Kelly, Craig, Jeremy, Tom, Rich, Allyson, Nyet, Miller, Beck
Paul, Genevieve, Jack, Salina
And, of course, Zorro
(Not pictured: Nat, Viral)
So I got bogged down in writing a couple of papers over the last couple of weeks and have been very neglectful of the Ballad. Sorry! Here's the quick version of what went down this weekend and tonight.
First game Saturday was against Premature Huckulation, featuring Damon / PMo / Dustin. Ridiculous winds howling all day, so it turned into a bit of a zonefest. Nothing very spectacular, we got ahead and leaned on them, and without Jason Trant, they were a vastly less impressive team than before. We won 13-6.
Second game Saturday was a laugher - we drew Tricky and Tyler Si Se Puede, and the answer is No, No You Can't. Tricky for whatever reason just decided to huck and huck and huck to covered people - we won 13-2, and it wasn't even that close. Boring game, really.
The big game of the day was again Stimulus Package, Big Nate / Ken Mayer / Sam Levenberg's team and the 1 seed from Monday night. Let me report without hesitation that they employed the stupidest, most anti-aesthetic Ultimate I've ever seen in VOTS. Sam effectively picked it up and hucked it to Big Nate, no matter where he was on the field and how covered he was, every time. Oh, wait, sometimes he threw it to Ken... who hucked it to Big Nate no matter where he was or whether he was covered. Just a dumb, obnoxious strategy, and infuriatingly effective. We turned it over on our goalline after the punts numerous times, and before we knew it, we were down 6-1.
It got as bad as 9-4 - and in a game to 13, I honestly felt that we were completely out of it. But we started chipping away - got a little smarter, D'ed up their stupid offense quite nicely (I went head to head with Big Nate and despite giving up 6 or 7 inches managed to get a bunch of Ds), connected on some big throws, and the next thing we knew, it was 9-9 and the soft cap was on. Game to 11, we ripped off another one and Miller ended the day with a layout D followed by a toe-in score. Miraculously, we had come back to win it 11-9, take pool play, and were headed to the semis! Huge comeback, and just a great way to end pool play.
Which was our first game tonight against Incredible Huck, home of Ben / the Connoles and Pat (fnuker from last league), but tragically captained by Joe. I will sum up his exploits just by labeling him a cheat, the type of guy who calls every breath of contact, especially after he has dropped a disc. Who throws a disc that slips out of his hand and catches it himself without calling a turn. So fine, whatever, I'm sure lots of people don't enjoy playing against me either, but I was amped to beat that team, especially since they had crushed us when we were missing Nat and Tom and me earlier in the season.
So we started off awfully, turfing throws on our own goal line and basically handing them a 2-0 lead. Tight game throughout; I beat a lot of people deep and connected on some deep throws, caught a hammer right over Ben and the like, and we fought out way back into it at 6-6 and took the last point to go up 7-6 at half. Ran it ahead 8-6, and then just leaned on them for the rest of the game until it got up to 11-9, when we let them sneak back in to make it 11-11. But then we went up 12-11, 12-12, 13-12, 13-13, 14-13... 15-13. These were some intense points and from around 10-8 on I really didn't feel comfortable subbing out, so I hogged some points but came through, too. Joe did not disappoint, but who cares; we beat them straight up. Big upset if you believe Nabity ratings and remember that we've been lacking both our top girl pick (Kelly) and our 2nd round guy pick (Nat) all day long.
Ugh. I'm exhausted and don't feel like writing this out to the full extent. We played okay this game, still featuring our offensive problems, and I did a lot of deep work to compensate for that. In the finals, our O problems caught up with us. We repeated our give them two early job, then played okay for a bit, but they poached well and took away our Genevieve advantage which just killed us. A lot of people had bad games, and we struggled with matchup isues all night. I think we were as close as 8-6 after half, but then they went on a big run (or more precisely, we threw it to their poachers over and over and over) and it was more or less over. 12-6, 13-6, 13-7, 13-8, 14-8, 15-8, and we lost in the finals.
They played very well, but we had our share of chances. We really just couldn't get past our haywire offense, and I really overplayed in the first game - played most every point, including the last ten in a row, and spent a lot of them sprinting deep. I played well considering, but I couldn't go, you know, crush superspeedy Rob or anything. Tom and Craig couldn't get their hucks off as easily. Bleh.
I personally almost caught a Calli (I was just a foot out of the endzone), hit a couple people deep, and held my own against the likes of Justin G. and Rob, so I felt okay about things. In one telling moment of the game, I tried to cut in three times while Paul had the disc but kept getting cut off. Paul heaved a crazy hammer at 9 (or so I thought - see below), I turned around and sprinted after it, made sure the girl from th eother team was not in my path and super crazy laid out and made a trailing edge grab. Siiiiick. Of course, my calves immediately cramped - I'm just out of shape, and sweat too much tonight, argh - so I took an injury. Little did I know that Paul had actually been stalled, so the whole thing was for naught. Drat.
So that's how it ends. Against the odds we made it to finals again, but came up well short. Ah, well. In my leagues in Phoenix so far it's been semis, champs, champs, out in pool play, out in pool play, champs, champs, finals. The two teams I captained with Genevieve - she is headed out of town, onto to awesomer things - combined for a championship and a finals appearance and a 25-5 record, 25-3 in the games I played. So all told I think we're doing just fine.
Miscellany: Allyson went up and D'ed Pat, only to have it float right back to him for a goal. Tom got a huge D on the goalline at 14-13; I broke Pat with a BH to Jack to seal that game. Jack got ridiculously rolled over by Byron on a stupid, dangerous late bid. Ugh. I caught a huck from Craig with Rob draped on me. My calves are still cramping, so sleep may be an issue tonight. Hit Genevieve multiple times for big BH scores. I am tired now and must stop this nonsense.
Long live The Mark of Zorro! Great season, guys!
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