Tournament report
Straight to invididual highlights
Everything seems like a blur now. There was so much ultimate that it's hard to remember what happened when. This is also probably the most "me" centered report I've written but that's what I remember. Sorry. Hopefully, I haven't gotten too much wrong...
The players: Jay Barry, Stephen Brooks, Shane Greene, Geoff Haisty, Mika Kondo, Emily Larson, Dave Luebke, Mark Parris, Richard Ray, Christian Schwoerke, Karl Smith, Tyme (all of those were both days), Ron Murphy (part of Sat and all of Sun), Tim "Tiger" King, Steve Molnar (Sat), John Eyles, Tom Evans (part of Sat.), Bill Welsh (part of both days), George from UVA (last game Sun), Pat Smith (last 3 games Sun. - hmmm), Alan Hoyle (last 2 games Sunday) - I'm sure I forgot somebody...
Cheering us on: Scott Randolph, Chris Rodning, and Kevin Young.
The tournament began well as all of the Darksiders provided excellent assistance setting things up and getting everything going and we were actually able to start only 20 minutes behind schedule (pretty good for ultimate time, I think).
Our first game of the day pitted UNC against RPI. RPI had driven all night to get to the tournament. Having Ron for the game (he had to leave after that) was a big plus and we were able to start strong as the RPI folks had trouble getting things going in the windy conditions and we hucked it often to ensure that we wouldn't turn it over by our endzone. Final score - UNC 13, RPI 6 with Mark Parris hitting Dave Luebke on an isolation play.
Our second game pitted us against Princeton. If only I had rearranged the schedule to play them first as one Darksider suggested. But I didn't and so we didn't have Ron. (Believe me, it made a difference, see the end of this tale.) Darkside's offense wasn't working particularly well. Steve Molnar was making some nice long throws but their defenders were good and we just had some drops and bad play just outside the endzone. Our man to man wasn't working and they were very effective against our zone. The end result was pretty ugly with Princeton winning it 13-3.
The third round was our bye so we got to watch some of the other games and have a snack while Jay warned us of the dangers of getting logy if we ate too much. It was about this time that I realized, much to my surprise, I had played the first two games without my knee brace and my knee didn't hurt. Between that and the fantastic weather I figured I couldn't lose.
In the third game of the day, we faced the Intermountain Empire, the combo team of UNCA and App St. plus some Zen folks. We picked up Tom Evans at this point (I think?) and we benefitted from both his excellent play on the field and his tips on some smart cuts to make, etc. John Eyles threw a lovely flick about half the length the field that arced in just over the heads of the defenders to a waiting (?) for a score. We managed to pull out the win 13-8 with Mark Parris hitting Jay Barry for the game winner.
So we were looking at UVa in our final game of the day. They had arrived late (after their first round bye) and forfeited their second round game to Empire. If we beat UVa we were going to have outright second place in our pool. UVa only had 8 folks and played a fair amount of zone on us. We were neck and neck through the first half with both teams playing well. One highlight had to be Dave Luebke getting the point blank block on a massive huck from one of the UVa guys. Dave summed it up well when he said, "I think he was counting on me being afraid of getting hurt." The game progressed to a tie at 6 all. UVa had been running the homey a lot and Tom Evans was looking to poach to help out the other 3 defenders in the homey. The open UVa player made an underneath cut and I called out Tom's name. The throw was already on its way and Tom stepped in for the easy interception. We took the half and looked to come out strong in the second half to try to put their exhausted squad away. We did come out strong and had a lead at 10-8. It looked like their squad was ready to fold. But they dug deep and we didn't close things out. A series of miscues led to quick scores for them and we were looking at 11-10, them. They came with the zone and we worked it very well, taking 15-20 yard gains interspersed by a lot of swinging, ending in UNC tying the score at 11 all. UVa. scored again and they were at game point. Once again they came with the zone. This time Mark tried to force a pass to a well-covered Dave Luebke and UVA had the disc about 20 yards from their endzone. After gaining a few yards they called a time out with the disc in the corner. We trapped, but despite Shane sacrificing quite a bit of skin, they managed to connect on the pass for a score. What a frustrating loss.
This left us tied with Empire and UVA at 2-2. Since Empire won their game against UVa by forfeit it went down as a 13-0 win, thus Empire got 2nd place on points with UNC 3rd and UVA 4th. That meant we'd be facing Clemson, ranked #2 in the nation (not that it means anything when the likes of UNC-W, ECU, Stanford, Carleton, NCSU, haven't even played enough games to be ranked yet - no offense to Clemson, they're a good team - just making a point about the rankings).
One funny point of the morning was around 9:30 when there were around 10 folks at the fields. We saw a campus police car park over by the gym and the officer got out and started heading across the fields. I started looking for our field reservation permit but when he got over to where we were he simply asked if this was the ultimate frisbee tournament and when I said yes, asked if anyone from the Rochester team was there. "Geez, what have these guys done?" was all I could think but when I pointed him to the two folks who were there he told them one of their players needed to call her mother because she had forgotten to call home when she arrived. So, don't forget to call home in the future or the cops may come looking for you.
Anyway, we got things started and faced Clemson. I was kind of worried when they arrived early and streched out, ran a couple warm up laps as a team and then ran drills but I figured we were going to have Ronald so it was probably even. Unfortunately, Ronald didn't show up until a little after half-time. However Shane started us off well, receiving two early hucks. But that was all we got and we were down 7-2(?) at the half. But we traded points in the second half and brought the score to 9-4. We had rallied for this much before, notably against Vassar at Ultimax last year. And we did rally. Richard went up in a crowd and pulled down the kind of ugly, floating huck that only I can throw. (That's why Richard is quickly becoming my favorite receiver.) We put together a couple more scores and think we were as close as 11-8 before Clemson sent us into the loser's bracket 13-8.
But the day wasn't over and once we had played well at the end of the Clemson game. We walked over to the table and I pointed out where we wanted to be at the end of the day, the champion of the consolation bracket.
Because RPI had left Saturday night, one of the teams that had lost in the first round (UVA, Empire, UNC) was going to have a bye in the first round of the loser's bracket. It was supposed to be Empire but they and UVA wanted to play each other since UVa had forfeited yesterday and we had already faced each other. We agreed to switch things around so UNC watched the William & Mary vs. Huckzilla game to see who we would face. Huckzilla (aka King Rat - they picked up quite a few Rats to fill out their squad) had looked like the team to beat on Sat. as the won every game by at least 5. But Sunday they were without Mark Kessler, Steve Frame, and Tom Donaldson. William & Mary came out hot - having warmed up in their first round victory over UVA - and put Huckzilla away handily, 13-6. I can't say enough about how much better this team was than last fall. Meanwhile, Duke, with help from John Brady, Wren Westcoat, and a quickly-recovered Jeff Bacote(?) was upsetting the other 4-0 team from Sat, Princeton. After trailing 7-2 in the first half, Princeton rallied to tie the game at 9's before losing 13-9.
So Darkside found itself facing the local club team in the consolation bracket. I'm sure the odds on this game coming into Sunday would have been comparable to the Chargers against the 49ers but Huckzilla was struggling and their players were turning on one another a bit and Darkside was hitting its stride. Huckzilla managed to get a 4-2 lead but they were having to work hard for it and then Darkside rallied to tie the game at 4's. It was about this time that Pat Smith, from my winter league team, walked up wearing sandals. "Do you have cleats with you?", I asked. "In my car." "Get 'em". Pat scored two of our next 3 points as we took the half. In the second half we continued to match up intelligently whenever we were on defense, putting our best defenders on the field, and trying to force them out of their offense (particularly a lot of give and go's between Eric Gujardo, Steve Adams, and Craig Murray). On offense we mixed things up, looking for the huck, running homey's with different mixes of handlers, as well as just flowing. Bill Welsh's excellent throws and intense defense from Richard and Geoff were definite keys. However, we still found ourselves down 12-10 in this game to 13, cap at 15. But Darkside didn't give up. We rallied to tie the score at 12's. The teams traded points and we were tied at 13. Our defensive unit did their jobs and put us ahead 14-13. One more time our defense rose to the occassion and got the turnover. We worked it down the field and Jay Barry layed out between two Huckzilla defenders for the catch, the score, and the game. There's been some debate over who threw that pass. Folks said they thought I threw it but I'm pretty certain I remeber watching from the sidelines as I was not in since it was a defensive point. Would anyone like to claim the honor? I believe it was most intense, most intelligent, and all around best game we've ever played or that I've been a part of. I think Emily and Mika helped us out in this game as their defense on Nara and Brigette kept them pretty much out of the game and Mika and Emily were able to get open quite a bit to give us nice safety valves (though they weren't used nearly as much as they should have been!) Christian was just so consistently good throughout the tournament that I don't think any one game really was that different from the others but maybe in this game against his teammates he pushed just a bit harder. He just made great cuts, catches, and wonderful throws and played hard defense without any lapses throughout the tournament.
After that game we were supposed to play Rochester but Duke (who had just lost to Clemson in the winner's bracket) was supposed to be playing Princeton (who had UVA had forfeited to since they wanted to go home) for the second time on Sunday. So, Princeton wanted to play Rochester and Duke wanted to play us. I wanted us to play Rochester as did they. So we agreed to play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see what we'd do. I knew I was in trouble when everyone on Princeton turned and yelled for one particular guy to come play me. I tied him twice but then he beat me. I went back to tell UNC we were playing Duke with THOR from Buffchester running behind me pretending to kick my butt.
Duke had picked up Wren Westcoat and John Brady in addition to Duke regular Jeff Bacote and others. We made a point of putting our best defenders on those three and trying to pull Wren and Jeff in whenever we wanted to go long. We were behind by 1 or 2 at the half but felt good and were confident we would rally in the second half. We continued to mix things up on offense and played solid defense and found the score knotted yet again at 11. Darkside turned it on again and scored two straight to take the game 13-11. Highlights of this game (I actually have some recollection of this one) included an excellent deep cut and catch by Stephen Brooks as his defender realized he was beat and could only utter an expletive. Shane also had a hot 'D' stepping in front of Jeff Bacote to knock the disc away. Karl was throwing some of the nice deep throws and working the disc well. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it was just before the Duke game that Alan showed up. His fresh legs and sweet throws were certainly a nice addition though it did take him a little while to adjust to our new, more transition oriented offense ("push through!").
Meanwhile, Princeton had defeated Rochester 11-6 to set up a rematch of our pool play game. Of course, when we faced each other in pool play we were playing bad and didn't have Pat or Alan. We also didn't have Ronald and we weren't sure we'd have him this time either. He had to be at work at 6 and it was almost 5 when the game was supposed to start. He drove off to make a phone call while we flipped and got ready to start. We were putting our 7 on the line when he ran back onto the field, behind the Princeton team. I called for him to be our 7th and Princeton, who had "met" Ronald last year when they scrimmaged us here during their spring break, greeted him with a chorus of good natured boos. And Ronald (and Alan and Pat) certainly played a role, catching 2 or 3 scores and forcing Princeton into some difficult match-ups on our other players. We quickly found ourselves up 5-1 in this game to 9 (because Princeton was driving back Sun night). At this point Ron informed me that he had to leave for work. I talked him into staying one more point and he and I went into the game. The team allowed me to make this the "Mark hucks it to Ron" point. First, Princeton turned it over right by their own endzone, certainly not a huck opportunity but I picked up the disc and threw an Ole' to the back of the stack where Ron was waiting. Unfortunately it was a little higher than he thought and he had to reposition himself and dropped it. Next, they turned it over further away from their endzone. Though there were many players closer, I sprinted from the other end of the field to pick it up and huck it but my throw was short. Finally, they turned it over again by the endzone and we tried to isolate Ron. This time we connected but there was a pick on the play and Ron was in a position where he needed to clear so we isolated Shane who cut to the break side and was wide open for the score. Ron left and we continued to play well. Geoff Haisty had a series of excellent underneath cuts in this game (and the others) followed by nice passes for scores. Then, with the score 8-3, Jay (ABCDE...) got the disc just outside the endzone and called time. We set up the zipper and Jay hit Pat for the game winner and the championship of the consolation bracket.
It would be easy to attribute the Darkside's success this weekend to the non-darksiders (Ron, Pat, Tom, and Christian) we picked up. It would also be somewhat true. (BTW, I include folks like Jay, Geoff, John Eyles, Steve Molnar, Stephen Brooks, and Andrew Certain who may not be officially college eligible in when I refer to Darksiders.) But, while their athletic skills certainly made us a better team, I think we benefitted the most from getting the opportunity to follow their example in the intensity and consistency of their play. I'm hard pressed to remember dropped passes or truly bad throws (there were some throw aways when we didn't have good cuts) from our last three games and that's not usually (unfortunately) the case. I think everyone raised their level of play and it was the combination of solid play from the non-darksiders and the intensity and consistency of the darksiders that won games for us. Realize we were without Chris Rodning, Alan Dewel, Keyne Cheshire, Jeff Garigliano, Cliff Reinhardt, Nash(?), Gene, Chip, Dan, Carter, Santosh, and others this weekend as well. Darkside has the potential to do well this spring if folks can come out and work together and maintain that intensity. It was also nice to have enough subs that we could run hard and sub out and use folks in the situations they're best suited for.
So, Darkside went 5-3, by far the most games we've ever won in a single weekend (and pretty darn close to the smallest number of losses). Our only loss on Sunday was to the eventual champions and we gave them a closer game than W&M did (though to be fair to W&M I should point out they had to play 4 straight while Clemson played 1, had a game off, and then played 2.)
Thanks again to everyone who carried things to the truck, cleaned up, set up, etc.
I think we should definitely do this again! Great tournament Darkside!
(from Jay with some additions - but he said all the nice stuff about me, honest...)
Back to the main history page