Tryout Season

To my amazement, more than one person has asked for updates to my blog. So Concord and Diesel, I dedicate this post to you.

We're heading into try out season again, one of my favorite times of the year. The season lies before you like a clean slate. Everything that happened last season seems like forever ago and there's nothing but possibilities. Tryout's themselves are really fun because you get to play with and meet a bunch of new people. It's awesome to see everyone going all out to impress the captains. You are trying out the team, too, to see if you want to spend the next several months with them. Of course, the dark side of it is the possibility of getting cut. You just have to hope that they'll do it in a classy way and give you some feedback so you know what to work on in the future.

These are my favorite pieces of advice that I've heard for tryouts:
1. Be an animal on Defense - no matter what your position is, teams always need someone who can go and get turns for them. This is the easiest way to impress your evaluators.

2. Don't turn it over - People tend to remember the negatives more so than the positives. Don't take chances; let the returners turn the disc over.

3. Do what you do well - You know what you're good at. Showcase it.


Anyway, this weekend I'm going up to Santa Cruz to playin Fool's West. The team is "Boso Chulo," or "sweet mustache," and I stole a pretty good fake mustache from my friend Brent last weekend. The team is gonna be ballin. It's pretty easy to say that this is the best team that I've played with so far in my career, and I'm super excited. It's a little early to say it's a tryout tourney, but it never hurts to impress.

Roster (complete with commentary from Orin):

AJ “I skied beau on double game point awhile back” Jacobs

Allen “when my foot is not broken you best recognize” lai

Eric “venom” brach

George “enlightened caveman” van pelt

Ian “I am blond and I foul” meyer

Matt “i have a hat and a laser backhand” mihm

Matt “the cleat hooved gazelle” welsh

Andy “boffa deez nuts on your chin” sammons

Orin “it’s not a travel, just mad rhythm” moore

Dan “UCLA, USC, what’s the difference?” oettinger

Dean “I have a movie star name” Bolton

Jeremy “the mysterious addition” pearson

Jacob “my nickname is zip so I better be good” ?????

Taywaz “the tazmanian” block smith

Lafitte “I will stare through your eyes to your soul” embergo egan

Sam “this is football, right? Because I am good at football” regnier

Part time players:

Markham “I don’t know your last name but apparently you are blowing up the college scene”

Bob “the wiley asian handler we have been missing” Liu

90% in:

Mike “holler at your” kiyoi

I've looked up to a lot of these guys as I've developed in LA ultimate, and it will be sweet to play with them instead of against them.

We're a 1 seed. Down Town Brown is the other 1 seed. 808 posted their roster and they are stacked with ballers. Our first game Saturday is against the Matzoh Balls, who were ridiculous at Potlatch. There will definitely be some battles ahead of us. I'm just going to relax and do what I can do.

Exuberance (Post Stanford)

Some weekends remind you why it is that you spend so much time playing this silly sport. I'm on such a high after this weekend that it almost doesn't matter that I'm hopelessly swamped with schoolwork.

The fields were worth going all the way to Ripon. They were grassy, flat, and perfect. I have yet to play on fields like that playing Ultimate. The weather was 70 and sunny with almost no wind on both days. This is how ultimate is meant to be played. We had a lot of really fun match-ups, and we made huge strides both on the field and in our team demeanor and attitude.

Anyway, the big news: we beat Cal on universe, 12-11. We went 5-2 on the weekend, but the last game is the one that will define this weekend in for me. Coming into this weekend, I felt like we really needed to take the next big step in our development as a team, and I think we did. The last two games with Cal we lost 13-4 and 13-6. It looked like we didn't belong on the same field with them.

I'll do a full write up of the weekend later. I don't want to toot my own horn too much, but I had a big sky to tie the game at 11's and caught a hammer for the win. It felt amazing.

I'm so proud of how Smaug played this game. We really grinded it out even though we were tired after a long weekend. Granted, a few of their ballers were hurt, but this was still a huge win for our resume and for our confidence. We finally won a big game. Hopefully we can build on this huge win and peak at the right time going into the series. I'm exhausted but completely reinvigorated for the rest of our season. Too bad sectionals are a month and a half away...

On the Eve of the Stanford Invite

We're at The Curse's parents house in Stockton settling in for the night. I scored a nice couch spot and, no joke, a hello kitty blanket. I've been mentally preparing myself for this weekend all week by watching ultimate highlights and the Friday Night Lights TV (season one is excellent, btw, I'm totally hooked). It's going to be great to get all the stress of school out of my head and focus one thing only.

Our schedule looks really fun:

Sat Rd 1 (8:30) - Washington

Rd 2 (10:25) - Oregon

Rd 3 (12:20) - Oregon State

Rd 4 (2:15) - BYE

Rd 5 (4:10) - Whitman

Sun Rd 1 (8:00) - Pacific Lutheran

Rd 2 (9:55) - BYE

Rd 3 (11:50) - Las Positas

All out of region match-ups and no one that we've played before. Not the best Byes, but I'm sure there will be some great match ups to watch.

This is our last tournament before Sectionals. Let's make some noise tomorrow.