Funken Gruven '96, Williamsburg, VA

Tournament report by Mark Parris and Chris Rodning

Straght to Individual highlights

Well, we went to W&M a bit short handed. Notable absences (but not all inclusive) from Ryan Brown, Shane Greene, John Eyles, Bill Mark, Cliff Reinhardt, Cory Barlow, and Andrew Ross (geez, that would be a good seven to have on the line!) left us a little short on subs (11/10 on Saturday and 9 on Sunday). Who was there? Carl Erikson, Geoff Haisty, Aron Hall, Alan Hoyle, Gil Klemann, Dave Luebke, Albert Monroe, Mark Parris, Dan Parrish, Chris Rodning, and Billy Warshaw. (Not a bad squad on their own.) Being short handed was tough. Some sample scores: 15-2, 11-1. Fortunately, Darkside was on the high side of those scores. :-) To quote our favorite Elvis (Aron Hall), "We're awesome."

We were in the dreaded 6 team pool so Chris and I decided to push for 5 games and no bye (an alternative schedule had us playing 4 games with a bye) because we're masochists and sadists (towards the other members of our team). We got what we wanted. We were seeded third. Here's the pool (in order of seed): Swarthmore, Lehigh, UNC, W&M Alumni, Maryland, Drew.

In our first game against Lehigh (it seems so long ago) we had a back and forth game before we moved ahead to win 11-8? (Chris has the scores written down). We were excited to have upset the #2 seed and moved on to play the #4 seed, W&M alumni. Unfortunately, we were to learn the seeds didn't mean much. The W&M Alumni team was fairly stacked and that combined with some poor play on our part lead to a 7-3? halftime deficit. However we looked much better in the second half, (fueled by some hard running O & D from Geoff Haisty) and scored 6? in the second half but lost 13-9(?).

Fueled by our second half we moved to play Maryland, who we had faced at Ultimax in the fall. We played well, especially in the second half, and they were exhausted. I think the final score was something like 11-4? Oh, and Geoff Haisty left at this point. Sigh.

Then we moved on to our game with #1 seed, Swarthmore, who had just lost to Lehigh 11-6 I think. We had watched Swarthmore's earlier game against Maryland and noticed Maryland's zone gave them a lot of trouble. However, it was also at this point that Alan had to give Dave a ride to pick up his car from the tire store (another story). So we started the game with 8 players. I was worried. Swarthmore had good athletes with good throws. I even talked at length on the line about how important it would be for us not to give up a series of quick scores. Dave and Alan were quite disappointed when they returned and learned the score was 5-0. However, their spirits perked up when they learned we were in the lead. Aron, Albert, Billy, Dan, and Gil has been working their butts off in the cup and our offense had been precise. We had just about reached the point we needed subs though as we gave up a point to see 5-1. But that was the last one. Final score was 11-1. Yippee.

In the final game we faced a Drew Herd squad that was better against the zone (or were we running it more poorly?) as they took us to 13-4? but we ended the day 4-1 and 4-0 against the college squads. We had a grand dinner at Sal's and then hung out in the hotel rooms to watch professional wrestling (ok, so Billy and I aren't professionals - but wasn't it entertaining?) and Major League Soccer.

Sunday morning, a tired and hungry squad went to the fields to face Clemson. Mixing up the clam and man-to-man we saw Clemson lead 5-2 before we rallied to 5-5 and they took the half 6-5 and then we rallied to 8-8 before we ran out of gas and they won 11-8. This was the team that we could have beat with a full unit and maybe even if we had just had breakfast. However, after we tried to get Brian Banta (who played with us last fall) to give us some bagels we enjoyed their cheer ("Here are your damn bagels" as they pelted us with bagels.) Then we drove to the nex t field to face our Ultimax foe, UPenn. The game started out poorly as they were effective against our zoneand the score went to 6-4 them. But then we adjusted our zone to stop their strategy. That got us a point. Then Dave Luebke had a layout block as they tried to swing which led to a score. Then, miracle of miracles, Mark Parris anticipated a give and go pass and stepped in for the block and another score was produced and Darkside had taken the half 7-6. We were pumped up and clicking on all cylinders at this point. We only gave up 2 points in the second half for a 13-8 victory.

This put us into the finals of the chumps bracket where we faced La-de-da, the Norfolk squad. They were delighted to to find we only had 2 subs; they had 3. This was a club team of more experienced folks and some new folks. We wanted to start playing hard and we did, moving out to a quick 5-0 lead with some hard running, athletic catches, and tough defense as well as some fatigue induced(?) mistakes on their part. They called a T-O to regroup and we decided to try a zone (at least to bust whatever adjustments they were trying). MISTAKE. The wind had died and they showed us how short hammers work against a zone as they moved the disc downfield for a score. Oops. Then they threw a zone on us and we turned it over, several time before they finally scored. But, we recovered and took the half, 8-2. In the second half our goal was simple, 7-0. We succeeded. 15-2.

We were quite disappointed that the winner of the loser's bracket did not receive one of the lovely trophies that they were passing out. Alas, we had to be content with our 6-2 performance (5-1 against college teams.)

Our record now stands at 12-8 for the season, 11-7 against college teams.


Individual Highlights

Here are the long awaited W&M highlights, written almost entirely by Carl (with a contribution or two from Alan Hoyle, Dave Luebke, and myself.)

Carl thinks the highlight of the whole tournament was when he overcame protests and inserted the third part of our cheer:

We tried to throw a zone, your hammers made us moan.
We tried to throw a clam, you cut through it like spam.
We tried to throw the claw, la-de-da-de-da.

Dan Parrish

I thought Dan had an uncountable number of endzone scores off of people's looping flicks. He seemed to be in the right place at the right time on numerous occassions.

Albert Monroe

Catching the disc while cramping. Doing the sky for the disc (a couple of times). Getting really pumped (this is his highlight everytime).

Dave Luebke

Point block in the UPenn game followed by a break force score to him when two people followed me on my endzone cut. Several points scored on deep runs from throws by Alan. Also, there was one time where he was playing deep deep in the zone and usually he is tentative when there is a possibility of body contact - but the team tested him and sent it deep to a taller player and Dave timed it perfectly and knocked the disc away in the endzone - I thought that was cool because he didn't whimp out and there was body contact.

Gil Klegman

Alan threw a blade to him - he was being defended heavily and he somehow grabbed the disc, bobbled it a couple of times all while being pressured and then caught it for the score. Bad throw by Alan, great catch by Gil.

Geoff Haisty

All I remember is that one play where he came crashing in on dee and flew to the sidelines on a layout (high in the air) dee all while two people were running full speed at him. That's the one where he hurt his knee because the guy ran into him after he had knocked the disc away, but I thought that was an excellent play.

Mark Parris

Didn't do jack shit. Actually, I thought your block against UPenn right after Dave's block was a highlight. Plus, your iso score was a "clutch call."

Aron Hall

The final point against UPenn where he judged the disc well and brought down Alan's huck for the game winner. The catch against Clemson where he climbed the ladder (went up real high) for it - I've never seen him pull a tough one like that down with such ease. He played well the whole tourney - very consistent.

Alan Hoyle

Hurting himself on the pull was a highlight. [During our game against Swarthmore, I got to do the opening pull of the game. I threw the disk and instantly cramped on both of my hamstrings. This is perhaps the first time ever that a team has taken an injury sub before the other team has touched the disk. - Alan] Plus, Dan would never have gotten most of his scores had it not been for Alan's leading forehands. I'm not sure what else to say except that Alan consistently gets open from the back which is key. Doing the wrong play.

Billy Warshaw

Lay-out D that we submitted as our best layout. Very patient with the disc. Smoking fool. He is also the best sidelines person because he is so vocal and I think he helps out the team on and off the field.

Carl Erikson

I know he was there, but did he play? Our zone worked great and a big part of that was putting Carl at deep-deep. He was able to respond to the other teams efforts to challenge us deep and force them to try to work it, allowing the rest of us to really push up close. It was also nice that he got to rest back there so he was able to play a large percentage of the time. (And kudos to the folks who were running their asses off in the cup to allow us to stay with this setup). I also liked a huck to him against UPenn. Their tall guy was with him and it was a floater. The UPenn guy went up and then I saw Carl's elbow even with the other guy's hand as he went over him and snagged the disc.

Chris Rodning

Numerous layout dees. The one where the guy called the foul on him at UPenn. I love it when he throws his hat on the ground. The one where he got clobbered in the back on the endzone by the Clemson guy. The one where he got kicked in the head. The one where he got clobbered from behind. The one where he raced down the entire field to catch the disc on the first throw after Alan's awesome pull. That was definitely a highlight. Not knowing what a play to run.

Chris Rodning gets at least 6 point blocks a tournament it seems. We should all get as good as he is on the mark.

During one point against UPenn, Chris was in the cup and must have layed out 6 times consecutively. When one of the UPenn guys got it and Chris flew by inches from the disc, I remember the Upenn guy saying "Damn, Look at this guy!"


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Last modified: 15 April, 1996

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