UNC Best of The Rest Ultimate Tournament
Mar 25&26

Tournament report

Contributions by David Hall

Straight to invididual highlights


It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Always wanted to start an article that way...

The players: Alan Dewel, Shane Greene, Dave Hall, Alan Hoyle, Mika Kondo, Emily Larson, Dave Luebke, Bill Mark, Mark Parris, Scott Randolph, Santosh Rao, Richard Ray, Chris Rodning. Also present were Jay Barry, Andrew Certain, Carter Dougherty, Dan Schwankl, and Tyme picking up with other teams to fill out the field. Thanks! (who did I forget?)

Well, on Saturday we were hoping to have a four team pool at UNC by creating a fourth team of pick-up players. Unfortunately, Huckzilla needed everyone it could get so we only had three teams. So, Huckzilla started out playing Harvard while Darkside waited on the sidelines. Having the bye was a double-edged sword since Dan Axon showed up to play for Huckzilla in their second game (against us). However, having a late game meant we were able to take full advantage of Alan H., Santosh Rao, and Scott Randolph who weren't available early.

After Harvard beat Huckzilla we stepped forward to face Huckzilla. Darkside started off strong. Joe Wolhar complemented us on our flow as we were usually getting well timed cuts that allowed us to catch, turn, and throw before the defense was able to mark-up. Homeys were a big part of this but we seemed to be effective running a more traditional offense as well. And when Huckzilla decided to throw a deep pull and slap a zone on us we reacted wonderfully. As I walked the disc up I simply raised 2 fingers and watched folks move into their positions for our 2-3-2 offense. A bit of patience and our 2 handlers would get the disc around the cup and one of their wings would find themselves facing a 2 on 1 situation. I specifically recall a nice give and go between Emily and Chris. Huckzilla tried the zone a few times but quickly gave up. Having Santosh (I want my shirt back!!) out there was great. He gave us a lot of nice scoring cuts as well as flow. Our offense was playing great and our defense wasn't bad (though it wasn't great either). Alan Dewel was great on defense, streaking in take discs out of the hands of receivers. The final score was 17-13.

We were on a roll and Harvard was slow getting started after their bye. Darkside was throwing nice passes, making sweet cuts, good catches, and (suprise!) playing good defense! Chris Rodning, pumped up to be facing his old teammates, took responibility for covering the heart of Harvard's offense, Darryl. He made Darryl work for every catch and didn't let him get off any free throws. Chris literally ran himself into the ground covering Darryl. By the end of the game Chris was forced to sideline himself as his legs were cramping up. Chris was back in his old form, laying out repeatedly on D, fighting the defense for catches which I thought were certain turn overs. I believe it was his play which was our catalyst for Saturday.

Other folks also played big in the Harvard game as well. Scott Randolph was constantly knocking the disc down, making sure that floaters and other swill weren't recovered by Harvard. Richard and Dave Hall were running the length of the field, catching our hucks and knocking down Harvard's.

Having the first bye also meant we had gotten a chance to watch the Harvard team and figure out a few of their plays and what they liked to do and devise defenses, etc. Normally this would just mean that we would be very confused when we tried to do these things but not this day. We noticed the usually looked to break force on their endzone plays. So, whenever they ran an endzone play we set up a poach. This worked great as they were seldom able to execute any of their plays successfully. On the other side of things, we were able to execute endzone plays successfully and when they did break down, we reset and attacked the endzone again. By half-time the score was 9-3.

Our challenge was to maintain our intensity for the second half. The second half wasn't as overpowering as the first half but we still matched Harvard point for point. At 16-11 a quick sequence included Mark floating a forehand in front of Dave Luebke who ran it down beautifully and quickly hit Shane with a long forehand just short of the endzone. Shane didn't see anyone open so he used one of our time-outs. We set up a play but when Harvard put on their first zone of the day Shane decided to use our second time-out. So, we reviewed our man-to-man play but set up the deathstar, our zone busting end-zone play. Harvard came with the zone again, but a quick dump to Mark, a swing to Dave, and an area pass to Shane who had sprinted across the front of the endzone ended the game 17-11.

Saturday night some of us went out for dinner and watched the UNC game. We were thrilled with our play on Saturday and we started counting our chickens. Unfortunately, they weren't hatched. We went up town after the game and the Harvard guys were pretty impressed with what a party we throw just because the ultimate team beats Harvard. :-)

Sunday morning everyone was talking about how much they hurt and saving themselves for the second game. Despite a rousing speech about winning this game first, no one (including ME) seemed to be playing as well as Saturday. We seemed a step slower and our hands just weren't there. Guilford launched a huck immediately for a score and began hammering us. They were jumping higher, running faster, and catching better than us. They played well and we were flat. The final score was 15-8. After that Dave Hall quickly corrected some unnecessarily negative attitudes and things began to look better.

We didn't really play any better in our next game but at least we felt better about ourselves and each other. If we had followed a tournament format we would have played Harvard again with Guilford playing Duke but that would have been rematches of Saturday so we agreed to finish things out as a pool play with us against Duke and Guilford playing Harvard. We were happy with this since we have been beating Duke consistently, but this time Duke was up and we weren't and they rolled as well, beating us 17-8.

I don't want it to sound like Sunday was a complete disappointment. There were some spectacular things going on. Emily made a wonderful cut after a turnover to receive an inside out forehand for a score. Richard made a wonderful underneath cut to catch a huck despite being covered by 2 defenders. Dave Hall made a wonderful cut down the line to receive a forehand for a score from Alan.

AND, while Duke did win the plaque for the best college team, UNC won the SOTG award.

Did Dave Hall mention him running his butt off all weekend and making sure the other teams had no deep threats? As always, his spirit wouldn't falter and he made sure ours didn't either. You need to come back more often Dave!


Individual highlights

Dave Hall wanted to contribute...

hey all you crazy ultimate folks! just writing to talk about the most recent darkside tournaments. sounds like fool was a bunch of fun. what an outstanding goal count! i feel humbled as part of last years 15 goal 0-6 team. :). i can't wait to hear the individual highlights.

i just want to say that had an outstanding time at the best of the rest tournament in chapel hill. in fact i am sitting here in utah being incredibly homesick for living in chapel hill and playing ultimate with all of you. i think that the team put up a great effort, especially considering our short roster. i've been waiting for some highlights, so i guess i'll take a stab at coming up with some om my own. (be forewarned that these are dulled by a week of no sleep and stress as debate nationals in georgia- if i leave anyone out, its cause my brain is fried)

Alan
played a full weekend on some of the most fucked up feet i have ever seen. did tons of handling. threw a bunch of great hucks. especially in the duke game, when that new dude kept covering him all the time, he kept him moving and still made tons of great throws. one of the most memorable standouts was when he made a huge deep cut with the duke dude on him, only to double back for a blazing handler cut. the yell of "FUCK!!!" by the duke guy was priceless.
Mark
another fine handling job at this tournament. threw some great hucks and was extremely active running the homey. most importantly, he provided outstanding leadership for the team, calling many plays and keeping some order to our madness (sorry for snapping at you after the guilford game)
Dave L.
Dave is one of the most fluid players i've watched play. a lot of tenacious handler play. he was an awesome part of the homey. making a bunch of hard cuts to get us out of some tight situations. he also made some incredible short throws, reaching around defenders to make great homey-type throws. he was also the integral part of our deep defense. in the game against guilford, he took over covering their tall guy when they started going up high against me and my jump just wasn't quite on. he made some awesome skys for the d on long hucks to the endzone. killian said he is a dancer and he just doesn't know it. an amazingly graceful player
Chris R.
the most gutsy, endurance performance i've seen. Chris, despite serious leg traumas was all over the field. as part of the homey, he made tons of great short handler cuts to keep things going, cutting especially hard to save high stall counts when things looked bad. his defence against darryl in the harvard game was FUCKIN AWESOME!!!! i aspire to be able to mark somebody that well some day. he was all over him. i think that was a huge factor in our win against them.
Mika
played the cup well, moving all over the place to keep up with the disc. also made a bunch of great middle cuts, taking advantage of opposing guys that didn't know how good she is.
Emily
also hung in the cup hard- especially important on sunday when we were shorthanded. the cup allowed a bunch of us to rest up. great middle cuts and at least one score. i also remember a great long cut that was inches away from a great score. i was too busy watching excitedly to take a picture of that (sorry!)
Richard
we alternated making a bunch of deep cuts. that was fun as hell. i remember a bunch of lightning fast cuts for scores off hucks including one where he was covered by THREE guys. he made it a lot easier for me to look good because he drew so much defence.
Shane
as always i can't remember a bunch of specific plays because he isn't a "flashy" player. he's just the most consistent player i've played with. i don't remember any major mistakes at all. he caught virtually everything near him and made a bunch of good throws. he is the ideal team player; invisible, but always there for the throw or catch. seems to me he scored a boatload of points on short throws to the endzone.
Bill Mark
provided a good set of legs for some key games. made a bunch of good cuts and played hard d. i particularly remember the duke game where his tenacious defence severly minimized the impact of jeff bacote (sp?) for duke..
Alan Dewell
fast as hell. geez, makes me feel slow by comparison. made some awesome deep cuts for scores. played some awesome d as well.
Santosh Rao
played a great middle. kept the disc moving well in the middle of the field. played some tight defence as well. play more with darkside!

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