Desire

The only thing I can't give you. I've been doing things late my whole life; looking back at things that could've been. Now, I feel like I'm meeting the next generation of those guys. Not making time for the things they enjoy, just a few practices away from picking up a sport that will last a lifetime, and not taking the time today to invest in their fitness.

I had a recent talk with a friend about just this. I can't say I feel too old at this point, but there are things I wish I would've known 3 and 4 years ago that I just didn't make the time for. Well now is the time to make up for lost time for me, but for many people it's too late. At the same time, how many people can sit down and tell you exactly where they will be in 5 years? I could never have guessed 5 years ago that I would even know this game, much less devote ridiculous amounts of time to it.

Well, the game goes on. I think I've learned a lot about leading in 1 semester, but I don't think that learning process is even close to ending. I haven't really posted too much recently, and I have some interesting stories to tell, but I'll leave that for another time. I should be heading to the airport in a little over 24 hours. Heading to Tejas to see if I can persuade my bro to kick my ass into shape in 2 weeks. Should involve a combo of lifting, sprinting hills, flag football tourneys, and more of my weak attempts at letting him know he could dominate in this sport. After all, he is planning on going to U of F, and with his athleticism he could seriously make an impact on that program if he had the desire...

Breaking In

Back to working out. Doing the break-in workouts from the "New Rules of Lifting" by Lou Schuler until the end of the week before moving on into the Fat-Loss workouts. I don't really know how much I really need a "fat-loss" workout, but I'm pretty sure the workout looks pretty rough even if it is specifically for burning fat.

I've been spending the past two weeks building up the weight room, and I'm finding that I'm feeling better working out recently as well. I doubt there's a correlation, but it's nice to have things in order again. New dumbbells, a chin-up bar, a new Olympic barbell, and a makeshift dumbbell rack makes for more stations to work in (meaning I can invite more friends over to lift with me) and makes it easier to meet the rest periods in the workouts. Turns out it is important to maintain the different recovery times to actually accomplish what the workout is built around. Lower recovery for endurance/fat-loss/hypertrophy workouts, higher recovery for strength and power.

I've sort of been on hiatus for a few months, but it's nice to lift again and I'm feeling stronger already. Maybe I'll even feel good about my fitness by the New Year...

UDel: Musical Pools

A1: Pennsylvania
A2: Delaware
A3: Princeton
A4: Rutgers
A5: Catholic

Whew...more musical pools, looking like we're set now. Let's go ahead and speculate again...

2-2. Penn and Del are tough teams. I like to think that we're going to go out and give them tough games. Hopefully their team experience doesn't wear on our resolve. Close games are nice.

Princeton and Rutgers. Don't know too much about these teams other than we played Rutgers at Huck of the Irish last year. They won something like 13-7. We're about 6 points better this year and looking to pick up the win there. Princeton has some interesting results; beat TCNJ, lost to Hofstra big, and barely beat Rowan. I'm thinking we can beat this team. There's no reason not to; we've got our big guns this tournament, and we're playing them after a tough game with Penn when they come off their bye. Personally I always play worse after a bye, so let's hope this Princeton team carries that same ailment.

Either way you look at it we've got to come ready to play hard. I'd say I'm downe.

UDel Update

Pools were wrong in the last entry... It's gonna look like this:

Ithaca
Johns Hopkins
Catholic
Bucks County CC
Delaware - B

Prediction: 4-0, on to the CHAMPionship brackets.

UDel: Pre-Carnage Report

Well, pools came out for the UDel SHOWdown today. It's time to get our game together and put to rest some of the myths about these Delaware guys. They aren't unstoppable, they aren't going to be able to look over their first round game aginst us Saturday, and they sure as hell will find out that Catholic is a legit contender in the Metro East.

Day 1:

Pool A
A1: Delaware-Alum (1)
A2: Delaware (3)
A3: Salisbury (5)
A4: Penn State (7)
A5: Catholic (9)

Round 1 - UDel
Round 2 - Bye
Round 3 - UDel Alum
Round 4 - Penn State
Round 5 - Salisbury

I'm looking to come out with two solid wins on Saturday. With 2 wins we should pull the top team from the C or D pool to start our Sunday.

Hell yeah Bad Habit, this is what we've been waiting for!

November Festivities

I'm pretty much into the month of November. Sure, there's Thanksgiving, but I'm definitely more into November than that. I'm rocking a beard and writing a novel! National Beard Month and National Novel Writing Month at its best!

Oh yeah, and there was this sweet party at my place last Friday night. Lots of beer at 9pm, no beer at 1am... I think that means it was a good party.

Party MVP: Sonic and Phil(l)ip (I don't know if he's got one or two "l"s in his name). 7-straight beer pong victories. 3 or 4 of which were played with 10 cups...

Pop Quiz

The team doesn't know it yet, but today is their first rules pop quiz! Exciting I know. I keep telling everyone to read the rulebook, but I doubt people are, so I am going to test their knowledge today. They are easy questions, so I feel like everyone should get all of them correct, but if they don't their conditioning will be affected.

Also, today was the start of NaNoWriMo. I just started writing today. I have no direction at all so far, but I have written almost 1000 words. It makes sense I guess, but I need to develop a storyline soon! It almost makes it harder that it has to be fiction, but I guess we can work some swordplay into the novel...that could be fun...and maybe a dragon, or a wolverine with a laser attached to its back. All fun ideas... Oh, or maybe I could bring it back to my high school days and throw in a unicorn or two, after all, that was our mascot.

Step Up.

It's about to get cold out, the daylight's getting short, and it's going to be easy to just sit by why your teammates take to the field and get better.

We have to capitalize on every opportunity to prove ourselves! Who cares if things come up last minute? Who cares if our muscles are screaming for us to quit running? Who cares if it's cold oustide? Let's take the necessary steps to push ourselves physically and mentally past the level of our opponents. F___ your feelings, it's time to step it up.

UDel - Nov. 10.

If I were to be a novelist, who would I be?

Dave took part in a novel-writing event, or actually a complete month, recently (it was at least a year ago) in which each participant was charged with writing a 175pg. novel (50,000 words) during the month of November. All things equal, that's 1667 words per day. I'm pretty sure I 'bs' my way through 1700 words worth of emails in a day, but could I put together that many words devoted to the same coherant thought?

Of course I would worry about a few things...
-At what point would I abandon the story and devote entire plot lines to perfecting my latest zone defense?
-How many times can I write a 7-man defensive line in the margins before I finally accept that this obsession of mine really is unhealthy?
-Do I really have time to write 1667 words a day without neglecting my work?

All things to consider. Maybe I'll try it, I think I could enjoy the challenge and maybe I'd surprise myself...

You know I'm just doing this to procrastinate anyway, why not take it to the limit?

Daydreaming...

I wish I was somewhere else right now. Sarasota, FL to be exact.

Club Natty's just began about an hour ago and I'm very surprised to find that the Score Reporter is updating scores as the games go on. (http://www.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=124&id=3907) I've always had problems choosing a team that I really want to support, and this year it's pretty much the same. Thanks to UVTV I've seen most of these guys play, and I'd have to put my support behind Ring, Bravo, Rhino, and Truck Stop in their respective pools today. Ring and Truck are fellow MA'ers, I've been watching Colorado Ultimate all year on various iVideo websites, and Rhino has just recently swayed me with this video: http://www.chsultimate.com/video/RhinoNWRegionals07.mp4.

I can't wait to catch some footage of this weekend once Rob at UltiVillage uploads everything.

Here's to Callahan's, 90-yd hucks, layout d's, handblocks, and high-release flicks!

"Keep the Euphoria alive!" or "Does DOMS hate me as much as I like winning?"

We had been lucky Saturday night to find a free alternative to the freshman dorm room we were seemingly doomed to sleep in. As any gracious house guest knows, the only way to pay back our kind host was to spruce up his home with the smell of our dirty laundry and send freshmen to clog his plumbing as the veterans seek sustenance from an unattended pantry… Since we were VERY gracious guests, we were sure to abide on all counts. I’ll be sure to send “Soap” a disc for his troubles…

We kept the drinking light Saturday night, so the only hungover member of our party was Ship’s comedy man, Collins. He decided it best to stay with us at Soap’s house since he “didn’t want to be lonely while he drank,” and managed to keep us entertained most of the night.

Our arrival to the fields was met with our first 1 seed in my short history with Catholic and we were poised to take on PSU-Behrend in the first round. A crosswind remained from yesterday leaving us a little sour about the missed Friday Night Lights section of the tournament (we watched Georgetown’s women, Huckin’ Foyas, play under the lights Saturday with little to no wind leaving us with the impression that the cancelled Friday night games would’ve been more of the same.)… But hey, we played some tight zone Saturday and we looked to do it again this morning with a slightly depleted squad. After having 18 on Saturday, we were left with 11 and a 12th on his way up from D.C.

PSU-Behrend – This team played savage most of the tournament, but it was an easy savage as they didn’t manage to put up too many points, leaving them with a plethora of short games. As was the norm at Skylander, we decided to give Behrend a 4-1 lead before rubbing the sleep from our eyes and putting the disc in the endzone a few times. We settled in and took half 7-5 before going on an extended run to start the second. Bridget and Lemon made it look easy and scored 7 of our 12 points this game as Stills managed only a few to put his weekend total that much closer to 20. Sean Quinn even got on the board with an assist this game before tweaking his ankle on defense. I felt like we used this game as more of a warm-up for what we considered to be our biggest challenge of the weekend against UMBC…
12-6 Habit

UMBC – Dan arrived just in time to supplement our roster for this game(and to give Frodo a ride home). We were very surprised at the start of this game. Well, surprised that Booya could only muster 1 point to our first 10… Dan and Sonic were solid this game and relatively chilly with the disc (other than a few interesting choices by Dan), and John kept up his consistent play with a few assists as well as breaking his streak of consecutive games without a drop at 5 games. I guess he was taking notes from Metz as he watched from the sideline in the Behrend game. Highlights were when Bridge brought the pain on defense and decked one of Booya’s women while getting a nice ‘d’ on an in-cut, our handlers walking down the field against their man defense while I watched from the sidelines, and Ranjo managing to hideout on the field all game so I couldn’t sub him out. Good game, good spirit, even better result.
15-5 Habit

TCNJ – We get to take another shot at our pool play rivals. This time without 3 of our defensive stoppers and only 11 Habit players ready to play. Sean Quinn’s sprained ankle seemed to be the difference as TCNJ hit us hard with their deep attack. With a high number of larger players, they managed to come down with most 50/50 discs (that weren’t thrown my way…) and pulled ahead after we traded our way to a 3-3 tie. We just didn’t have the legs to keep up with this team as many of our guys had been playing close to savage for the day.
15-8 TCNJ

Overall a very successful tournament. 2nd Place!!! Solid play by Sonic, Stills, and John all weekend… Solid play by Arin and Kyle on Saturday. No more MVP, MIP, MCP, MWB (Most Witty Banter), due to excessive speculation… Metz’d probably win them all anyway.

"Saturday as seen by Dave" or "Victory Tastes Like Pumpkin Pancakes, or so I've heard"

Shippensburg, PA- It's open house, but whose house? The weather is crisp and perfect save for a bit of a breeze. In the revamped format, Bad Habit draws a first round bye. Extra hours of sleep gone missing are turned into some extra throws in the wind. Perhaps not such a bad thing... The 2nd round brings the first opponent, the one seed, Messiah. Catholic players recall the Messiah and a man they call "Jesus." His graduation seems to calm those most interested.
Messiah has several players with nice hucks, nice hands, and the dirt on their shirts that indicates a willingness to go horizontal.

Catholic is clean and fresh and play like it. Wimples flying, Bad Habit jumps out to a quick 2-0 lead. This is much appreciated by those who started the previous week 0-2. Riding some big hucks from the Mohawk to the man with more nicknames than scores, Habit continues to take Messiah to task. Habit takes half at 7-4 on the strength of some solid defense and some efficient offense. Peter and John are handling well together and the disc continues to move when the D hasn't forced a turn near the endzone. Messiah puts up some big hucks too, but they always seem to fall just out of reach, or in the hands of a Habit big man. Classics knocks one down before Habit turns to some zone which seems to shake Messiah even more. They continue to look for the second coming, but there is no salvation. Especially not when they are pushing Stills and he catches the scores anyway. Messiah never seemed out of the game, but they also never quite put themselves within striking distance. Habit takes it 11-7 on continued solid all around play.

After the one seed, comes the two. Georgetown looks to be a good match-up from home. Habit again jumps out to a 2-0 lead. The band is playing by now and spirits are high. Statisticians look back for any evidence of Catholic jumping out to 2-0 leads in consecutive games. My weak memory finds no precendent. Habit continues to pull away from Georgetown on continued solid play. The defense is causing turns and the offense is punching it in, sometimes accidentally. With everybody backing up everybody, discs miss intended receivers and find their way into teammates hands. Lucky? Perhaps. At 5-0, Georgetown calls a timeout and revamps their strategy. They bring a 4 person cup, a potentially effective tool in the wind. Habits poppers stagnate for a while, but the handlers continue to move the disc powered by the Mohawk's knee-busting fakes and quick hits through very tight spaces.

This opens up the field and allows for enough movement to keep things going. Georgetown does manage to force a few turns, but looks completely discombobulated on offense. Some credit must go to the Habit defense; they send several looks at Georgetown including a Frodo as rabbit in a 1-3-2-1, but it's clear that Georgetown has seen better days. Their "best" thrower is hardly getting the disc and they don't seem to be looking for an athletic deep at all. There are moments when the wall looks impenetrable. On offense, the sidelines get a little thrill from Dan. In one beautiful series, Dan committed to his dump who headed up the line. Without looking, he popped up a high release backhand. Alan grabbed it out of the air, made a fake and punched it in for a score to a well-timed cutter, I think Kyle. Speaking of Kyle, he tried desperately not to get a Callahan, but the wind begged him to take it, so he acquiesed. Congratulations, Kyle. Georgetown sidelines start to anger, but Habit has little sympathy and rolls to a 10-4 victory.

Giddy, Habit now faces New Jersey. The band played on and dreams of marching straight to the championship start to manifest. Having heard about Habit's first two victories, the general consensus seems to be that New Jersey will roll over and play dead. New Jersey has other plans. They get off to a quick start and Habit looks bad. The defense is porous and the offense can't seem to wait to play porous defense. It's 5-0 before I can polish off a PowerBar. Habit looks exhausted from the first two wins and the day looks like it may be going sour.
Habit does manage to awaken slightly, but is downed 13-4.

Not dwelling on the previous game, Frodo is lifted by the team in what we can only hope is a cheer that will be oft-repeated, "I'm Frodo Baggins. Do it for the Shire!" "FOR THE SHIRE!" Habit is now ready to take on their hosts, Shippensburg. Shippensburg had the look of Ultimate players, but they turned out to be no match for Habit. This game had a bit of everything as The Metz made a little noise on offense, John handled expertly, Classics took a fastbreak opportunity and turned it into nothing, Aaron soared through the air to make a fantastic diving shoulder-smashing grab, Alan broke his mark for the score again and again and again, Lemon let us see his speed on defense, Kyle tipped a disc, cramped up as he made a second effort, snagged the disc just before it hit the ground and took an injury. My favorite moment though had to be the Billy D. His man was making an in cut and looked to be open. The disc went up and Billy unraveled. Reaching his long arms out, he smacked the disc away. Niiice. I'm not sure why so many moments stand out in this game, as it was the same team effort that I saw all day. That's the thing to be most proud of- the way the team worked together, mixed things up on both offense and defense and found ways to win. Habit 11- Shippensburg 6. Go to the brackets.

-Dave

Shipp Stat Line

Feeling lazy today... well, maybe just in pain so I think I'm just going to give the basics here.

2nd place finish, 5-2 record with the only losses coming to TCNJ.

Pool Play:
11-8 win over Messiah
10-4 win over Georgetown
13-4 loss to TCNJ
11-6 win over Shippensburg

Bracket Play
12-6 win over PSU-Behrend (quarters)
15-5 win over UMBC (semis)
15-8 loss to TCNJ

I'll get around to giving the details later this week.

Wanted

5-10 guys who just quietly go about catching every disc, making smart throws, and hustling on every play.

No experience needed, just show up and get results.

The faster on your feet the better and a willingness to leave your feet on defense is definitely a plus. Deep throws are not important, just bring the throws you have and make them work for you.

If I don't notice you, you are probably doing your job just fine.

Shippensburg Fall Classic Preview....

Pool A
A1: Messiah (1)
A2: St. Mary’s (3)
A3: Shippensburg (6)
A4: Catholic (8)
A5: Ship Ultimate Still Are’s (9)

Pool B
B1: Georgetown (2)
B2: College of New Jersey (4)
B3: Rhode Island (5)
B4: Maryland-Baltimore County (7)
B5: Penn State Behrend (10)

I’m really interested in the format here. Not that it’s really out-of-the-ordinary, but pool play starts Friday night at 7:00pm and ends at 1:00am under the lights. Bracket play will start up at 10:00am Saturday morning. It’s actually a really nice break in the tourney schedule since we’ll actually get Sunday off this weekend. That will give us plenty of time to gear up for Haverween if our bid is accepted.

Messiah – D-III Nats contender, Regionals qualifier, and looks to be a team that can seriously psyche out our guys. Let’s look to come out intense in this game to prove to ourselves we can win.

St. Mary’s – They’ve beaten us something like 3-4 times at Sectionals in recent history but none of these wins have been overly impressive. If we show up, we can probably win this game. I know this team has a few solid players who have played club (mixed and open) this past summer. One handler and a cutter I know are for sure going to be threats in this game. Other than that I remember their team being a bunch of odd characters with questionable fitness and belly hair.

Shippensburg – I don’t really know this team so I can’t say a bunch about them.

Shipp Still Are’s – Sounds a lot like a Shipp alumni team… Depending on how recently this team has graduated, they could be tough, or they could just roll over for us.

It’s odd doing predictions for the team you play on, but I’m going to go ahead and predict. I think we’ll go 2-2 on the day with losses to Messiah and Shipp (home field advantage of course) and wins to St. Mary’s and Still Are’s. Prove me wrong, I’d love to go undefeated!

Skylander VII: Day Two

CHUMPionship bracket... There was almost a mix-up that put us against VA Tech to start the day, but I don't think RIT would've appreciated us playing that game for them.

Vs. Mercyhurst
I was well informed about the “abilities” of this Mercyhurst team before we came into this game. Jarnail mentioned something about their vertical stack remaining intact when playing against zone defense so I planned on exploiting that as best I could. They were obviously not going to be a match for us so I decided to sit this one out. Turns out I had another thing coming. A team that probably didn’t score more than 3 points a game all day Saturday, and had a goal of 4 points for our game was on top 4-1 before I could call time out to ream our line. So, time out was called, I brought the hammer down with various levels of profanity, and we pulled back into this game. It was never pretty, but we were able to mix in all of our rookies for a bunch of playing time so I guess there were a few benefits.

Highlight: Señor Banjo’s Nightclub Mark. Stills scoring 5 in the first half before I took him out of the game.
Lowlight: “Yo Catholic, was that what you call a Callahan?!?” Me: “Yeah, that’s a Callahan.” M-Hurst: “So, is that worth 2 points or is it still just 1?”
12-8 Bad Habit

Vs. George Mason
I always look forward to games against our Sectional rival. I’d say it’s even more exciting now that I know one of their captains. After “playing” all summer with Jarnail it seems like we have built a friendly little rivalry between Massacre and Bad Habit. They took us down handily 15-5 earlier this Fall at a round robin they hosted, but we were not to be denied today. After going down early 3-1 I felt like I should probably warm up and jump in the game. Jarnail strongly urged against it, but I felt like we should probably win this game if we were to win any today. We managed to pull a few points out and began to trade once we were tied up. There was a premature soft cap call when someone mistook the women’s air horn for one of ours, but we looked to be in control of the game at that point. We were up 7-5 after the cap and ran away with the last 2 points of the game to close it out. Again, a spirited and entertaining game.

Highlight: Probably Jim’s put to me in the endzone. That thing just floated out in front of me and away from my defender for an easy score. Well, that, or the time my pull went off Jarnail’s brother’s foot as he was trying to get out of the way. He stepped back disappointed, then tried to act like it didn’t hit him….Lol, woopsies! Or, was it Peter’s intense defense? I don’t know, but I think this was one of our best played games this weekend.
Lowlight: Some interesting marking which really killed our man defense. Luckily we were able to generate enough turns in zone to win.
9-5 Bad Habit

Vs. Slippery Rock
Not much to say here. Good offense capped with terrible decision making at the goal line. This is the way you play when you don’t think you can win games. You don’t trust in your dumps and swing the disc… Instead there is one player who thinks it is their turn to “step up,” and they end up taking points away from us. We can really learn from our lack of patience in this game.

Highlight: We played a decent game of Bear/Ninja/Cowboy for pull…
Lowlight: Ranjo’s huge block that just got mac’d back into the offensive player’s hands for the score. That about summed up the last game of the tourney.
15-3 Rock

Skylander VII: Day One

There were a few trends during Saturday’s play that I think I will mention now (this way I don’t have to reiterate this for every game). We began each game down by a score of 2-0 at least. This is not something I’m proud of, but I’m very glad we were able to fight through this in a few games. We received to begin most games and maybe that was the issue. I don’t want to start on defense, but if we can’t score off the bat, let’s at least give our defense a chance to generate a turn and hopefully give use a short field to start with.

Vs. Virginia Tech – B
This game turned out to be a great warm-up for us. I don’t think we came out too fired up for our first game so we were lucky to be playing a “b” team, but we warmed up quickly (after the 2 point deficit) and went on a 10-pts run to take half and more. We eased up a bit towards the end to get a few more players on the field and gave up some easy goals. I think this game should’ve been a warning to us about our issues with containing teams’ deep threats. There were several times when the disc was thrown out to wide-open receivers streaking deep, or we just couldn’t seem to get a good read on a poorly thrown disc and were outmatched in the sky. Our inability to read kept us from getting a few easy scores and even some easy turns in games down the road.

Highlight: 1-3-2-1 Zone defense worked well.
Lowlight: Marking in Man ‘d’ left us with a lot to be desired. Against a team with little to no throwers we should not be getting broken. Breaks were easy to come by for the throwers who knew to look for them.
13-5 Bad Habit

Vs. Slippery Rock
A very intense game. RPI considered this team to be very un-spirited, but I enjoyed the intense style of play that they brought to the table. I marked up on their best cutter (or so I believed him to be) for most of this game and I felt like I kept him under control. He did make a sick layout grab in the back of the endzone while dragging his feet, but if that’s how he has to score his points, then I’m totally fine with that. We started this game a little irritable as they spiked their first two scores after skying their defenders. At this point we called a “most creative spike” rule and proceeded to get our heads back in the game. After we dropped 3-4 on them with accompanying spikes we decided to call it “even” and reign in the sportsmanship. Half was 7-6 Habit with Rock getting the disc back and we went on to trade points until the cap was put on. Universe point at 12s was made more interesting than it needed to be when Brian threw a thumber across the stack (after looking me off for what looked like an easy score) and turned the disc over, we earned back the disc, had an uncharacteristic drop from one of our top players to give the disc back, earned an easy turn, and then I found Peter Walz in the front of the stack with a break-mark backhand to take the win.

Highlight: Staying poised on defense to earn the disc back and punch it in for the win.
Lowlight: There were a few hip-checks from one of the larger members of Rock’s team that might’ve led to the “un-spirited” comments…
13-12 Bad Habit

Vs. RIT
Not much to be said about this game. Drops, throw-aways, and lackluster defense led to a steamrolling of our morale. This was a game we all wish we could have back.

Highlight: It was over quickly….
Lowlight: We need to depend on our handlers to dump and swing the disc. Instead, it seems like we’re depending on a few players to carry us through tough games. That has to stop.
13-1 RIT

Vs. RPI
We came out with a bit more intensity in this game after playing a few mini games prior to the horn. I also played a significant amount of points in this game which might have led to a general growth in confidence across the board. I’m not sure what the reason, but it seems like the guys just play better when I’m on the field with them. I guess the argument could be made for keeping me on the field despite my injuries, and just surrendering a little bit of speed on defense. I’m not trying to be egotistical about this, it’s just hard to argue otherwise after seeing the way we played against a totally overmatched Mercyhurst on Sunday, and the same Slippery Rock team in the semis of the Chumpionship bracket. RPI was a tough team and they played with great patience and spirit. Definitely one of the top games of the weekend!

Highlight: Who has more chest hair for flip, winning rookie and vet pokey-poke, and a huge game of “Wah!” Great spirit by both sides! Oh, and my between-the-legs break throw to get through RPI’s trap zone. John O’Rourke giving Joe Miller a much needed score after Joe ran himself ragged as the rabbit.
Lowlight: I could not dial in my flick-huck to save my life… I dropped 4 or 5 of them onto the hill behind our field.
11-7 Trudge

MVP: Has to be Stills, he was open all day and accounted for at least half of our scores Saturday.
MCP (consistent): Peter Walz... he's a freshman, but he played hard-nosed defense and could be counted on to dump it when he needed to and make smart throws upfield.
Ironman: Jim McMahon played by far the most points of the day, and also during the tournament. He really fought through exhaustion to continue to focus and play at a high level all day.
MIP: Andy "Lemon" Gravunder, another freshman, just picked us up on defense multiple times and was open for easy in cuts all day. His speed is going to eat up a lot of unsuspecting handlers' throws this year. I'm definitely pumped to have him along.

Skylander VII: Day Zero

Pool F
F1: Rensselaer Polytech
F2: Catholic
F3: Slippery Rock
F4: RIT
F5: Virginia Tech-B

Predictions?

Let's see, I don't know any of these teams, but based on last year's record we've been placed in the bottom pool. I'm pretty sure we'd be below VTech-B if it wasn't for a slight mix-up with our team name (for some reason the dudes at Edinboro thought we were American U).

Overall I'd say we're in a VERY winable pool. Slippery Rock and VTech-B should be wins (although I wouldn't tell our guys that), adn RPI Trudge and RIT look to be in the mid-range of this tourney. If we focus on the fundamentals (catching and throwing the disc) and don't get too thrown off by the temperature we should be fine. It is supposed to be 45-55 degrees and raining Saturday morning.

I think we'll come out firing and looking to play hard up to our bye...last round bye! After that we can grab some lunch, warm up a bit, and find the hot tub.

An Old Write-up on Defense...

In Ultimate we have the unique experience of having captains who are not just the emotional leader on the field. These guys are looked to for coaching, coordinating, and competing at a level that is beyond that of their teammates. This view, I believe, is unfair to those that do lead.
I haven’t considered this until I was thinking about the slew of mistakes our captains have made on the field this summer. These are the guys who tell us what we’re doing wrong and set up our game plan, shouldn’t they also be effectively executing that same plan??? Yes, but are they not just another person on the field, just as susceptible to mistakes as everyone else?

My belief is that captains should be very aware of the fact that they are held to higher standards and they should concentrate on playing within themselves and making their teammates better. Too many times have I seen a captain trying to “make something happen,” rather than just taking the easy throws and trusting their teammates. I only hope that I can learn to stay within the limits of my own physical skill, trust my teammates, and lead with enthusiasm, respect for my teammates, and a love for the game.

Now, the strategy. Defense is something we’ve been lacking as of late, and here are three reasons why and some quick thoughts:

1. Positioning (Pertaining to man-to-man defense) - Prior to every point I believe you should have an idea of the most beneficial place for you to be in order to put a bid on a disc. Once you have this place in mind, constantly work to maintain that position. I personally like to be a shade behind perpendicular so I can see the disc and my defender, generally about 3-5 ft towards the force side. When my defender cuts breakside, I need to maintain this position and use the 3rd aspect of defense.
2. Communication - This is mainly for the sidelines. If you’re locked up in a tight battle with a cutter, you don’t want to sneak too many glances at the disc. Your sidelines are doing that for you and should be extremely vocal on up calls, switches, and break calls. I shouldn’t need to find the disc, the sideline should make me very aware of where it is…
3. Trust - The most important part of defense. When playing d, we are not trying to shut down the offense completely, we’re trying to take away half of their game. This “half” is called the “break-side” if you are a marker, and it is called the “force-side” if you are defending a cutter. When a cutter cuts to the break side, as a defender, we need to trust our markers. Too many times we chase the cutter, lose positioning, then get beat easily to the open side (force side) or worse. We need to trust that marker to take away the break throws. In turn, our markers need to trust our force-side defenders. Many times a marker will slide too far across the front of their mark and allow easy break throws in an attempt to point-block the mark. This benefits nobody. Trust is the only thing that truly does take away half of an offense's game plan.

There is always going to be an argument about getting broken. I believe it is impossible for a marker to stop every break throw, but they can take away most low break throws. If both hands are down, the only break throw given is a high, floaty break (it is also easier to swing your hand from low to high than from high to low). The high release break gives the defender a chance to cut off the swing pass, but a low break throw is faster and gives the offense more of a chance for easy break-side continuation. That should make you think twice before telling your rookies to keep the break-side hand high.

Josh Ritter 10/9/2007

Great show last night! Josh brought the audience through the gamut of his albums with a song from just about every one. I really like the stuff from his new album "The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter," but I can't help but fall back on favorites from "The Animal Years" and "Hello, Starling." A few highlights from the show:

Kathleen
Rumors - With the addition of a small orchestra
Monster Ballads - which I got a Sah-weeet video/audio recording of!
The Temptation of Adam
Harrisburg
Girl in the War
All Josh Ritter banter...
And pretty much every other song he played...

On a different note, I ran at practice Monday. I actually feel pretty good this week. My hip flexors had been a little sore to go along with my groin issues last week, but everything just sort of disappeared after I worked it out a bit at practice. I'm not saying I'm healed... it's not quite that miraculous, but I feel good. That's pretty rare, so I'm hoping this is something that stays with me for a while.... maybe there's hope yet.

Ultimate, You are the Northern Lights!

No Ultimate tonight, just music. Josh Ritter should be able to strip me of this anxiety I'm having about our first tourney of the season: Skylander VII on Saturday!

My last experience with John was ridiculous. I just sat in the crowd with a beer in my hand smiling for about an hour while he was playing his set. He's got an infectious energy that you can just feel in the crowd. He definitely loves what he's doing, and it's refreshing to see that.

I'm warming up my cheeks right now, I think I was a little sore in the face after smiling for so long last year...

Bonus: Megan and I have been working to find small holes in each others' schedules that allows for time together and this concert is the first full night in a few weeks. An hour or so here and there is great, but it's nice to know that neither of us will have any prior engagements looking over our shoulders tonight.

Forget vertical, let's go horizontal!

I'm using this blog to organize my thoughts about tomorrow. We're teaching the Ho-stack at practice and I want to make sure I touch on all the important aspects of this offense.

-Revolves around solid handler play. Downfield cutters will have to learn to defer to the handlers more often. Handlers must learn to trust each other and feed off of each others' strengths.
-Cutters have free reign within their lanes. It is necessary for each pair of cutters to use teamwork to split poachy defenders, but it's also important to remember that the full field should be put to use.
-Spacing is extremely important. Handlers must keep this separation as well as the cutters. We can't squeeze together, we're trying to spread out the defenders.
-Remember to drop to the vertical stack when we get close to the endzone.
-Mix in a few different defensive looks to try to throw off the 'o.'
-Quick disc movement is imperative.
-The offensive power position is in the middle of the field. The sidelines are more susceptible to a trap, so let's move the disc!
-More stuff I'll hopefully remember later...

I think our offense has a decent grasp of what we need to do with the vertical stack, but there is still some serious timing issues. I foresee this being a problem with the Ho as well, but since the offense is so wide open there is more room for handler cuts to keep the 'o' from stagnating.

This looks to be a good offense to isolate our cutters and give some of our handlers some room to run.

Stills, Arin, Kyle, Jake, Dan, John, this one's for you.

Spinsational

Or not.

I've been seeing a few too many spinning fakes lately, and it's been making my better players' hands sore!

A few reasons not to spin:
1. We know where you are going! You can't fool us by spinning in circles!!!!
2. You are losing site of your receiver and your mark.
3. My hand is sore from handblocking your highly-telegraphed throws.

Keep it in check, use a meaningful fake, find your receiver, make a throw.

Today we're getting down and dirty with our dump defense. Swings ought to be a little harder to come by for our offense.

Our First Miler

Ranjo - 6:32
Lemon - 6:03
Stills - 6:07
Jake - 5:46
Joe - 6:40
Jim - 6:43
Jimmy - 5:53
Frodo - 6:00
John - 6:08

Lemon, Jake, Jimmy, Frodo with negative splits...

I guess it's a good thing Metz didn't come, we're all under 6:45!

Three quick steps to make a better Ultimate Player

1. Throw
2. Throw
3. Throw

Oh....sorry, three steps starting now.

1. Never treat marking as a rest period. If your man throws, you better be ready to go.

2. Don't get lazy away from the disc. If your man runs deep or break side and isn't getting the disc, this is your chance to regain that optimal position on him!

3. Don't rely on your cutters. Rely on your handlers to be the glue in your offense. If in doubt, holster your throw and look to reset the disc, preferably by stall 5.

I just wanted to blog so I chose the number three as so many have done before me... I'll add more tips later, there is so much to think about on the practice field.

Emo Kid

I've just realized that most recent posts have just been pissed off or frustrated at anything involving Ultimate. I could attribute that to being hurt, but that gets old after a while...

I would be positive here, but the club team I "play" for, HOV, just embarrassed ourselves at Regionals. I have to say it is hard to stay positive when you're getting beat 15-4 by a team that you're 4-1 against on the season.

On the other hand... Woo-hoo! Club season is over and it is one less frustration for me! No, that didn't seem as exciting as I thought it would be...

I'm going to cut myself...lol.

Frustrated.

You know that time when you just couldn't find the right thing to say. I think I'm perpetually in this situation. I mean, percentage-wise, I'm doing fine. I'd say less than 5% of the time I'm not saying what I should be. Ain't it a bitch that this is the part that defines you?

Of course I can't be sure how much of this is fact. I mean, I sure do think that people are judging based solely on these 3 minutes, but I guess I could be wrong.

I feel like I'm on a roller coaster here. I feel like a coach, but I'm just the captain, and I feel like I have my teammates respect, but then I can't get them to listen during practice, much less focus during a full game. The best part was being called "unprofessional" because I got irritated when people were talking in the huddle... I'm not sure exactly where to go with that. I mean, I'm the captain of an Ultimate team. At a D-III university. We don't even play on a flat field. What part of this would require me to be "professional"? Not sure. Funny how sometimes they don't realize I'm still their teammate, and it's not about being "professional," it's about learning a skill to play a game. It's also about getting things explained in such a manner that allows us to use as much daylight as possible. Why waste time giggling and gossiping when we could just play the game?

I guess this could be an argument for why Ultimate teams should have coaches. You can't be a cohesive team as long as there is one voice that stands above the others. Caution: sarcasm doesn't translate so well in writing... I suppose there is chatter during the huddle because we are the best at what we do. I mean, why should you listen if you are at the top of your game? Why should you improve if you are the best?

All I know is things aren't always what they are peceived to be. I feel like people don't understand my motives. Everything I am striving to do should help us win. That is you and me. US. I don't intend on knowingly hindering our opportunity for success. I'm trying. I'll be damned if I stop. I'll continue to push forward hoping that we will rise as a team. As I've been elected to captain, I feel it is necessary to bring in as much outside knowledge as I can find. Invites to these sources will be sent out, we have voices of experience coming in to each practice. Broaddus, Los, Jared, Dave... They're not here to cheer, they're here because they have fallen in love with the same game I have, they have the same passion for sportsmanshio, competition, and comraderie, and they enjoy every opportunity to be an ambassador to this sport. Our sport. I hope we can take a moment to listen to what they have to say, I would have to bet it would be worth our time.

Trying to Understand...

Quick Note: Track workout last night.
Leaned towards quickness and agility training. We did the typical round of calisthenics, mixed in some sprints, plyometrics, and then finished off with a T-drill. Last variation of the T-drill mixed in a bear crawl, somersaults, and a crab walk. Turns out one of our guys could quite possibly be the bear crawl champion of the world. I've never seen 12 people bust into applause after seeing the quality of someone's bear crawl. It was impressive.

We're doing a drill in practice tomorrow that I think might help solve our lack of using the full field, so I wanted to touch on the movement of the disc...

Why don't players look to dish the disc off quickly?
-Lack of confidence in throws
-Lack of options
-Concentration on catching the disc narrows their window for delivery to the next receiver
-Lack of trust in their receiver
-A desire to advance the disc rather than dump it

Why should they dish it?
-Forces the defense to adjust to the location of the disc
-Allows them to get back upfield and make another cut
-To take advantage of defensive poaching in the early counts of the stall
-Give it to a better thrower who is already looking upfield

I can understand why we aren't moving the disc quickly and effectively. Here are a few things we don't do well:
-Clear back to the stack as a cutter.
-We break off our cuts too late.
-The stack gets too spread out (Vert. Stack) eliminating good deep looks.
-Sprint off the disc (we stand and watch it. Might be a trust issue.).
-Give swing options when the disc is dumped.
-We don't create space as a handler, we set up our dump cuts too close to the disc.
-We don't push up when the disc is moving (this kills our flow).
-Our handlers need to constantly work to be in line with the disc.

Bunch of things to think about. I'm sure there are more. Just thinking...

Players of Note

I figured I should post a little info about the guys who are making some serious noise at practice...

Stills - sophomore cutter/defensive beast. Stills has figured out how to put himself in the play on almost every throw. He's constantly been open recently and putting a lot of pressure on the offense. I'd say he gets clost to double-digit d's at every practice. Should I blame that on the offense? Not sure, but I do konw nobody else is getting those d's. All he needs now is more touch on his throws and a solid understanding of how to set up his cuts. He's open now, if he set up those cuts he would pick up 20 yd gainers consistently...

Lemon - Freshman defensive player. At this point he's still learning the game. 4th week I guess. His flick has come a long way, and I already see improvement in his backhand. He's another big defensive stopper. So big that I had to separate him and Stills so one offense could at least have an option. Lots of speed. If only he was a little taller, but I think he can learn to jump a bit.

John, Dan, Sonic, Jake - Handles in training. Decision-making is not 100% yet, but I think they can be serious threats once they reign a few throws in and gain some confidence. Breaks have been coming a little easier this year, so it's time to shore up the defense. Let's buckle down and see what these guys can do.

Arin, Billy, John - Our big men. Arin is the class of this group with his defensive prowess and knowledge of the game. It's not complete, but it's getting there. Billy and John have been coming along recently and will be huge assets to our team once they get a few tournaments under their belts. I'm excited about these guys, let's keep working hard!!!

We're constantly moving forward, I'm sure more names will emerge.

Peace Day

Peace Day turned into Saturday, but at least I started right? Limited workout due to the condition of my core, but I think I pushed pretty hard for my first session back. Bench, Single-arm rows, Military press, lateral raises, curls, and skull crushers. Feeling a pretty solid amount of soreness today...

I guess the rotation will be lifting on Sunday, body weight stuff at the track Tuesday night, and lifting on Thursday. I'll be eating a little better, and I'm considering adding some biking when I get around to it. Maybe Wednesday nights when I don't work.

First women's practice was yesterday. 10 attended. A good start considering we had 3 all of last year. Maybe there is hope for this. They want to call themselves the Catholic School Girls...

Bad Habits Die Hard

I am a habitual bad eater. I pretty much eat what I feel like eating and nothing else. Problem is, I always feel like eating, and it's chocolate-chocolate chip that I'm working on right now.

After going on a hard workout regime for the first 3-4 months of this year, I did something stupid to my groin/abs/flexors and now my core isn't working right. So I did what any stupid 24-year-old would do and played on it. Now I'm still hurt and finally deciding I should rest. This summer however, I stopped working out and stuffed my face with all manner of pizza, chicken wings, soda, candy bars, cookies, and beer.

This trend continues. This morning I finished off the other half of my honey barbeque wings from last night, washed it down with a Coca-Cola Classic, and went to grab these c-chocolate chip cookies that I'm eating now.

This is no New Year's resolution, it's a Sept. 21st resolution, a Peace Day resolution as a matter-of-fact. The resolution is this: No cookies, soda, candy, or sugar unless I workout on that day. No cookies, soda, candy, or sugar on practice or track workout days. I'm not running the workouts, but my teammates are expecting me to be there for them when I get healthy. Operation: Peace Day... It's on.

Put me in Coach

Breathe.

That's what I'm telling myself as 7 turns happen in succession. Why can't we just dump the disc and swing it? Why do we force it down the sideline into our defenders? Questions I can't answer obviously. But, I'll be damned if I'm just going to let it happen.

There were two points at practice today that irked me. Endzone drill and the 3rd or 4th point of the game. Practice was amazing Monday! It was intense, lightbulbs were going off in peoples' heads, great decisions were made! Today, not so much. Bad throws, decisions, defense, and use of space had me fighting to contain myself.

Dave related this to child rearing... I'm not sure that's too far off.

Things will get better. We will be the team I envision, it's just going to take a little polish.

Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, and ooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuut......

...

Had a job tonight... Got home at 11:30pm. That's early! I'm still awake. It's 2am!

My body should hate me. Actually, I bet it already does. Go to bed, jerk.

Club Sectionals

What a long weekend! I bought a camera Friday night to cash in on the long weekends of Ultimate ahead, and although it may have been a bit expensive, I was extremely happy with the results. That being said, I probably should post some pictures... we'll see what happens.

First off, HOV started the weekend exactly the way we wanted. 4-0. defeating AC/DC, Stall 12, Virginia Tech, and Baltimore Grand Masters. Of course, the big competition was waiting for us in Day 2, but it's nice to get that first one out of the way with a goose egg in the loss column.

Day 2. I found out late last night that the boys from Catholic U pulled off a few "upsets" to go 3-1 on the day. After coming in seeded 21st, we played like we had nothing to lose and dropped some of the teams we'll be seeing later in the year. Today they played a vicious UVA team and dropped a close one to American University's Stall 11. HOV on the other hand, made quick work of Med Men 15-11 to advance to the finals against Truck Stop.

Truck Stop has cruised through this weekend, and even had a stretch of 28-30 points where they were not scored on! Impressive even for an elite-level club team. We came out fired up and took the first 2 points of the game to show them we came to play. After the first few, we traded early until Truck Stop woke up. After sleep-walking through Day 1, we got a glimpse of the talent level they carry on their roster. Crisp cutting, accurate throws, and just excellent overall team speed carried them past us and took the half 8-5. We managed to pull another point out in the second half, but we just couldn't keep up with Truck Stop's efficiency and dropped this one 15-6. Now, rather than just earning 2nd here, we had to play one more game for 2nd and 3rd against Med Men.

Now I'm not all that upset over this game, mainly because I wasn't playing, but Med Men just had more left than us, and took this one 15-12. Remember, this is their first win of the summer against us. It's likely we'll see them again.

Lion Tamer

I spent 5 straight months working my ass off last Fall/Spring to prepare myself for Ultimate. There was no other motivation... I didn't need to lose weight, I was in decent shape, and I don't think I've every really had too many issues with self-esteem.

Anyway, every day I walked to work I felt like a lion. Like there was some beast inside me just waiting to be released. But, I guess things change.

4 months now I haven't lifted a weight in ernest, ran 100%, or even played a single point of Ultimate I thought I could be proud of. Some abdominal pain mixed with a tight groin and a hip flexor issue can do wonders to your mental state. Not to mention your lifestyle.

I've heard a bunch of people talking about this PTD, Post-Tournament Depression, as some kind of physical let down after 2 full days of Ultimate, but I think I have the reverse of this: Pre-Tournament Depression. On the eve of Sectionals I'm thinking about facing off against the top team in D.C. carrying a camera and a cold Shiner Bock. I mean, the sport is fun to watch and all, but jesus I'm so much better at playing!

-insert expletive here-!!!!!!!!!!

Where can you find info on all things Spaceballs? Wikipedia, of course.

Turns out there's a sub-light speed, light speed, ridiculous speed, and ludicrous speed. Maybe we're moving at sub-light speed now that I think about it.

I think a tournament can change that... now if only something would come of these bids we put in.

Rising...

I think track workouts must've been the last thing on everyone's minds last year.

This year? Not so much. Two "official" and one unofficial workouts down. I thought since the attendance has been so good I should probably make note of the progress. By progress I mean how the workout is progressing... We have such a wide array of body types/fitness levels on the team that it's hard to cover it all.

The warm-up for each workout is always an 800 and mixed calisthenics.

Unofficial workout: August 28th, 5 runners, 4x200m
Official workout #1: Sept. 4, 18 runners, 400m, 200m, 100m, 200m, 400m for time.
Official workout #2: Sept. 11, 15 runners, Plyos, 2-mile Indian Run, second group chose 4x400m for time.

I feel like the team has this bad habit coming on... we're going to be way too sexy for our shirts.

Shhh... I'm working!

No seriously... working harder than usual. No more of this Ultimate contemplation without application. We're applying things left and right.

As far as I can tell we're moving forward at light speed. I'd prefer the ludicrous type, but we'll see if we can't go to plaid in the Spring. It's a step-by-step process and I'm pretty sure we'd be missing steps if we didn't hit that one in the middle. I think that's what the track workouts are for.

I really need to see Spaceballs again. Any takers?

Oh, you thought I was talking about "work" work....