For the second year in a row the old and slightly older joined forces to take on all comers at MARS under the moniker of "Cold Cocked". MARS is a huge 3-day co-ed Ultimate tournament complete with camping, 2 parties (karaoke and an a cappella concert), 44 teams, 18 fields, and a portion of your tourney fee is generally sent towards sponsoring a keg (last year there were 40 consumed!) for one of the two parties. We had a balanced team of 8 women and 11 men; all with chips on their shoulders after a 1-6 showing in last years tournament.
Thursday started typically; I know I wasn't alone when I mentally began the weekend about 24 hours too early, but I just couldn't wait to get out of work and get on the road towards Pittsburgh. I finally bolted from my desk around 1pm and worked to get organized so we could head up. Megan and I took our time getting out, not for any good reason (I think it's just my nature to be late/slow/unconcerned), and got hung up in traffic a bit, but we arrived to the fields by 9:30 and worked on setting up our monstrosity of a tent. We thought we had prime camping grounds when we set up near the pavilion and showcase fields, but we were quick to learn otherwise. We did however find a pair of unprepared campers to take up space in the palace with us.
Around 1am Friday morning we began to realize our mistake as the neighbors continued partying and the decibel level rose steadily until 3am before finally dying around 4:30 or so. An early morning was not expected, but after trying unsuccessfully to sleep through golf cart shenanigans we were welcomed with a beautiful view of the fog lifting off the mountains surrounding the fields in Irwin, PA.
Our fellow members of Cold Cocked drifted in around the 10am start time and we prepared to face our first competitor, Axis (of C'Ville). We managed to hold on through half with some solid defense and good disc movement on offense, but this experienced mixed club team proved to be too much and went on a late run that put a comeback out of reach. Axis went on to lose to the eventual champions in the "A" bracket semis on Sunday! There were a few clutch throws by Billy, Evie had a beautiful layout in the back of the endzone that was called back due to indecision about her being inbounds, and I made myself available deep for 2 scores from Billy and Bill in the game. We lost this one 15-9.
Our second game pitted us against a former member of Cold Cocked who was playing for Super Fast Sexy Pants this year. They dressed well; in polos and plaid shorts, but our game seemed more polished. Quick strikes deep from Elliot to myself, beautiful swings by John-O, unrelenting cutting and a stellar layout grab by Broaddus, Ian's "look what I found" hammer grab for a score, and constant defensive pressure we come to expect from Scrap kept our lead safe as we coasted to a 15-11 (?) finish.
We were still missing Nichols at this point, and what better time to show up then during our bye? As we broke into our first rounds of beer we reminisced briefly on the follies of last year's tournament (the highlight of which was John O's huge "old-man" backhand that was promptly foot-blocked by the mark) and were excited again with the promise of a full 3 days of layout D's, Schtick, Canadian's, full-field flicks, shotguns, Patron, and camaraderie that would bring us to smile months removed from this little oasis in Pennsylvania. As our next round approached we eased back on the heckling, Schtick, and alcohol consumption to focus on The Pop 'n' Loch Ness Monster.
As we looked over at the large mass of young collegiate-aged players gathering to take the field against us, we probably all snickered a bit at how easy this game was going to be. Like taking candy from a baby, probably. Little did we know the 3-0 lead we were about to jump out to was not leading towards an end that we expected. Our three point lead turned to 2, then 1, and suddenly we were down 3 points surveying our teammates to find the problem, a solution, someone to pick us up and put us back on top of this game... Billy answered huge during halftime. I can't remember exactly, but I believe we were down 8-4 (or 5) by half. "Settle down, I don't see us losing this game, draw that line in the sand let's move forward and not look back; let's win this half." (That's paraphrased of course...and is missing that Canadian accent that makes it all the more persuasive) We didn't look back, well at least not after Pop 'n' Loch had made it 12-6. We may have considered briefly that we had waited a bit too long to begin our comeback, but we were playing for pride at this point and 15-6 was not the way to end this game. It was our turn to baffle, to surprise, and to amaze ourselves as we slowly pulled back in at 12-12. Clutch defense by Sandra, Harkins and Broaddus broke their men down with their cuts, Bri stuck tight and put the pressure on with her layout bid on d, and Billy found Claudia deep for an easy score as we swapped roles with the Pop 'n' Loch and found our first lead of the half at 14-13. Not a team to let these opportunities slip, we quickly picked up a 'd' and walked the disc in for the score. I have to be honest, the last 2-3 points of this game were a bit of blur, so I can't quite remember who it was that found the disc in their hand for the game winner, but I do remember rushing the field and being pretty excited about starting out 2-1 after last year's edition of MARS.
Next days to come soon... I just finished putting the numbers together for a Budgeting and Metrics project due tomorrow, so I was ready to get back to Ultimate. Every time I write about Ultimate I find myself wanting to mention every little defensive bid, routine swing, break throw, sliding grab, or sky, but sometimes it's just too much to put on paper. Just know I remember all of them, and I'm excited right along with all of Cold Cocked to have been a part of last weekend! I'll try to be sure everyone gets a nod here once I get to the next two days of the tourney....
Quote of the tourney for me (About taking pictures of Ultimate...): "Well there's zero-sum coolness in the world, so if you want to get more you've got to take it from somebody else."
-Elliott Turley
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