Big showdown down in Tempe this week - little Nyet (that's me) vs. a dude named Big Nate, a former DIV I football player who has transformed himself into an Ultimate beast. Great guy, and the team behind him - The Black Mamba - ain't too shabby, neither. PLUS we were missing Genevieve (for hopefully the last time!) and Josiah. We were 3-1 with a +15 point differential; they were 4-0 with a +16. The famed Nabity ratings had us at #2 in the entire league, them at #4, so it was a hyped up game. And yes yes oh yes a hundred times yes did we come to play.
Back up - Monday, still reeling from my utterly humiliating, dog-faced boy batting performance in Softball on Friday, stupidly headed to a little funpark called Fiddlesticks and took 200 hacks. I wore a batting glove, but it didn't matter - that was a dumb, dumb thing to do as my hands became covered in ugly, bloody blisters, Argh. (note to self: this had better be worth it; I'd better have some seriously good contact in tomorrow night's game or... sheesh). (note to Jason: this had better be worth it. Because if softball ever interferes with Ultimate again, well, you can guess which one will be quickly dropped from the routine). So i had a stressful couple of days* as I tried all combinations of triple anti-biotic ointment, band-aids and hand lotion to get these pups to heal. No dice - I came to the game tonight and couldn't really grip the disc for a forehand or a hammer, so I tried both gloves and taping it - and decided to go with tape for the game. Very uncomfortable, and I was essentially throwing the disc with my finger tips to avoid letting it grind into my blisters. No good.
(* - a stressful couple of days which involved a trip up to Flagstaff to see GPGDS live and in action. That story, pics and videos are forthcoming).
And no good - first point of the game, I tried to pull back a throw to Paul - in essence, I tried to throw a fake - and the disc slid right out of my hand into the ground two feet in front of me. Tricky aptly heckled "who brought the rookie?" So I decided adrenaline was gonna have to take the day and took the bandages off. Bare blistery hand disc, baby. Yes.
And... that was my last turnover. Just to get the personal stuff out of the way: 6/3/1/1, for a +9 night, bringing me to 28/12/8/11, for a +43 / 8.6 FPPG. Yeeha - blisters did not wreck the week after all. Just to keep things in perspective, I did have some wackiness - I got handblocked on a hammer by Russ, but manged to catch my own disaster by laying out on the sideline. Woah nellie. And one of the scores I caught was a silly stupid outside in huck from Drew that came within about two feet of hitting a palm tree that about 15 feet out of bounds. Epic amount of curve on that one. So, clean, but we had some wacko moments.
And to bring things out to the team perspective, we played great. Things stayed close to about 4-2, then we pulled away to a 8-4 halftime lead. The traded for a bit to 11-8, then pulled away with the last four goals of the game to win 15-8. Wahoo! The fnuk takes the big time contest!
Some notes - Justin played huge, per usual. Pat really took Big Nate to task - Nate cheated in a bit on some zone points and on some man on man D to do his usual poach-crazy defensive game, but we got it by and around him a few times. Just took advantage very well - lotsa handling on this team, and we're doing a superb job keeping it relaxed. They hit their women deep a few times - that's still a problem for us, something to work on - but we recovered to play solid help D. Really, this just boiled down to another case of us running hard, playing good D, and seriously capitalizing on turnovers. We kinda did to them what Offshore Swilling did to us in week one. So it's not like they played bad, we just played incredibly well. Very few turnovers this game, and next to no calls. Clean Ultimate being played lately, I like it.
So yeah - next week is a Tuesday game against a now 0-5 Tuesday team. We'll be missing Justin, but will have Genevieve and Josiah back, so things should turn. I was happy to get the disc to Amber a couple of times tonight, and we tried (called her in a couple of times) but didn't get it to Alex. Next time. Until then - see you where I left you. Unemployed: in dreamland.
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