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.
No comments:
Post a Comment