Hey guys, sorry for the delay in the writeup, I've been crazy busy with work and such, but work is now done for the summer and it's school prep time. woot! Ergo, here it is:
Heading into Motown Throwdown 2010, I was nervous to say the least. This is the first team I've ever been on, let alone captain. Neither Cathy nor Axis were there with me, and I just wasn't quite sure what to expect or how to be. I know expectations for the weekend weren't the highest, but I still felt responsible for our success or failure. I decided beforehand that I wanted a really focused, positive atmosphere. I think everyone did a great job keeping positive and focusing on things to improve on. We created attainable goals, and reached for them. That's how I want this season to be.
The drive up to Michigan was long, with lots of traffic, creepy douches trying to holler, and truck drivers staring as we all danced and belted out Disney classics. Becca's car made it first and got to bed around midnight. My car got to bed around 1-1:30am... not quite the ideal time for before a tournament, but things could've been worse. For example, Emily drove by herself really late at night and made it in some ridiculously fast time. How she escaped the radar of the po-po and get there without a ticket, have no idea. Maybe she's a ninja. Anywho, as many of you know, I'm terrible at sleeping through the night and Friday night was no exception. I kept waking up like "what time is it. did I oversleep?!?" My night was filled with weird dreams too- of waking up late and missing the tournament, Baby Amy getting kidnapped from the hotel room (even though she wasn't even there....?) and getting tooled around on the field because I suddenly forgot how to play ultimate. Every few minutes after 5am I counted the how long until it was an acceptable time to start getting ready. I lay there going over all of our endzone plays, each position in a zone, and the like. No matter how many times I went over everything I brought and what I needed for the day, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something. Or that I was headed towards a major screw up. As soon as that digital red display read 6:14am, I was up and moving. In the car on the way there, I knew I needed to eat something but my nerves weren't having it. I basically had to force feed myself one of Mom's (MaryKate's) cinnamon bagels. Somehow we all made it to the fields nice and early so everyone could get taped and ready to warmup.
SATURDAY. During warmups I completely blanked on Plyos, and Risa had to help me remember what was next each time because I couldn't remember the order to save my life. I was laughing at myself, preparing for a weekend full of mental failures. And kicking myself for not having thought through them before getting to the field. oh well. Our first game was against Lily. I think the team would agree that there are only 2 words to describe this game: shit show. We weren't all quite awake yet, all forgot how to throw, and couldn't remember how our dump set worked or anything. We barely managed to score two points, and then we got a break to get ready for the next game. The second game was against Hot Metal, the one seed. After the way the Lily game went, I was majorly concerned. However, we kept up with these guys better than expected. They weren't just laying down scores on us quickly- we were keeping up and getting turns and whatnot. We all kinda woke up physically in this game, really getting our legs moving and hearts pumping. Our defense was probably our worst asset here, despite trying to force them in, we kept getting beat deep in the endzone. Scored one in this game, which wasn't too bad considering RAWR+, WUF-AA, and Lily each only scored 2 on them. Third game versus RAWR+ seemed like it could be a good matchup because they had a really small squad too. However, we realized that they had some stars from Case Western Reserve and they had their acts together better than we did. This game we got so close so many times, and turned it in the endzone every time. This became a very common thing for us over the weekend, unfortunately. This game we really got our dumps perfected. Rather than the usual handler cuts though, the closest handler just juked around till they got open behind the thrower for the easy dump. This system seemed to work well for us this weekend, so we kept it up. Ended this game 2-13. Not a good score, but we were clicking so much better than in the first game of the day. I think it was this game where both Matthews and Mary Kate began their series of layout catches to the side which lasted the rest of the weekend. Great job, girls.
Our last game on Saturday was our chilliest, best game of the weekend, I think everyone would agree. While our score didn't reflect how we played, we were so chilly on offense and really played much better defense than the rest of the day. The handler movement was so smooth this game, constantly getting throws off to the open side which had some great continues. Our infinite stack looked hella good. (Be proud, Cathy Chu!) We had trouble getting it off the sideline, but after some adjustments with our dumps we got it all cleared up. This game, I would like to say, was a preview of what's to come for Menace. A lot of the scores for Dish came from hucks that we didn't D in the endzone, as well as break throws. This game went well, but it was clear that our conditioning wasn't where it needed to be to play defense effectively against this team. This is the game where everything seemed to click for us. We worked hard and it was so much easier to work together when everyone was on the same page with how intense we wanted to be. That kind of intensity is what's gonna get us through this season.
At the end of the day we sat in a circle to stretch and I had everyone go around and say something they did well on, something someone else did well on, what we did well as a team, and what we need to work on as a team. Main things that were said:
-Holler to Mary Kate and Rachael for layouts
-Great cutting by Becca, Alyssa and Risa
-Carol Li was a huge help on offense
-Emily Sheu and Cheryl did a great job handling (esp. in zone!)
-Nora was really solid on O, nice handler cuts.
We ended Saturday by eating at Cracker Barrel, which was amazingly fast and delicious. We went back to the hotel and showered, etc, and went to the tourney party. The party consisted of bowling, Carol Li proving that asians are better at everything, asian glow, Illinois boys, and other fun things. Well put together, very good tourney party.
SUNDAY: The first game versus WUF-AA was our best scoring game. 5-12. In this game, both teams were really tired and WUF threw a zone. We worked it up through their zone with no problem. Our zone O was on lock all weekend. Most teams only let us score on them with a zone once, but this team kept it up and let us score a few. I think it was in this game that Risa made a really great cut to the back right cone of the endzone and I threw an O-I backhand around her girl for the score. roomie connection, baby. there's plenty more where that came from. The second game was versus Notorious, a high school team out of Pittsburgh. This was a much better match in experience, but these girls were FAST. They had a couple of main handlers that put up hucks every time. and the rest of them had no problem chasing them down deep. We got run-though D'd a lot in this game. Athleticism definitely failed us. But our handler defense got a lot better towards the end, and putting on a huck mark really slowed their offense down. These girls were great to play against, and we all wished them the best of luck at nationals! Last game was versus Baha, a group of women from Columbus. They were so spirited and so much fun to play against. We had a great time playing this game. This game we had at least 10 turns from throws that came from just behind the right cone in the endzone. We need to get into a habit of dumping and swinging that disc off the sideline. That really killed us. We were just exhausted all around. Not our best game, but it was a good, fun end to a tournament.
We grew a lot over the course of the weekend, connections got better and we made adjustments. Everyone adapted really well to new situations and new ideas. I think that's going to help us tremendously in the next year. There's lots of work to be done with this team, and not just on the field. We'll all be busy in the next few weeks getting ready for a new class of rookies. Couldn't be more excited. Till next time-
Jody
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