Sectionals Day 1
I originally wasn't going to post until after the entire tournament, but after today's events, I feel like I should pen to paper while it is still reasonably fresh in my mind. This was a day of extremes. Now to the details.
After my last post, apparently that helped engender a change in the tourney format. They first went with two 5 team pools with a much better schedule. Then, when one team dropped out, they went to 4 and 5 team pools with us in the 5 team pool, which we were more than happy with, as we were out there to practice. First game at 9, while the pool of 4 didn't even start until 12:30. Naturally the sectionals director was in the pool of 4, though it didn't help him because he had to be there early. (cue Nelson laugh).
Our first game pitted us against Gunslingers, a young team from the Boston (and Amherst?) area that we had beaten in a contested double-game point victory. Our forces trickled in before (and after 9AM). This gathering of people had definitely not played together in any real way ever, and it showed. We proceeded to hand the Gunslingers the disk time after time after time on poor decisions, poor execution, lazy defense. Basically there was nothing good in this game. It was bad enough that I was really beginning to question whether this whole Masters thing was going to be a good idea. They beat us 13-9, and we were lucky to be that close. Truly.
The next game was against the Tufts E-Men. They had shockingly just lost a double game point squeaker to the Bowdoin college team, but we didn't know that at first. We started out MUCH better this game, jumping out to a large half-time lead, and then the wheels came off. With the large lead in hand, we started getting lazy on both D and O, and frittered away our huge lead, finally winning in the end 13-10. The third round bye was spent in the shade watching the Rude Boys play their first game in Div II Sectionals. Wow, I thought I was old. THEY were old, but they were still moving and playing reasonably well. The best was that they were able to field almost a full 7 of children, and a number of their kids were pretty good players in their own right.
Finally game 3 against the Bowdoin Stone Clowns or something like that. We finally started hitting our stride in this game, and ran away with it 13-6. This set up a key final game against the first seed in our pool, Red Tide. They had crushed Gunslingers 13-6 the round after us. Going into the game, Jim had stated that we had to win by 2 to make it into the next round (2nd place) and by 7 to win the pool. I had watched Red Tide during some points, and they were running VERY well. I was not sanguine about winning the game, much less worrying about the points. I tried to rally the troops during the opening huddle, but take no credit for what followed. We started by playing man, got the quick stuff and szcore. A few more points, and all of a sudden, I think we might have a chance. We are playing as well as we played poorly the first game. The offense is playing within themselves, the defense is mixing man and zone VERY effectively, with numerous Ds in both defenses. We go up 4-2, have the disk to take half 7-3 and eventually take half 7-4 AND we are receiving. Naturally it was too good to be true, and we get scored on out of half. Somewhere in here, we play one point of zone and each team has 4 turnovers. VERY ugly point. But that was our only MTP that I remember. I contributed two turnovers with the sideline shouting timeout leading into each one. Fortunately we did not crumble, proceeded to score the next point, and actually got some more D's to win 13-7, which was shocking. It was shortly after that Bim pointed out that Jim was wrong, and Jim reached the same conclusion. We had actually WON the pool at +2 with Red Tide at +1, and Gunslingers being sent down to the B pool at -3. Woohoo! Our games tomorrow will be meaningful and challenging now, which is why we are at this tournament. We start with a game against New Noise, who we owe from the Boston Invitational, and if we win that one, we play Boston Ultimate for the Sectional championship. If we lose, we play Red Tide again, and I'm sure they'll be hungry for revenge.
So a day that started in infamy and really made me question our chances to make Nationals, much less actually do well, turned around in a single game and showed us what we could achieve. Granted, the challenge ahead is tough, and could still end in misery, but at least we now have an example of how to play. See you on the field...
After my last post, apparently that helped engender a change in the tourney format. They first went with two 5 team pools with a much better schedule. Then, when one team dropped out, they went to 4 and 5 team pools with us in the 5 team pool, which we were more than happy with, as we were out there to practice. First game at 9, while the pool of 4 didn't even start until 12:30. Naturally the sectionals director was in the pool of 4, though it didn't help him because he had to be there early. (cue Nelson laugh).
Our first game pitted us against Gunslingers, a young team from the Boston (and Amherst?) area that we had beaten in a contested double-game point victory. Our forces trickled in before (and after 9AM). This gathering of people had definitely not played together in any real way ever, and it showed. We proceeded to hand the Gunslingers the disk time after time after time on poor decisions, poor execution, lazy defense. Basically there was nothing good in this game. It was bad enough that I was really beginning to question whether this whole Masters thing was going to be a good idea. They beat us 13-9, and we were lucky to be that close. Truly.
The next game was against the Tufts E-Men. They had shockingly just lost a double game point squeaker to the Bowdoin college team, but we didn't know that at first. We started out MUCH better this game, jumping out to a large half-time lead, and then the wheels came off. With the large lead in hand, we started getting lazy on both D and O, and frittered away our huge lead, finally winning in the end 13-10. The third round bye was spent in the shade watching the Rude Boys play their first game in Div II Sectionals. Wow, I thought I was old. THEY were old, but they were still moving and playing reasonably well. The best was that they were able to field almost a full 7 of children, and a number of their kids were pretty good players in their own right.
Finally game 3 against the Bowdoin Stone Clowns or something like that. We finally started hitting our stride in this game, and ran away with it 13-6. This set up a key final game against the first seed in our pool, Red Tide. They had crushed Gunslingers 13-6 the round after us. Going into the game, Jim had stated that we had to win by 2 to make it into the next round (2nd place) and by 7 to win the pool. I had watched Red Tide during some points, and they were running VERY well. I was not sanguine about winning the game, much less worrying about the points. I tried to rally the troops during the opening huddle, but take no credit for what followed. We started by playing man, got the quick stuff and szcore. A few more points, and all of a sudden, I think we might have a chance. We are playing as well as we played poorly the first game. The offense is playing within themselves, the defense is mixing man and zone VERY effectively, with numerous Ds in both defenses. We go up 4-2, have the disk to take half 7-3 and eventually take half 7-4 AND we are receiving. Naturally it was too good to be true, and we get scored on out of half. Somewhere in here, we play one point of zone and each team has 4 turnovers. VERY ugly point. But that was our only MTP that I remember. I contributed two turnovers with the sideline shouting timeout leading into each one. Fortunately we did not crumble, proceeded to score the next point, and actually got some more D's to win 13-7, which was shocking. It was shortly after that Bim pointed out that Jim was wrong, and Jim reached the same conclusion. We had actually WON the pool at +2 with Red Tide at +1, and Gunslingers being sent down to the B pool at -3. Woohoo! Our games tomorrow will be meaningful and challenging now, which is why we are at this tournament. We start with a game against New Noise, who we owe from the Boston Invitational, and if we win that one, we play Boston Ultimate for the Sectional championship. If we lose, we play Red Tide again, and I'm sure they'll be hungry for revenge.
So a day that started in infamy and really made me question our chances to make Nationals, much less actually do well, turned around in a single game and showed us what we could achieve. Granted, the challenge ahead is tough, and could still end in misery, but at least we now have an example of how to play. See you on the field...
posted by Alex de Frondeville at 8:20 PM
2 Comments:
Nice work, Alex. Here's hoping you guys get to face Boston Nameless. Is Moons going to play w/ you guys down the road? Can he? Which old DoG players besides you and Jim are playing? I wouldn't count on Seeger being on time.
Moons will be joining us at Regionals, as will Greff and Zaz, who were no-shows at Sectionals. Seeger will make an appearance at Regionals, although probably not nationals if we make it.
We had Bickford out there yesterday, and Bim, Dick, Coop, Jordan out for both days, and Scott Goodrich and Dennis out there for some of yesterday. Great fun had by all.
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