay and watch the USC-Ohio State game at my parents house on the way home until the end. While everyone else was bored by the lack of scoring, I felt sick to my stomach because I was sure SC was going to lose for 90% of the game. Way to pull that one out! If only Sanchez was still starting at SC...

Later that night, there was even more hanging out with LA ultimate for Geoff's birthday. Those of us that stuck around until late were treated with GVP singing James Brown's "Sex Machine" in one of the best karaoke performances I have seen in a long time.

It was one of the best overall days I've had in a long time.





Once Pools and Schedules are up, I'll do some sort of quick write up.

Catching Up

Sorry about the lack of updates. Things have been crazy since my last post, and I'm doing all I can to stay on top of things. In the time between my last post and now, I have:

• Moved

I'm now living Southeast of campus in a very snazzy apartment with a friend from law school. Come by for a visit and check it out.

• Played Discos

We finished 3rd after losing to End Phase in semis. We blew a late lead. I came to the conclusion that if we're not going to win by being super serious and not having fun, there's no reason not to have fun.

• Played the LA Summer league tourney

Congrats to Purple for a great season. We were not at full strength and lost to a very good red team in the semis.

• Gone camping

Camping with my friends is never a very organized or well-run affair, but this weekend was particularly dirty. We set out on Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, stopping at every camp site between Malibu and Ojai. We finally lucked out and found a reserved spot that had been abandoned by Lake Casitas. Highlight of the trip was the night spent making chili over the campfire while hanging out with Fei, Brent, Balls and Mylihn.

• Started classes

My weekday life is probably 90% occupied by studying and working out. The club series is rapidly approaching, and school is picking up steam. I'm taking Evidence, Business Associations, Federal Income Tax, and Entertainment Law this semester. My professors are probably the best group that I've had so far, but the workload is pretty heavy.

Pretty soon the undergraduates will invade the campus and Smaug will start up again. I'll have the added responsibilities of helping run recruiting events and running rookie practices, which will be a three ring circus if the turnout is anything like last year.

Next weekend Strike-Slip is going up to Santa Barbara for a scrimmage against the Condors and the Beyondors, Dugan's masters team with many of the ballers from the Condors dynasty. My parents are awesome enough to have the team over for a BBQ and pool party in Thousand Oaks the night before, and I'm looking forward to some quality hanging out time with the team.

I'll try to make writing updates a more regular part of my schedule, once I have a schedule. I have plenty of thoughts on Strike Slip, Smaug, the Series, law school, and fitness. I'm just finishing up The Inner Game of Tennis. It's a good read, and it's applicable to pretty much any sport. I've heard that some of the John Wooden books on coaching are good. Any suggestions for good books on coaching or sports psychology?

Discos Calientes Preview

It finally happened - a cool picture of myself playing ultimate. Only took 4 years.

Everyone else is writing their Chico previews, so why not? I can't wait for this tourney, because we get to play all the teams that I've been wanting to play this season. I've also been eager for some redemption after Colorado. I think this tournament is huge for us because it's our last test before the series. Next stop after this: sectionals.

Pools were finally posted. They're gonna look something like this:

A

Condors

End Phase

Army of Darkness

Buddies

The Pirate Bay

B

Strike Slip

Monster

SCUC

Seduction

Club Sac

According to the schedule, we should have a first round bye, which is OK in my book. 7:50 is awfully early to play ultimate. However, the heat is going to be a factor, and playing in the cool early morning might actually be better. We're going to have 3 straight games between 930 ish and 1230, but at least were done before the hottest part of the day rolls around. It's supposed to be in the high 90's. I guess we should be more used to the heat after our 100 degree Pasadena practices.

For me, the biggest challenge with playing in extreme heat is staying hydrated. I need to drink as much water as I feel like I should drink, and then double that. Last year at Chico, my calves cramped up in the third round (and got me in a rhino highlight video getting pwned). Friday night will definitely include buying some pickle juice, gatorade, and clif bars. I'm going to experiment with playing with a hat again, too. I stopped because I felt like it was impeding my field vision, but sunscreen is just not doing it for me right now.

Before I jump into the teams, I need to make a point: Can teams please pick a name and stick with it! What's up with YR and Santa Cruz changing their name every tournament. It's annoying, it makes it hard to seed you, and you lose all the name recognition that you earn over time. Your team name is your brand, and you have to sell your team to people all the time - in recruiting, seeding, and tourney bids. A team should be an institution, and not named after the inside joke of the week. (Unless you're BCBC, in which case you're named after a joke that you keep telling over and over again...JK Calle)

Buddies

Cute name. Looks like they're a bunch of Davis guys, so they should be a decent. They'll be a good warm up before our SC game. But can someone please explain to me what is the point of this crossover game? Why do we play A4? It's so random.

Santa Cruz

We lost to these guys at Cal States in one of our worst games of the year. Dan Chaizin and Joaq are very, very good when they're clicking. The open division is totally mis-seeded. They're going to blow the doors off of Monster.

We're a different team than we were at cal states, and though it will be a tough one, I think we can take this game. This is our first big test of the the tournament.

Monster

This game is going to be super fun. Monster is lots of young guys from Irvine, Long Beach, and UCLA. Lots of my good friends are playing for them. They're not going to be a pushover, but I think we win this game. They're missing Danny and Steve, apparently, but they're bringing Biclops, Box, Stig, Bishop, Falco, Big Jake... ooh, it's gonna be good. I know you guys are reading this! We're coming for you!

Seduction

International team of mystery.

The way I see it, we'll be playing in the semis against either Condors or End Phase. If we lose to SC, we'll most likely end up as B2. Then, we play the winner of the Condors/End Phase match up. The only way this doesn't happen is if we drop a second pool play game, which i think is pretty unlikely. I think it's probably a toss up between the two teams, though I give a slight advantage to End Phase because of their chemistry. The wild card is Army of Darkness out of Oregon. I haven't got a clue who they are. Oregonians grow sweet beards and play good ultimate, right?

End Phase

These guys are a tough team. They're gritty, and they've played together forever. They never seem to quite break into the ranks of the elite teams, but they always seem to be nipping at their heels. They're very dangerous to a new team like ours, and this game scares me the most of the games I'm looking forward to. They love to break the mark and work the disc with squirelly handler movement, but they don't really have the tall athletes to match up to other teams. Then again, neither do we.

Condors

Ohhh yeahh... I think this is the match up that everyone wants to see. This is the bigger, badder version of the Monster game. I was giddy with excitement when I thought this might be the showcase game, but instead we'll get to see Metro vs. BCBC (fingers crossed, anyway). They only have three returners, but somehow, Santa Barbara always maximizes what it has. Silverman, Ian and Dirty Dan are formidable players, and I'm sure they've whipped their newbies into shape, especially The Arbiter. They've been silent since Cal States, quietly plotting their return in their beachfront apartments. My point is, I don't care who they have, they're going to be good.

We have a very legitimate shot at winning this tournament. I still have yet to win a club tournament of any kind, and I'm hungry for it. I remember the stacked Monster team from 07 losing a heartbreaker to YR in the finals of Discos two years ago. Let's look inside ourselves and find out if we're winners.

DPLP

I've still never been in the river there, and I hear it's awesome. Cheap Sierra Nevada is probably the best reason there is to go to Chico (and still not that compelling), so maybe we'll make it to the party this year. In prior years, the heat has really taken it out of me and I've passed out a sunburned mess.

Last night was Chotchkie's birthday dinner, and we had a blast in Santa Monica. Biking to bars is probably my favorite night out, and I like the Library Alehouse almost as much as Chotch. Here are a few pics:

You can follow Strike-Slip this weekend on my twitter account:

www.twitter.com/danoettinger

Also, keep your eye on the scores from ECC. Should be an interesting weekend.

Game on!

Colorado Cup Recap

Colorado Cup was overall a good weekend for Strike-Slip, but a little disappointing as well. We played very well most of the time, but we had a few lapses in concentration. Personally, I had a very up and down weekend.

Round 1: Sprawl W 13-8ish

Three times this weekend we took half 7-1, and this was one of those times. We had a combination of forced D's and unforced turnovers we rolled up a big lead. I think they came out pretty flat in the first game of the day, while we were super fired up about our new mandarin-mango colored jerseys. Sprawl was probably one of the better teams that we played this weekend, but at the time it didn't seem like it. They started coming on in the second half and they actually won the half, but our O-line was converting very efficiently and we cruised through for a short game.

Round 2: Blackfish W 13-3

I had heard that Blackfish was a secretly good team, and given the fact that they had flown our from Vancouver, I was ready to believe it. They seemed to be pretty young, and they got their only points from a tall dude that had some sweet skies in the endzone before pulling his hamstring. I think we only turned the disc 3 times during this game. We finished with over an hour before the next round and we took some time to wander around and watch some of the elite games. Dean went and got sandwiches, and I ate most of a Pastrami sandwich during our improvised bye. That was a mistake.

Round 3: Double Black W 14-12

Double Black was a very cagey masters team. We were super sluggish coming out of our break and they were punishing our lazy D with precise throws. We trailed for most of the game, but BOFA called a time out to yell and throw water in our faces to wake us up. There was a lot of egregious call making on their part, and we started to lower ourselves to their level. The arguing and slowing down of the game really played into their hands. They had a couple guys that were surprisingly athletic for older dudes, and they cheated very effectively. At the end of the game, we came up with a huge goal line stand to go up 13-12, and then got a quick break to end the game. It wasn't a feel-good win after all the calls, but a W is a W.

Round 4: 99 Problems L 13-8

By the time this game rolled around, BOFA was in the bathroom super sick with food poisoning and our team was without leadership. 99 problems are a bunch of local guys that aren't playing in the series, so they picked up a few ringers for our game. They had Popes and one or two other ex bravo guys. It was really hot out, and the heat and the elevation really got to me in this game. I had a number of bad huck turnovers, and I definitely hurt our chances to win this one. We should have won this one, but we dropped it and pretty much killed our chance of winning our pool.

One of the best parts about the tournament was that during the showcase game between Fury and Rare Air, they had lots of pizza, ice cream, and beer. The showcase game was a blowout, but it was great to have some incentive for everyone to stick around and hang out.

When we got back to the hotel, we started up a frenzied game of 4 on 4 indoor Pooltimate that was probably more tiring than the entire days worth of games. We shared some beer and after a late night trip to Waffle House (great post tournament food, btw) we passed out pretty early.

Sunday Morning
Round 5: Riverside 1 W 13-8

We came out pretty fired up about our loss the afternoon before, and went up 7-1 to start the game. They were really not very good, except for Spike and an ex Squid dude. Score reporter has the game listed as 13-8, but that sounds much closer than the game actually was, and I don't think that's right. We finished with over an hour before the next round and I got to go watch SD beat Truck Stop in a very close game.

Semis: Prairie Fire L 13-9

Prairie Fire made a splash earlier this season by beating Johnny Bravo twice and is so far undefeated this year. I would like to see them match up against San Diego because I feel like they are similar teams - young, talented guys that have been around for a while but are finally getting their act to together. Half of PF seemed to be about 6'4 or above lanky Kansas boys, so we had a lot of trouble matching up on their height.

They skied us a few times, but I feel like the loss really came from our unforced turns on offense rather than turns they forced. We have entirely too many turns from our dump sets. We really could have used Buhl to keep our offense straightened out, as well as for his solid handling. PF played like an elite team, with fast, devastating handler movement in space and timely hucks to their giants. I think we were down 7-3 at half, and we collectively turned it on to go on a run towards the end of the game, but they pulled away with some big offensive plays.

99 Problems lost their Semis game, and didn't want to play the 3/4 game against us, which we found very disappointing because we only got two games on Sunday. (They also lost to Sprawl in the last round of pool play because their ringers didn't come out.)

Prairie Fire went on to beat Suess in the finals 13-2. I take small consolation in knowing that we were their closest game of the weekend.

Overall, we didn't have a bad weekend as a team, especially considering that it was the first real tournament we've played. We're going to have a hard time beating an "elite" team because of our lack of height and our youth. We're a bit like Smaug was this season, with lots of talent and speed but lacking big play makers that can bail you out in a tight spot.

I'm very disappointed in my own performance this weekend. I had a very good weekend as a receiver, and I came down with everything that was put up to me. I've been working hard in the gym and on the track, and I don't think I've ever ran faster or jumped higher.

On the other hand, I really struggled with bad hucks. I normally think of myself as a hucker, and I don't hesitate to jack it deep, but after a bunch of turns and a lot older guys having talks with me on the sidelines I started thinking really hard about what I was doing wrong and what to I had to do to not screw up. Once I got into my own head like that, it was over. Self 1 took over and I could only fixate on the negative instead of visualizing the positive.

I really wonder what my role on the team should be. Maybe my job will be to catch scores and throw dumps, but I'm not ready to resign to that after one bad weekend. I'll reevaluate myself after Chico, but 70% of ultimate is confidence and I think I need to be stubborn headed for a little bit longer.

I'm very relieved and excited that we got accepted into Chico. YR, SCUM, and Condors will be there and those should be some fun games. I want a chance at redemption for myself and another chance for Strike Slip to get some quality wins before the series.

One last story: On the plane ride home, Bob challenged me to a shotgun race. He hit on the flight attendant with the "polar bear" line (How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice!), who then stuck around to watch our race. She was so amused that she brought us a free round of beers! And I won both times. Great end to the weekend.

Colorado Cup Preview

Friday afternoon we’re headed for Boulder for Colorado Cup. We’re the two seed at the tourney, and the one seed in our pool, which looks something like this:

1. Strike-Slip
2. 99 Problems
3. Double Black
4. Sprawl
5. Riverside 1
6. Blackfish

I don’t put too much stock in the seedings since it’s still pretty early in the series and most teams don’t have much of a resume yet. 99 Problems and Double Black are both Denver area teams, so they’ll have a home field advantage. 99 Problems is listed as a combination of players from Bad Larry and Slow Dance. Sprawl is from AZ, Riverside 1 from Austin, Texas, and Blackfish is from Vancouver. I’m pretty interested in playing a team that flew in from BC for this tournament. Anyway, none of the teams have much of a history on score reporter so each game will be a mystery box.

A1 is Prairie Fire, a bunch of good Kansas guys who beat Johnny Bravo twice at a tourney in the early season. I really hope we have a chance to play them at some point because they look to the be the team to beat in the open division.

Our practice this weekend looked much improved over previous weeks, and I think we’re finally starting to gel a little better. We had about 17-18 on Saturday, but we split into an O-line and a much bigger D-line. As far as I can tell, the O line will be some combination of Buhl, GVP, AJ, Linux, Keith, Bobby, Alan, Me, Concord and maybe Korb. There will probably be some other guys who weren’t at practice, too. It’s an interesting combination of young and old guys, and pretty Smaug heavy. It makes sense to have young legs and smart veteran handlers together on the line together. It’s interesting that they’ve gone with younger guys over some of the more experienced players, but it’s good that they have confidence in us.

I like the idea of having a small O-line and a big D-line. Offense is less fatiguing, and chemistry will be key for our efficiency. I like that we have some ballers and big throwers on the D line, too, and hopefully they will be playing most of our points at the next few tournaments. We did an interesting drill where the O team played savage and had to score 9 points before the D team (who had lots of subs) could get 5 break points. It definitely sucked for the D line, but it was pretty effective. I feel like were finally starting to get the motion vert offense, and it’s definitely helped by our increasing familiarity with each other as players. Ultimate is such a repetitive game that it’s key to know your teammates habits, abilities and tendencies. It seems sort of obvious, but I think it’s still undervalued.

Strike-Slip reminds me of Smaug in that there’s a lot of talent, but not many dominant athletes that are going to come up with huge plays. This is probably why the captains went with the vertical offense, which is very methodical and workman like. That said, there is still a ton of talent on the team, and every practice I feel lucky to be playing with these guys because it’s by far the best team I’ve ever been on.

So HOT!

Weekend 4 of Strike Slip practice. We scrimmaged for about 6 hours between Friday and Saturday. I thought this was a nice break from the tons of drills that we've been running most practices. It was in the upper 90s today in Pasadena, and we only had 15 players, so we played a series of games to 3 with lots of shade and water breaks in between. It was really nice to build some chemistry and just play ultimate with my teammates. We're definitely getting better at running the system, but we have a long ways to go before we'll be doing really well.

For whatever reason, it's been tough to get numbers at practice. People have been sick, traveling, injured or whatever, but the turnout has been very disappointing. We have a roster of 22 and I don't think we've had a practice with more than 16.

In other bad news, we lost two big players to co-ed. Welsh decided to play with Metro, and Lafitte left for BCBC. I don't really blame Lafitte because the last two times he's played Open, he's hurt himself seriously. He's a great player, but if he can't stay healthy, BCBC is probably the way to go. Losing Welsh really hurts us because he's probably one of the most underrated receivers on the West Coast, and even though he has his shortcomings, that guy is a phenomenal player. Metro now has three big receivers in him, Keegan and Barrs (not to mention some very dominant ladies) and it should be really interesting to see how the SW Mixed division plays out this year. BCBC, Metro, Barrio and at least one very strong CO team will be fighting for 2(?) bids to natties.

Anyway, I feel that what LA Open needs right now is commitment and hard work form it's members. I had a lot of fun playing in the scorching heat this weekend and I really think there's a lot of talent on our team, we just need to get some experience.

Personally, I played alright this weekend. I'm feeling really strong after a few months of lifting, and I really want to start stepping up the intensity of my track workouts. I had a some pretty good deep receptions, but I really need to work on not throwing to receivers that are too deep. They look so tempting, and it works most of the time in college, but defenders are too fast and discs move too slowly. Also, we have about 8 plays that are all very similar, and I really need to make some flashcards of them or something.

Overall, it was a very positive weekend because this was probaby the most fun I've had playing with SS. Uniforms are coming soon!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2009 Strike-Slip

Aaron Jacobs
Alek Korb
Allen Lai
Andy Sammons
Dan Oettinger
David Hunt
Dean Bolton
Ben Parrell
Eric Maniez
Geoffrey Buhl
George Van Pelt
Jack Moxon
Jerry Yang
Keith Reshke
Laffite Lamberto-Egan
Matt Welsh
Mike Kiyoi
Micheal Liu
Orin Moore
Sam Regnier
Tim Gilligan
Dan Davisson
Steven Chang
Yama Afshar

The Hangover

Potlatch is amazing. If I could only go to one tournament in a year, this would be the one. The fields, the level of play, the party, the camping, the river, the gifts... it's very special. Mah Na Mah Na had a good showing, finishing tied for 37th, which was totally acceptable given that we had no expectation of winning much at all. The number one goal in putting the team together was to maximize our fun. Mission accomplished.

I fully plan writing more about the weekend, but for now I'll just leave of few of my favorite moments that I don't want to forget:

• Peaches switching clothes with a girl on the other team and a drunk dude thinking he was on his team and throwing Peaches a Callahan
• Lupin smacking Warehouse's blood blister with a sandal, squirting the contents onto Concord's leg
• Finding the Team USA flag in our camp and Concord and Lupin challenging Seth Wiggins and Dylan Tunnell to a flutterguts game to get it back. Seth was not amused.
• 2/2 on the Zyzzx.
• Floating down the river at the end of the day
• Playing Mischief to 9-8 before we dropped 2 pulls. oops.
• Grant and Linux' layout catches against Mischief. Baller.
• Peaches' Billy Mays impression.
• Watermelon detonator
  
• Coming back from down 0-4 to beat Cookin' by the Book (Sorry about not being there to accept the apron. It's pretty sweet.)
  
• Dragging the Wiz out of his tent on Saturday night and him having no memory of it
• Smashmasters beating Team Stinks on Universe, and Banshees layout D on Lugsdin to get them there.
• Floating the disc to Grant in double coverage and watching him nut on them (about 10 times)
  

What else have I forgotten about?

Some of my Favorite Advice

I was trying to think back to some of my favorite things that people have told me over the years.

• When you get the disc, move your eyes to the deep space first.
• Only worry about what you can control. Everything else is irrelevant.
• Mark in three dimensions, not two.
• Playing zone D, always ask yourself what target you are taking away. If you don't know, you aren't doing your job.

I'll think of some more later.

POTLATCH!

And a Great Idea...

One more thing... I heard someone saying that they were playing for team Fisher-Clark (I think?) at Potlatch. The idea is, two ultimate players are engaged and they invited all their friends to be on a Potlatch team. Their last names are Fisher and Clark.

One of the days, they are going to pick names out of a hat and have Team Fisher and Team Clark play against each other in an exhibition game. The winning team will become both of their last names.

What a fun idea, and what a story for them to tell. I really want to see the game. I wonder how intense it will get. Playing to keep your last name. Wow.

Huck It Long Beach!

I played in the Long Beach beach tournament this passed weekend, and I had one of the best times I've had a tourney in a long while. I haven't played in a social tourney since Lei-Out and it was great to enjoy a more relaxed brand of ultimate.

Calle invited me to play with BCBC for the weekend early in the summer and I'd been looking forward to it after the pressure of Strike-Slip tryouts. The team lived up to expectations. Here's the roster:

Fellas:
Jeremy
Dan O
Peaches
Calle
Dean
Nowak
Whitey
Jacuzzi
Adam Slo
Jason E.
Matt Whited

Trevor Smith

Chuck Kindred

Ladies:
Beth
Alice
Astrid
Hawkins (Saturday Only)
Emily and Friends (Sunday Only)
Roswell

It was a luxury having so many guys on the sand because we had five games on Saturday. We had had Strike-Slip practice that morning in LB to learn stopped disc plays, so I was a little tired. You would think that there wouldn't be enough playing time to go around, but I thought that it allowed me to play as hard as I could with no worry about saving anything. The depth of the talent on the team was also very refreshing because you could count on everyone to come up with huge plays, allowing you to not worry about anyone's responsibilities but your own. I also got to enjoy quite a few beverages without worrying about my performance hurting the team. Even though the entire team was impressive, I especially enjoyed playing with Chuck, who I'd previously played against on Revolver and CGNU. He looks unassuming, but the guy is a serious stud and a great teammate. Plus he plays his violin on the sidelines and has a great sense of humor.

In our five games on Saturday, our closest game was 13-5. We absolutely stomped on teams and our games were really short. That game was against a very decent team with Knuckles, Barrs, Milhouse and Concord on it. The team was not only extremely athletic, but very experienced too. There was no teaching necessary. It made me realize the big difference between good college players and good club players. It was fun to be on the winning side of games like that for once. Personally, I played very well and I was really feeling the benefits of the lifting that I've been doing. I pulled down a lot of floaty stuff and it felt pretty awesome.

Saturday night I saw Explosions in the Sky with Fei, Finn, and Lupin. The show was amazing even though my knees were aching from running on the sand all day. They played four about an hour and half and they played all the songs that I wanted to hear. Afterwards we got some bomb cheap thai food in Thai town.

Sunday at 11:30 we played the Cal Poly Pomona team + Jeff Silverman and Norm from USC. We won easily 13-5.

We played Semis against Chik's team who were mostly Last Call guys plus Lindsey Cross and Pebbles. After going up 2-1, we trailed for most of the game, falling behind as much as 10-6 at one point, I think. Up until this point, we hadn't been challenged at all, and they were all super athletic. However, we started playing with fire and brought the game from down 10-12, game to 13, to 12's. On pulling downwind, we got a turn on our goal line and immediately hucked it away out the corner. On their next possession, they threw a dump pass that popped up over the receiver to a laying out Whitey. Callahan to win on universe!

We met a very good Beeeaches team in the finals with a lot of ex-Condors ballers, including Husak, tall Tommy, Welsh, Corey Sanford, Rhett, Sam R and Bofa. It was my first club finals of any kind and I was super excited to play in front of a crowd. The other team had won the last 2 or 3 consecutive Huck It's.

The game started with ridiculous chippiness. We went up 1-0 starting on offense. Next point, Adam caught a tipped hammer that the other down called down even though it was clearly up. We got it back on D and then scored on a foot drag layout that the other team called out. Finally, for the third time, we scored and it was uncontestable. For the rest of the half, we could do no wrong. We carried our momentum from Semi's to take half 7-3, game to 13. The Beeaches had been turning the disc over on sloppy hucks in the wind and bad throws from their women. We knew that they were too good not make a game of it, though.

In the second half, we traded points to 10-5. Then Greg Husak went into Incredible-Hulk rampaging destroy mode. We challenged him a few times with hucks and he made sick plays to bring them down. They tightened up their offense and their defense became stifling. A few more bad decisions by us, and a few lucky breaks for them and the game was at 11's. Somewhere around this time I mis-read a floating huck from Chuck in the wind that I really wish I could have back. The tide of the game had turned immovably against us and it was like deja vu of the UCSD game at sectionals. They put in the next 2 points and the game was over. They played typical Santa Barbara ultimate with lots of fouling, beneficial call making, and bitching. But I have to give them credit for stellar play while they were down big, especially from Hollywood.

It was a bummer to lose the game like that, but overall it was a terrific weekend. We went 7-1, I got to see Explosions, and we had a delicious Indian dinner to end the day. It would be a blast to play with BCBC more, except for the following two reasons:

1. I enjoy the discipline and regularity of team practice, and

2. I still have a lot more improving to do in open and I have an obligation to Smaug to become the best player I can be.

However, if they'll have me, I'd love to pick up with them again.

Strike-Slip (Almost) Final Roster

Just got word of the (almost) final round of cuts after Cal States. It's gonna look a lot like this:

AJ
Korb
Allen Lai
BOFA
Dot (yours truly)
ATM
Dean Bolton
Concord
Geoffrey Buhl
George Van Pelt
Linux
Laffite
Matt Welsh
The Sultan
808
Orin Moore
Samuel Regnier
Tim Gilligan (SDSU guy)
Matt Mihm
Knuckles
Trogdor
Jerry

There are a few more guys who didn't play at Cal States that are invited out so the captains can take a look at them.

Parrell (just left for Spain/ has a sprained knee)
ddavisson (LB guy?)
DaVinci
Keith Reschke (LB guy)

Notable last round cuts were Big Jake and Biclops; I'm bummed that they won't be my teammates this year. They captains intend to cut the roster down to "low 20s." The last few cuts will be hard to make, but I feel like they're our spots to lose.

Hmm...new team name: Smaugdors?

Strike-Slip at Cal States

Saturday Morning 8 AM - Sockeye X
Loss 13-9

We had a really tough start to our tourney with Sockeye and Jam in Rounds 1 and 2. Sockeye came as a split squad again, and the team we faced had Trytiak and BJ from U Dub, but that's about all I remember even though they were all ballers. We started the game out on O and I hit Orin with a quick huck score to start the game. The first half was very close, with us going up a break but then giving it back up plus one more with the Fish taking half 7-6.

The second half didn't go as smoothly. Their tight man D forced a bunh of turnovers in our still brand new handler movement and they converted fairly efficiently. It was definitely early season for them, as they had a few unforced turnovers. My main thing that I took away from this game was that I walked away feeling like these guys were not gods of Ultimate, and unlike last year, I thought that our team could really play with them. Last year we with college Monster, we were a little too happy to be on the same field with them.

9:45 AM - Jam
Loss 13-11

Jam plays a distinctly different style than Sockeye. They were running a very similar vert-stack offense to us, but they just had more chemistry and better execution than us. The defense was noticeably less intense than in the first game (not to say it was bad, it just wasn't insanely good). One thing I was really appreciating was how much more physical the club game is than college. My man would regularly push off or try to body me up, and I started to return the favor very quickly. In a college tourney this would lead to foul calls and chippiness, but our Saturday games were surprisingly call-free. Fouls are called basically only for strategic advantage, but almost never otherwise.

BTW, there are some cool photos from this game. Thanks to Simon Margolis. Check out his stuff: http://simonm.smugmug.com/gallery/8485078_uU798/1/558358386_37Jim

Anyway, this was probably the best game that we played all weekend. I was definitely pumped to play the defending national champs. We tore through their zone pretty quickly early in the game. Concord had a visionary cross field deep pass. Welsh had a couple sick skies to steal a few points from them, too. Our defense really was clamping down on their dumps, and they started taking tougher looks because of the pressure. Jerry in particular had a sick layout on an upline dump cut (I think on Bart, too). We came up just barely short, but we were feeling good about our play and heading into a bye.

12:45 PM - SD Streetgang
Loss 13-7?

This was supposed to be our big rivalry game with the other brand new team, but it ended with disappointment for us. The wind had really picked up by this time of day and made running our offense more difficult. Our cutters were also hesitant with the new cutting patterns and SD was playing like a team very comfortable with themselves. I remember Keenan, Dollar, Wormser and Marcos playing great for them. They have a ton of talent, and the SW is going to be a real dogfight between Condors, Streetgang and SS for that second bid to natties. Thankfully regionals won't be in Commerce freaking City so maybe it might actually be enjoyable to watch this time. We traded with them for a few points, but they took half 8-4 or something like that. They cruised on the lead for the rest of the game.

3:30 Santa Cruz SCUM
Loss 13-8?

Santa Cruz is a pretty good young team, but we should not have lost this game to them. Dan Chazin was doing a great job at the handler position breaking the mark all over the place for them, and they were playing fast and loose. We, on the other hand, tightened up in the wind played very conservatively. He really struggled with our handler sets in this game in particular. I don't really remember too much about this game. I remember one play where I turned it on the endzone line, ran the full length of the field and knocked down a swilly huck. Oh well, emphasize the good, I guess.

When we got back to the hotel we immediately stripped down to our underwear and jumped in the hot tub. Amazing. Bofa showed us a great disc game in the pool which we played very intensely for probably an hour. There was a party with a tab, and I fully intended to go, but after watching Con Air at the hotel for an hour with the team ("I said... Put the bunny in the box.") all I cared about was going to bed.

Sunday 9:00 - Rhino
Loss 13-9

I really like the Oregon style of play. Fast handler movement and aggressive throws makes for a very entertaining game. We were pretty fired up after going 0-fer on Saturday, and we were tied at 9's before they went on a late run to put the game away. They're not as good as the Rhino teams a few years ago, but they're definitely better than last years squad. In particular, one guy in a pair of American flag shorts was killing us deep. I want another shot at Rhino.

11:45 - Journeymen
Win 13-6

I hate playing the Journeymen. It's a lose/lose proposition. It's totally unenjoyable and there's only potential for embarassment if you allow too many points to them. I earlier mentioned that I was loving how few foul calls were being called this weekend. The J-men were the complete opposite of that. They blatently cheat. We almost got into two separate fights because they were intentionally fouling us so hard. Every single D we got they called back, and they called terrible travel calls to bring back our hucks. Alan in particular went crazy in this game and was destroying them all over the field. Their cheating really lit a fire in us and we were getting lay-out blocks all over the field. It was great to see all 7 guys out there giving it there all, and the results were impressive. Still, it's not a satisfying win for us because they're terrible (but just good enough to put up points on you... a Downtown Brown team who won Fool's a month ago almost lost to them.) I hope we never play them again.

It's kind of a bummer that SS will likely only play 2 tournaments this summer, Colorado Cup and Labor Day. Those are two fun tourneys, but it seems like so few for so much time. There's always Potlatch and a few other fun tourneys...

Anyway, I'm still waiting to hear back on the final round of cuts for SS. I thought that Linux, Knuckles, Bob, and Jerry played exceptionally well, and I think they deserve some recognition. All of the young guys played really well, too, and I think it will be really tough cutting the team down to the final roster. It will probably come down to what roles are needed, because everyone who went up is a quality player.

The ride back down (as well as the ride up) was one of the most fun rides I've had to a tourney. We put 8 people in a Jacob's giant van: Me, Concord, Linux, Knux, Peaches, Scarecrow, Jake and Bogo. We played games and had some very funny conversations and the ride flew by.

Hopefully I the captains mail out the final info soon cause I'm getting antsy.

Strike-Slip Tryouts and Alumni Day

Round 3 of Strike-Slip tryouts were this past weekend. First, the good news: I'm going to Cal States with the team in Santa Cruz this coming weekend. Linux and Knuckles are also are going up, so I'm glad I get to make the trip with some Smauggies. The bad news: some people who I felt very strongly should have been invited were cut. I don't really understand the criteria that the captains are using, but the seeming randomness of it makes the cut's a little more scary.

Tryouts Saturday consisted of 3 man mark, in cut D drill, deep drill, and break mark drill. We then ran some short scrimmages and worked on open field dump cuts in a rotation. I felt pretty great in the deep drill and I think I won most of my match-ups, but I was tired as a dog after the tryouts were over.

UCLA people hurried back to campus for Alumni Day, which is a big event. There are like 4 games, a bbq, and a big party during the night. People flew in from all over, and it was nice to get to see some of the alums that I know like Seraph and Docta. The game ended up being really intense. Despite missing Peaches, DaVinci, and Thor, we pulled a come from behind coming back from down 12-11 to winning 15-13. The alumni had some ballers, including Seraph, Broadway, Beastman, Sideshow, Fozzy, Kobe, Biclops, Yugo and Trogdor. Fortunately, they also had some not-so-good players that they had to give playing time to, too. Punky, though, single handedly almost lead them to winning the game. I've never seen one person affect an ultimate game of this caliber so strongly. You had to constantly be aware of position on the field and try to not pass in that direction. He came flying across the field to ninja kick an open huck look I had to the Arbiter. He had too many skies and D's to remember. He's definitely a rare player who is just an athlete at a different level than everyone else. The ending of the game was just brutal as everyone who had been at tryouts started to hit their physical limits. I was just trying to get out of the way of the guys with legs.

It was awesome to see Avatar and The Flood sky the dominant deeps from the past, too. It was strangely fulfilling beating the alumni team (which hasn't happened in at least 3 years) even though I didn't really play with all of the older guys. It's a sign that Smaug is moving in the right direction. The party Saturday night was great, and I'm a little bummed that I had to call it a night early because everyone was in rare form.

Sunday morning came early. We ran a lot of vert stack cutting drills, practicing things like adjusting the stack away from the disc and cutting cross field deep from the break side to the open side and vice versa. I felt strangely comfortable running the vert, maybe from the seasons that we ran it at USC. I think the fundamentals of a good offense are the same no matter where you set up the stack on the field.

I actually found the tryout process to be a little intimidating. I've never been part of a team where I wasn't in the top 25% of players, so it's a little strange finding a new role. I was trying to find the right balance of taking smart open looks and dumping to more experienced throwers. Still, by necessity I did a little bit of handling, which was pretty fun. Still, it's much easier to perform when you don't have the pressure of having more experienced, older players around you.

The long Saturday caught up with my pretty quickly, and I was really fighting through fatigue for hours. I had a few more turns than the day before, but overall I felt like I did a pretty good job cutting within the new system. I have very high hopes for what Bofa and Buhl can do with this team. LA's problem has never been a lack of talent, but rather a lack of leadership to control all the egos that good players tend to have. These are two guys that everyone seems to respect and (hopefully) won't put up with people's crap.

Anyway, I've started my summer in Thousand Oaks, and as expected, it looks to be mind numbingly boring. I still don't have an internship finalized, so as of rigth now I'm sitting on my ass watching The Wire and Star Trek on Netflix. I'm going to go get a gym membership right now, actually.

Praha

You have to enjoy a place where beer is cheaper than water. At most places here, beer is about $1.50 for .5L and water is probably $2 for .2L. It seems almost irresponsible to not drink beer at a meal because it's much cheaper. I can't help but wonder what sort of effect this has on alcoholism, but for my short visit things are great.

In fact, some things here are just much cheaper than at home. A restaurant meal is usually somewhere between $5-10, with much less tip. Other things seem to be about the same as at home (clothes, electronics, etc,) but considering it's Europe, it's amazing. There are a huge numbe of Americans living here, both students studying abroad and ex-pats, and you can see why.

The city itself is beautiful. It's built around a bend in the Vltava river, with a huge castle overlooking things from a hill. Our apartment is half a block from the modern main square, and very close to the historical old city center. The buildings are ornate and very interesting, despite the cities communist years. It's very easy to get lost in the small, cobble stoned streets in the middle of the city, but that's part of the fun.

The language is a major obstacle because it's not really related to any other European languages that I have any experience with, but I'm starting to get the hang things.

I'm here with my family to visit my sister before she comes home from her study abroad semester. Our German family friends drove here to meet us, too, so we've been wandering around the city with all eight of us. It's hard having so many people to please (including a 6 year old) but it's over on Sunday so I'm trying to make the most of it.

Wednesday I took the bus out into the outskirts of the city to meet up with a local ultimate club, the Terrible Monkeys. It was basically how Concord described continental Ultimate. No one really plays in college. Instead, the city has 4-5 co-ed clubs that are more clubs than club teams in the American sense. There were a few good players, but most of the players were pretty novice. I got the sense that their throwing ability was more developed than their offensive system, so it had a more pick up mentality.

We did some tough conditioning work, with some agility/quickness stuff with cones and a much-too-long 3 man mark exercise that I'm still sore from (2x4minutes). I matched up on the coach, Jerry, most of the time and he was fast and tough to cover. I was disappointed we didn't get to scrimmage very much, but I got a good workout in and I'm glad I went out. I also traded my old Anomaly jersey for an old Monkeys jersey. It might be a bit small, but I think it's more interesting.

It's supposed to rain heavily today, so I think we're going to go to a museum or figure out something else to do indoors. No rain, yet, though, and the weather reports seem to have been consistently worn about predicting rain this week, so there's still hope.

I get back to LAX at 2 PM on Monday. Spring league is at 4. Can I play? Will my playing after 24 hours of traveling actualy benefit my team?

Also, college nationals are this weekend in Columbus. I'm following about 20 people on twitter that should be updating live from the fields. I'm feeling some pangs of jealousy for everyone that gets to be there, and I keep thinking about the Tide and Arizona games at regionals. We were 2 points away from the game-to-go, to play against a team that we'd blown a lead on twice. If that isn't motivation for next year, I don't know what is.

Anyway, good luck to BLU and the Hellions!

From LHR

I'm sitting in terminal 5 of London-Heathrow Airport. I've been traveling for over 17 hours now and I have a lot more ahead of me. Being here really makes me miss Edinburgh. I passed through here a bunch of times during my semester abroad. The automated queue system at the news shop, the coins i got, signs and outlets. That semester was one of the best periods of my life, and being here makes me really want to get out and experience the world more.

My travel time has officially become "too long" as of right now. I'm writing mostly just for something to do, because there's not much else to do here that doesn't expend lots of energy or cost money. I saw Gran Torino on the flight over. Great movie, and I really have to respect Clint Eastwood for producing, directing and starring in something like that at his age. The racism is shocking, but it's worth watching.

A-Rod actually got a clutch hit last night. Now there's conclusive proof that the new Yankee Stadium is a strange place. I'm looking forward to the point in the season when every story on the Yankees can stop including the price of everything. We get it - they spent a lot of money. But maybe all this other stuff is taking some pressure off A-Rod. This would be a very good thing.

I don't think it will ever stop being amazing to me that I can be singing Weezer's "Buddy Holly" at the top of my lungs with my good friends at a party one night and the next day be on the other side of the world. It's a shame that when I have the most free time and fewest responsibilities, I have the least amount of money to travel.

Anyway, I didn't bring a power adapter for my laptop so I'll have to call it a day. I'll try to update from Prague if I can. Supposedly our apt has wireless.