Motown Throwdown

We started with a 10 hour or so drive, 7 of us in Lana’s ‘Stro. The excitement of the ride was being pulled over about 1:30 am less than 10 miles from the campsite. Lana’s van window only rolled down about 3-4 inches, so she had to apologize and offer to step out of the car. He declines and directs his questions to the gap as Lana tilts her face up to listen and respond. It was the general- do you know why I stopped you (Lana didn’t know how fast she was going, nor the speed limit) where you coming from, where you going, why…. He takes her license, registration, etc. (oh, it also may have not been the current insurance….) & is back in record time. I’m not even sure he went all the way back to the car. He comes back, says, “You’re almost there. Just try to keep it between the lines.” It was one of the standing jokes of the weekend. Since Lana had driven the entire way, it was also possible her crazy eye was in effect and that was a factor in his pity on her. We set up 2 tents; the entire time I am trying not to yell at people to hurry up- they weren’t really moving THAT slow, but I wanted to go to bed. To credit myself, I never did raise my voice. Gibbs and I blow up the air mattress and settle in. Ten minutes later we are both giggling hysterically for a reason unapparent to both of us. Ten minutes after that we are asleep. The 2nd Ames car rolls in about 5:30 am, so Kalli joins us on the air mattress. Gibbs and I wake up to Lana asking the question, “What time did you want to leave?”, which I think caused us both the same panic: I fumble frantically for my watch and see that it is about 10 minutes before I want to BE at the fields. We were supposed to all go over zone together…ah well, it would turn out we would have plenty of teams to try it on, anyway.

Because we were planning on being there so early, we arrive about 10 minutes before the captain’s meeting starts. I start to set up “my” zone, then the horn blows. I leave for the meeting, Shel goes over “her” zone. She relieves me at the captain’s meeting and we quickly walk through “my” zone. (Reminder: my zone is a 3-2-2 force one way trap, hers is 3-3-1 force middle). I get the pleasure of surprising everyone with jerseys. Or rather, Matt does b/c he picked them up for us. I was VERY pleased.

We do a warm up and game one starts. The first three points or so had about 4-8 TOs/team. No kidding. The ground was really dewy, and lots of discs were dropped, or passes attempted that slipped. This is an excuse, it is just retarded. I dropped one during this game due to dew- I think I grabbed at it 3 times and in the end layed out to try to get it. I also had a weird layout D bid attempt- I landed with my lower back on my offense’s shoe, which knocked the wind out of me. I think it was either my only layout D bid or one of 2 for the weekend. All the pool play games on Saturday kind of run together. We tried both zones and made the adjustment on the FM that worked really well (crotch and hatchet alternating positions). The 3-2-2 was less successful, although I did force a few turns on the sideline trap, and touched a few more that still got caught. I am not ready to abandon that zone, yet, and we learned a lot from running it.

We mostly used Gibbs’ cheers from practice weekend, and they were all well-received. One team captain said she thought we were the most spirited competitive team she had seen in years. That means a lot to me, and I think it means more than just cheering. I know what this captain meant when she said most teams don’t seem to respect some of the less competitive teams; I’ve been on those less competitive teams, and it pissed me off. I sucked really badly at Ultimate for quite awhile, but I didn’t love it less then than I do now. And even when my team was blown out, I played my ass off. I can only believe their players are giving their best, and that is why they deserve respect. Okay, back to the recap.

Pounce, the 2 seed in our pool & 4 seed overall, was out last game of the day, and we didn’t know how much of a game it was going to be. Our play had really cleaned up over the course of the day, and our flow looked great. Our offense seemed unstoppable unless we chose to turn it over. Our defense seemed oppressive. I think the offense could have been cleaner & the defense firier, but both were looking good. Pounce scored almost exclusively on hucks, and if a few more had fallen better, it could have been a closer game. As it was, we played some pretty good deep D, with a few burns, so maybe more and better hucks would still have gotten D’d. I wish I would have noticed if they were more on FM or one way force. Chili’s was good, but a ridiculous amount of food, even for me. Most of us were pooped after dinner so showered and went to bed. I wish I could have stayed awake for more of Gibbs reading, but I think I was out before the end of the first paragraph. Some gals came from the hotel to hang with us, but most of us were in bed. Since we’d won our pool, we had a first round bye, allowing us plenty of rest before our 10:30 game. We came out much cleaner than the day before, and the first 2 games went much the same as Saturday.

We knew MOJO would give us a game in the final. We flipped for color and WON, which caused me to squeal like a little girl pig & one of their players clearly thought I was cracked (it was the one that got the Callahan); however it was a big victory: I called SAME, which I rarely do, but I just felt it. I then called ODD and won the actual flip as well. I love it when I feel psychic. We’re on D to start, they score. We answer and begin to trade points. To me, it looked like our D was more than they were used to. For us, their D became more than we were used to. They started triangling the front of the stack, which baffled our players. Our D overcomes and we pull out to a 7-4 lead. We take half 8-6. The second half they used triangle more and our cutters forgot that against good teams sometimes it takes more than 2 cuts to get open. Cuts were not set up well and too often there were 3 people standing in the stack. Mojo was a faster team than all the others, but we still had them beat. We go down 8-9, and our offense is really starting to piss me off. I hate turnovers. I hate them. Sometimes you can’t tell b/c I have a lot, but I tell you, my ideas are good. I hate bad ideas. So, we are letting ourselves get stagnant on O and cap goes on during the 11-11 point. Mojo ends up scoring, so it is 11-12, game to 14. I decided I was tired of this shit so I went in and scored. I don’t know what happened exactly on the 11-12 point, but I get the disc a lot and throw a backhand to Meghan Solo. It was not a pretty backhand, but neither was it horrible. I couldn’t have done it with out K Dubbs, that is for sure. On the second point, I had a throw to her up line at stall 9. I then cut up line for her, get it back and throw a forehand to a sweet cut from Noelle. I didn’t do anything anybody else couldn’t do, but scoring those 2 points quickly and efficiently got the fire into us. Joggles gets a D typical of her, closing the last 3 steps to get the run-by D, and we score fairly easily. We get a very large trophy that is difficult to fit in any of the cars and is shiny, but has a lot of plastic in it. I guess I’d prefer something else- jerseys, T-shirts, money, free entry next year, a trophy you can drink out of, a trophy shaped like a disc or having some sort of disc on it. I don’t go to tourneys for the prizes, but since they spent money on it….actually, I would have REALLY like another free keg of beer on Saturday. The only beer I got on Sunday was when the toddlers were pouring (No kidding, like a 3 and 4 year old were LOVING it). The one wanted to fill more cups, but didn’t have drinkers; I couldn’t let him down.

I remember playing KDubs in co-ed and would hate when she would yell for the disc. Now that I am on her team, I love it. She isn’t the fastest on the team, she isn’t the best thrower, but she is consistent and knows how to get open when she is needed; when she is calling for the disc, it means she is open. Lana gets point of the weekend for a peel off D, followed by a toe-the line leaning layout for the throw from Natalie, then the 40-50 yd forehand for the score. SHE was never stagnant against Mojo. Her kind of cutting will almost ALWAYS be effective. I like to think I helped shape her because of my poaching. I hate guarding her now that she knows how to keep me out of poaching lanes, but that means she keeps out of the poaching lanes when I play with her, too. BK gets offensive play of the weekend for her layout grab from Solarz. Katie M. gets defensive play of the weekend for her layout D. I thought we hucked WAY better this tournament than in Boston. We also got more 50/50 discs. I think we are a team of receivers, and it showed. Dikeman tipped one in the air then followed it for the layout grab to keep it alive. Kara and Kalli played a ton better than in Boston, which I knew they could. They played much closer to their potential. Kalli played particularly good as a hucking cutter and as deep defense. Gibbs was a superstar pretty much all weekend, although I could tell she was frustrated the second half with Mojo’s D. We went over triangle defense and how to beat it, so hopefully that will help. We had so many “near Ds”- we just need to be ready to layout on D, I think. We had great midfield hucks from a number of players, which is just what I want. I love that our cutters will throw it long! Kara showed that she has a pretty, pretty backhand. Tobes threw our first ever score off of Sexy Sadie. Solarz wasn’t quite her deadly accurate self, but her D was some of the best I’ve seen her play. I think Noelle showed everyone she is a cool cucumber and never gives up on a disc; she fit in well. Jill is FAST; she and Kara were about tied for near Ds. Minner had some really nice runs and reads long, coming up with some that the defense totally misread; she doesn’t read off of her offense/defense, just plays the disc. I had fewer turnovers than in Boston, but still yelled too many times, “Turn and run, turn and RUN!” If you hear that, it means I overthrew you. I think almost all of my throwing turnovers were overthrows. Although, my teammates are awesome and often came up with them anyway (Lana, Joggles, Meghan, etc.) I am working on keeping my IO forehand down and assuring myself of a low backhand break.

The game against Mojo was closer than I would have liked it. I was glad to find out we wouldn’t give up if behind in a game. Our offense still needs to be a little cleaner, and I think it can be. However, I don’t think Mojo played their best game ever. They were good and had a couple of really great defensive plays, some pretty throws, but there were a few miscues that I don’t think we can expect them to have. In short, they will give us a game regionals, and we will be ready.

I am thinking Hayride will be our biggest competitor at Cooler in less than 2 weeks. I am planning on partying it up on Saturday night after not playing on Saturday. I am on biopsy, so have to cut tissues in at 10 am that morning. None of the other teams on the list that we’ve played scored more than 3 on us at Motown. The ones we haven’t played I think will be of similar caliber, with the exception of Hayride. I think they are also a contender for us at regionals. I’ve played with some of those ladies before. Julie Fitzgerald is in my Top Five Nicest Players. Off the top of my head, I think Stephanie Huber from Barely Legal & Kevin Tow also are in that category. Pat from MN/Sub Zero may be, too, but I don’t know if I’ve played against him enough to really say for sure.

Cheering. We have enough girls we need to be working on 2 cheers simultaneously. That way, if one sounds promising and gets stuck, hopefully the other one can bail us out. I like cheers. A lot. This is a long, long post & I still need to look at slides for tomorrow. See you on the field (by the way, everyone that took my poll is an Ultimate player).