Mission to M-A-R-S: Lunar Orbit

Friday was a monumental day for Cold Cocked. My first MARS resulted in a 1-6 record; 0-4 of which was the part that I showed up for. We found our only win in the first game on Friday, so 2-1 was a huge swing for us.

Our first Saturday opponent turned out to be D.C.-based She's Inflatable.

Fun Fact: I actually contacted Inflatable's captain early on this Summer to see if they had any open spots for MARS. It's not that I didn't want to play Cold Cocked; it's that I didn't think there was a Cold Cocked this year... Needless to say, Megan and I were turned down due to an "excess" of men. When I received the invite from Evie I was pumped to get a shot at redemption with CC, and was actually glad I wasn't able to suit up for Inflatables.

Even more Fun Fact: Inflatable's captains contacted Megan and I about a week before MARS to offer us roster spots. Whoopsies!

Anyway, back to the game... We were pretty well acquainted with most of the players on this team: a mix of BRDM, WireTap, Eastern Motors, and a few random out-of-state pick-ups, and we were (I was) hell-bent on crushing this team. I should mention that "hell-bent" doesn't necessarily mean I'd be getting excited to play defense, but I would do my best should the opportunity present itself. For the most part this game was back and forth, but Inflatables went on a bit of a run before half and were sitting at 7-6 looking to take half after a 4-point run. I actually did play defense this point (after we turned over the disc...), and managed a 'd' on an ill-advised throw to a horizontal cut that led to a 7-7 game. We picked up another 'd' and punched it in to stop the bleeding and take half at 8-7. At some point after half I watched the longest-ever point in Ultimate. For a number of reasons (drops, swill, aggressive offensive puts, defense) neither team could get it done on 'o' and after a long timeout Inflatables was able to put the disc in the endzone. Generally this is a big victory for a team, but we had plenty of fresh legs salivating on the sidelines ready to punish the fresh Inflatable 'd'. It wasn't as hard as we expected... Their defense came down with a double-team on me and left Broaddus (who had already done his fair share of punishing this game) wide open jogging deep. A floaty pass around the tag teaming Rez and Cole put Matt just out of the endzone and he finished to another streaking receiver for an easy score. We ran away with the game a little here. Some other highlights: Megan's sky 'd's on Inflatables monster-woman, Bill looking like he could sky a tree, Sandra and Becky's tight person-to-person defense, Harkins slowing down Los, and Billy calmly working the breaks on offense. (at this point I probably don't need to mention Broaddus anymore... just assume that he did ridiculous things.)

I'm at work, so I'll have to add to this later...