Well, it was a good day for ultimate, and in general, I felt like it was a good day for the darkside. Am I foreshadowing a tale of a thrilling victory? Uhm, no. Sorry. But I thought we had some really good things happening; we just couldn't get over the hump. Of course maybe it's just that I'm still pumped up over finally throwing my body at the ground. ;-) We had good numbers (14+) which, btw, I think is great.
Our first game was against Duke. The game was close all along. So many players were outstanding. Alan Hoyle showed his commitment to the team, playing all afternoon with a sore throat so raw that he simply couldn't yell (he arranged to get up calls from the sideline on his behalf :-) ) Of course, he may not be able to play tomorrow, but his contributions were valuable. Great throws, good cuts, and tough defense while fighting off the fatigue of illness. Ryan, Dave, Banta, and Bill Welsh also did nice jobs as handler. Also stepping up to playing handler, especially against the zone, was Bill Mark. He did a commendable job helping out when we were short handed. Gil, Ricky, Richard (from Iowa) and Billy were playing solid defense and making good catches, making their contributions. Andrew, Chip, Carl, and Richard were running fast and flying high over the opposition. We played well against Duke but came up a bit short at 14-10. I believe this game gave us a thing or two to work on (stopping long cross field throws through the cup and first cuts).
We practiced our zone and fixed our hole in the cup while Duke battled Occam's Razor (another close capped game).
The game against Occam's saw the addition of John Savage to the fast and high flying group but the loss of Richard (from Iowa), Billy, and Gil. We also suffered a blow mid-way through the game when Richard Ray went down with a recurrence of his knee injury. Chip's contributions at deep both defensively and offensively were outstanding. We were also able to occassionally hit Carl deep as well. The rest of our offense played well and after letting Occam's Razor get an edge on us at 14-10 we made a run to bring it to 14-13 before they managed to get a deep throw off for a score to win the game.
I also want to say that it was great to to have Chris being able to play with us some more and his contributions at middle and handler and defensively were great. Moreover, I think he's been doing a great job calling subs and generally doing the captain type stuff (from turning in rosters, travel forms, to collecting lost and found, to doing announcements at practice and generally being there even though he can't play all the time.) Believe me all of this little stuff adds up and is a pain. Thanks Chris.
Off to the showers.
I just realized that I failed to mention Pete's excellent defense and solid catches in my previous summary. Oh, wait, and Steven Brooks play as well. Nice inside out forehand huck!
If it seems like I'm trying to say something good about everyone's play, it is because I am and that's because I think EVERYONE made a contribution today. Keep it up Darkside!
p.s. Did I forget anyone else? Purely oversight.
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