Nationals, Day 3
Took me awhile to recover from losing in the semis. As Jim said over in his blog, going into the tournament I thought there was a non-zero chance that we would fail to even qualify for the pre-quarters. However, despite feeling we could have won the tournament, this was one of the more satisfying nationals that I ever had. The team got consistently better throughout the weekend. While it took awhile for us to put together two solid halves, we finally hit our stride going into the Metal game, which gave us the right boost going into the Bravo quarterfinal.
After we finished our spanking of Metal, we had the opportunity to catch the end of the Jam/Bravo game next door, whose loser we would be playing in the quarterfinal. After awhile, I didn't really care who lost, as both teams were playing uglimate, or west coast big play turn it over as much as you want... I'm still disappointed that style won nationals again. Given recent experience against Bravo (excluding Colorado Cup), I was probably happy when Bravo lost. Since I didn't attend the Colorado Cup, on a personal level, I don't think I have EVER lost to them. Since I didn't go to the Chesapeake tournament, I can also still say that I have NEVER lost to Chain Lightning.
Going into the quarters on Saturday, I was feeling pretty good. My calf was feeling fully recovered from the Thursday game (thanks again to Russ Robar, team masseuse extraordinaire), and I was ready to go. The team then put on a pretty spectacular display, I thought. The O scored off the first point with no turns, then the D put the clamp on. We were quickly up 4-1, and never looked back. The O ended up having only 1 turnover the entire game, and we let them score it. Not a SINGLE other turnover. On a personal level, this was one of my better performances ever in a meaningful game. I was feeling it pretty earlier, and ended up throwing 5 goals and catching the game-winner out of a possible 11 points of offense, and I think I was out for at least one of those points. This included a long backhand to Parinella for a goal on the second pass (always a back-breaker), a knifing inside out forehand to Jim for another goal that at least 2 Bravo players layed out for in front of Jim, who made the focussed catch nonetheless, two long hammer goals at high stall counts, one to Forch to punish Beau, who was playing way off man, and another one to Josh McCarthy (yes, it was to him, not Jim) in another back breaker, and then an early curving forehand to a poached player. The most satisfying one was catching the game-winner on a 2 yard cut up the line after a dump fake.
So, back in the semis after a two-year hiatus. Two years ago, lost to the Condors after avoiding the pre-quarters. Last year, barely lost to Furious after almost being up 10-7 and beating Chain Lightning in the pre-quarters. You can see the trend here, which was why I had some concern going in. But, back on familiar ground. This was a rematch of our pool play game against Sockeye, who won 15-13 in a VERY close game, although our last lead was 11-10. But we had at least 5 chances to tie it upwind combined at 14-13 and 13-12 Sockeye. This game started out no differently. Sockeye received going upwind, and while we didn't score on a Callahan this time, we still scored. We maintained this precarious lead for much of the first half, until there was a hugely contested call when Josh McCarthy caught a downwinder, thought he was in (and spectators did also), while the observer was calling him out. Unfortunately, he began his celebration a little early, and ultimately pseudo-spike the disc to give Sockeye possession. We didn't recover defensively that point, and the momentum had shifted. Worse, Sockeye broke us to take half on a huge defensive play by Alex Nord on Doug Moore, with Nord coming around the outside to pluck the disc from Doug without any contact and actually catch the disc about 5 feet off the ground. The photos that I have seen do the play justice. Whether Doug was truly open enough in the first place to be thrown to is a separate question, but that was a back breaker. A few more plays like this, and all of a sudden, we were down 12-8 and traded out. Very frustrating, as this was also an eminently winnable game. I had another successful foray, with only 1 turnover on a second upwind possession when I threw a first pass backhand up the line to Matt Hims, who I thought was open but was apparently not. Other than that, I threw a few more goals, a few almost goals including two long forehands(!) to Jim Parinella, neither of which he could manage to catch in the endzone (grrrr). All in all, a personally successful day of ultimate, but it was overshadowed by the fact that this was a WINNABLE game, and a WINNABLE tournament. I didn't think so coming in, but we played mostly great as a team, definitely better than our recent tournaments/practices. It was nice to see us step up to the plate. On a personal level, I only had 3 turnovers in 6.5 games, and felt my juices flowing as I was in that zone where I wanted the disc ALL the time, and was usually able to do something with it, including having my way with a lot of Sockeye poaching.
After we finished our spanking of Metal, we had the opportunity to catch the end of the Jam/Bravo game next door, whose loser we would be playing in the quarterfinal. After awhile, I didn't really care who lost, as both teams were playing uglimate, or west coast big play turn it over as much as you want... I'm still disappointed that style won nationals again. Given recent experience against Bravo (excluding Colorado Cup), I was probably happy when Bravo lost. Since I didn't attend the Colorado Cup, on a personal level, I don't think I have EVER lost to them. Since I didn't go to the Chesapeake tournament, I can also still say that I have NEVER lost to Chain Lightning.
Going into the quarters on Saturday, I was feeling pretty good. My calf was feeling fully recovered from the Thursday game (thanks again to Russ Robar, team masseuse extraordinaire), and I was ready to go. The team then put on a pretty spectacular display, I thought. The O scored off the first point with no turns, then the D put the clamp on. We were quickly up 4-1, and never looked back. The O ended up having only 1 turnover the entire game, and we let them score it. Not a SINGLE other turnover. On a personal level, this was one of my better performances ever in a meaningful game. I was feeling it pretty earlier, and ended up throwing 5 goals and catching the game-winner out of a possible 11 points of offense, and I think I was out for at least one of those points. This included a long backhand to Parinella for a goal on the second pass (always a back-breaker), a knifing inside out forehand to Jim for another goal that at least 2 Bravo players layed out for in front of Jim, who made the focussed catch nonetheless, two long hammer goals at high stall counts, one to Forch to punish Beau, who was playing way off man, and another one to Josh McCarthy (yes, it was to him, not Jim) in another back breaker, and then an early curving forehand to a poached player. The most satisfying one was catching the game-winner on a 2 yard cut up the line after a dump fake.
So, back in the semis after a two-year hiatus. Two years ago, lost to the Condors after avoiding the pre-quarters. Last year, barely lost to Furious after almost being up 10-7 and beating Chain Lightning in the pre-quarters. You can see the trend here, which was why I had some concern going in. But, back on familiar ground. This was a rematch of our pool play game against Sockeye, who won 15-13 in a VERY close game, although our last lead was 11-10. But we had at least 5 chances to tie it upwind combined at 14-13 and 13-12 Sockeye. This game started out no differently. Sockeye received going upwind, and while we didn't score on a Callahan this time, we still scored. We maintained this precarious lead for much of the first half, until there was a hugely contested call when Josh McCarthy caught a downwinder, thought he was in (and spectators did also), while the observer was calling him out. Unfortunately, he began his celebration a little early, and ultimately pseudo-spike the disc to give Sockeye possession. We didn't recover defensively that point, and the momentum had shifted. Worse, Sockeye broke us to take half on a huge defensive play by Alex Nord on Doug Moore, with Nord coming around the outside to pluck the disc from Doug without any contact and actually catch the disc about 5 feet off the ground. The photos that I have seen do the play justice. Whether Doug was truly open enough in the first place to be thrown to is a separate question, but that was a back breaker. A few more plays like this, and all of a sudden, we were down 12-8 and traded out. Very frustrating, as this was also an eminently winnable game. I had another successful foray, with only 1 turnover on a second upwind possession when I threw a first pass backhand up the line to Matt Hims, who I thought was open but was apparently not. Other than that, I threw a few more goals, a few almost goals including two long forehands(!) to Jim Parinella, neither of which he could manage to catch in the endzone (grrrr). All in all, a personally successful day of ultimate, but it was overshadowed by the fact that this was a WINNABLE game, and a WINNABLE tournament. I didn't think so coming in, but we played mostly great as a team, definitely better than our recent tournaments/practices. It was nice to see us step up to the plate. On a personal level, I only had 3 turnovers in 6.5 games, and felt my juices flowing as I was in that zone where I wanted the disc ALL the time, and was usually able to do something with it, including having my way with a lot of Sockeye poaching.
posted by Alex de Frondeville at 6:40 PM
2 Comments:
You know, when you're young, you feel like you will always have another chance next year. I'm at the point where every year may be my last, and I don't have the leisure to look forward to next year to make up for this one. But for some reason, this year really was different, especially on Saturday. I definitely was not in better shape than prior years, although my conditioning was sufficient for my role (my best conditioning ever was the first year, 2002 I think, with Bryan Doo, the current Celtics physical trainer, on the team who developed a whole new workout regime, something that finally helped my specific needs, ie., agilities, quickness, etc.). I think the handler position, once you have developed the basic skills and field vision, really becomes a mental game. One of the keys is to avoid early miscues in a game/tournament which can make you doubt yourself. Fortunately, I didn't have any early ones of note, and just got stronger as the tournament went on.
What was interesting was by the time Saturday rolled around, I was often back behind the thrower. DoG has made a strong point (to it's detriment in my mind) to not have a dump behind the disc because of the tendency of teams to force middle on us because of the success Condors had doing so 5 years ago(!). I also noticed that Funboy (Dan Forseter), also spent quite a bit of time behind the disc on the D, and I think that also helped their offense a lot. I had pushed hard for that earlier in the year with leadership, as I felt that the D had fewer throwers/receivers that were going to do the job at a high stall count, and the dump was the easiest and safest pass.
I was also in the zone with respect to seeing the field. The most obvious one to me (and probably the scariest one to the team) was the blazing inside out to Parinella for a goal against Bravo. In retrospect, it seems foolhardy, but at the time, even though there had to be at least 6 or seven players between me and Jim, and NOT that far off the line, I saw him, saw the opening, and fired that throw up the line, and watched at least 2 Bravo players just lay out and miss the disc. I really hope there is some video of that throw, because I would be fascinated to see what it looked like from another perspective.
Even though it was pretty windy Saturday, the two hammer goals (fortunately downwind) were still pretty much my bread and butter throw. I used to throw a HELL of a lot more hammers than I do now, back in the '90s DoG era, and in far more and varied situations than I do now, and have always had great vision for determining when somebody is open and when the defender will be ready for it. What is fun is when we are being forced forehand and as the count gets up, all of a sudden five people cut for the hammer upfield. It can be comedic sometimes. The first hammer to Forch was payback for Beau continuing to poach the lane, and I'm sure surprised the hell out of Beau, but Forch had played with me long enough to be expecting the throw. The second one to Josh was at a very high stall, but I have also connected a number of times with Josh, and he was looking for it. It was definitely a back breaker for Bravo, as they had me at 9 pretty far out of the endzone at a point in the game where they could still try and make a run.
By the time we got around to the Sockeye game, I was in such a zone that I actually threw two long forehands, albeit downwind, that travelled at least 40 yards. That may not sound like much, but I am not known for long forehands, and as matter of fact, one of my three turnovers on the tourney was trying to uncork a long forehand to Forch, and it went maybe 25 yards and straight up into the air and immediately turning over. Pretty funny actually. But the two I completed against Sockeye were money. I also threw a few goals where I punished their poaches by taking the extra second to find the man with curving forehands over the first rank of defenders.
I guess what I'm trying to say (now that I'm done beating my chest), is that in my mind, unless you are a godlike athlete with 100% repeatable and reliable throws, handling is hugely mental. I can't put my finger on anything in particular besides being benched more points than I ever had (rotating the handlers) in the early games with no relationship to turnovers, which definitely got my gander up in a good way. I was able to respond in a positive fashion and by Saturday, I think they were putting me in every offensive point. It got to the point where I was always called the hitch, and if the pull was out of bounds or short, I went and picked it up. Despite the unsatisfying results, I will definitely look back on this fondly. However, I guess Copernicus in thepups.blogspot.com doesn't agree with me...
Devlin, two situations come to mind. This also depends on your handler status on your team. If you are the man, you have no choice but to suck it up and keep doing what you are doing. If you are fumbling the easy stuff, practice throwing between points or on D points on the sideline, especially the throws you might be having trouble with, just to get some repetitions. Make sure to practice the same type of throw, including fakes if you do them (can't remember the last time I threw a fake besides faking a long backhand to get some motion), pretending there is a force, and actually throwing in the direction you would typically be throwing (upwind/downwind maybe as opposed to crosswind). If you are one of the secondary handlers and the team might be depending on you a little less, then you really need to dial back your game and make sure you do the little stuff right. If you are turning over hucks, then that is easy to solve. Again, if it is the little stuff, then practice it on the sideline, take an extra 1/2 second before your throws during the game to make sure. A lot of this really depends on the kinds of mistakes you're doing.
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