The weekend started out well for me when I got into my car Friday afternoon with Doug, Steve, Trevor, and Venus. This was truly an all-star team of roadtrippers, and I knew that I had a great weekend ahead of me. After a brief (3 hour) stop at my mom's house, we got on our way to St. John, IN and invented the best car game ever on the way. Ask anyone who was in the car for details. We arrived at Steve's house for dinner and were graciously welcomed by Steve's parents and given pizza for dinner and warm beds, a great start to any ultimate tournament.
Saturday morning started a little rushed for X as we arrived at the fields with less than a half hour to warm up. Our first opponent, DePaul, arrived even later and was confused about when the game was supposed to start. We began a little after 8:30 and the game went quickly as a combined result of good play from ISU and a lack of subs for DePaul. ISU X takes the win 13-4. DePaul would do better for the rest of the day, winning 2/3 of their remaining games.
With a quick first round and a second round bye, ISU X went over and watched our women duke it out with Kalamazoo. We weren't able to stay until the end, but left with the Lady Gnomes well in control of the game that they would eventually win 13-6. Our third round game would bring St. Louis (or S.L.U.T.) who was fresh off of an intense matchup against Northwestern B and looking for a win. Both teams came out hard and we traded points until we were able to get a couple of breaks and take the game into hard cap, 11-7. To their credit St. Louis fought hard and played well. They brough a team similar in composition to ISU X with a couple of veteran studs and a bunch of rookies. I'd give the credit to our rookies for this win as I believe it was mostly a result of ISU winning the rookie on rookie matchups. Props to the guy in the pink shorts and number 4 for playing a hell of a game and being very spirited while doing it.
Our third game of the day was against Northwestern-B. After watching some of their earlier matchup against SLUT and DePaul, I was expecting this game to be a lot closer. We played well, executing on offense and taking advantage of Nut's turnovers, although not forcing very many. The Nut guys were very friendly and one guy even let me borrow his extra cleats after I ripped open the back of mine during the game. The final score was 13-5, and ISU X was now primed to play Eastern Michigan who, despite being seeded last in our pool was undefeated going into the last round.
It's been a while since the weekend of Glory Days, but I don't believe that we ever took the lead in this game (E. Mich). EMich was led by a couple of solid handlers including one female handler who had arguably the best throws on the field during that game and one seemingly 7 foot tall monster of a cutter who chose to wear a white tennis skirt so short that it would even make Sam Fishman blush. It may have been that we were tired, or maybe just satisfied to take second in the pool, but we came out sluggish and slow and stayed that way for most of the first half. It was the first game of the weekend that we were put in a position where we would have to play from behind. The inexperience of our team showed through in this game as we made some bad decisions and physical errors. EMich played well, but at points it seemed like we were trying to give the game away. Even some of our most reliable players were putting up bad hucks and dropping in-cuts. We rallied to get within one close to the end (11-12) but couldn't get the break to tie it up and ended up losing 11-13.
ISU X would finish 2nd in the pool, breaking seed by one. After finishing up pool play we got some delicious pasta which was provided by the Glory Days staff and sat down to watch Jeffryl Tull, Teleport, and Marinara compete in the rookie game. I missed most of it since I was spending my time either talking to other teams or teaching Afryl Lavigne how to throw a biscuit, but I heard #3 was kicking ass. Watch out for him (or her?) in a couple years.
My car went back to Steve's house for another awesome meal courtesy of the Huizengers and watched Princess Bride for the first time after playing a rousing game of Racko. Now that's a party.
Sunday didn't go as well for ISU X as Saturday. In fact, it was pretty much the polar opposite. Instead of calm and sunny, the weather was cold and windy--and instead of going 3-1, we went 1-3. We did, however, beat Eastern Michigan in a game where I got the first D, no matter what Sam or Corey say. Our first game was against Western Illinois who decided to invite #20, an alumni, back to play with them at this tourney. I'm in the process of filing a complaint with the UPA. Btw Kroger, you're going to have to enroll in some classes for the spring. Western played well, as I would expect them to in the wind. We were unable to score an upwind point in this game, but we held Hysteria to 3 breaks all game, and none in the second half. We were capable of better, but I'm definitely not upset about the effort of a split squad team in this game.
After being knocked out of the championship bracket, we moved on to face our next opponent in the 5th place bracket, Undue Perversity of Purdue University. We gave up a couple of breaks early in this game mainly as a result of deciding to go man instead of zone when defending upwind. We got one of the breaks back late in the game but a shortened game due to a few injury interruptions including one where Hollywood was carted off the field by the trainer resulted in a loss in the hard cap, 10-11. Note: when the hardcap sounded we were in the midst of a 3-0 run. This is definitely a down year for Purdue (either that or they were missing some key personnel this weekend) but even so it was a good showing against a sectional rival's A team as a split squad, and a good sign of things to come this spring.
The close loss to Purdue knocked us down again into the 7th place bracket where we would meet a Hope College team which appeared to have an exclusively 6 foot plus roster. The monsters took the game over a tired and injury-laiden ISU X with one upwind break, 10-7. After being knocked out of our placement bracket once again, we found ourselves playing for 9th against EMich who we had already played. We decided to have a boatrace, a game to 7, and a game of splat with the winner of 2 of 3 would win 9th place. The boatrace was close, but Teleport showed a lot of poise by coming through as the anchor. I believe we lost the game to 7, but Kroger won Splat to claim 9th place and our only win of the day. Good work Kroger.
The Ride Home
All I wanted was one large powerade...
kroger didn't win splat, it was that pathetic vegetable off with two freshmen, i think pat and charles...worst vegetable off ever.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the mistake. But hey man, not all of us can haz orange hair. Vegetbale-offing is tougher for some than others, Pete.
ReplyDelete