bəm də lei lee
də lei lee tikki takka
ə washu washu washu
ah də wei, də wei də Wikki Wakka
Ah, the way to Wikki Wakka, an unspeakably vivacious place of perfect, aggressive, inspiring disc. The remainder of the tale is unimportant; Timmy indeed took his team to all kinds of Ultimate glory. What is important is that Timmy passed on the powerful incantation to select friends, and one of his select friends (namely Jay the Recylner) passed it on to me. And this past weekend, at Hoasis 2009 in Tucson, AZ, my team and I used this cheer TWICE en route to an unprecedented Phoenix team championship. Here's a snap of Fred and my illustrious three dollar championship mesh trucker hat:
What made this weekend incredible was not just the championship, but the intense team camaraderie AND the humming, vibration of life disc that we played together to get that exquisite piece of headgear. Big Nate* assembled a fantastic team of Phoenix Ultimate studs and studdettes; pictures are still en route, but here's the roster:
Big Nate, "Skilled" Nyet, Justin "Dheintime," Cole "Advanced," Eric "EBay," Russ, Josiah "J-Ro," Hip-Hip-Jose, Joe, Greg "Skunk," Emily "Player" Haydon, Monika, Lindsey, Jenn "Jenga," Jennifer "Fife," Nicole "Curious," and Sara.
* - You may recall that in Phoenix Ultimate circles I am known as "Nyet the Lesser" to avoid confusion with him. But Big Nate was kind enough to dub me "Skilled" Nyet after this weekend, which is also a pretty cool moniker.
Clearly a bang-up squad of fun people and great players top to bottom. We needed a clever name, and given that a lot of the team had driven down to Tucson Friday night in Big Nate's RV, we went with Big Nate's I-10 Pleasure Squad, or the Big NIPS. Yeah, I know, Ultimate people are like sooooo mature. It made for some interesting cheers throughout the weekend, though. :)
There were nine teams at Hoasis, so things started in pools of three on the three fields. This meant that one team in each pool got a bye; the Tucson folks were nice enough to give the first round bye to us Phoenix people, so Fife and I drove down to Tucson leaving at 7:15 instead of 6 AM. Always nice. In lieu of a game by game breakdown, I'll just give the Saturday skinny up front. We beat a ragtag team of Tucson locals 8-6 to start the day and beat a better U of A / Tucson team 11-10 (on a double game point that featured two unclutch turns from Skunker and a "let's end this now" poach D and flick huck to Cole from yours truly). This put us in the power pool - the three pool winners squared off (triangled off?) in a single pool with the winner earning a bye for the first round of Sunday aka a free trip to the semis. The other two teams in the power pool were a team from New Mexico (primarily Sweet Roll guys) and the local Tucson favorites, a crew led by Jeff Grob who is a legendary Ultimate dynamo in these parts.
First game against New Mexico was a doozy and featured some gratuitous rough play from one of their clumsier dudes on Justin; not cool, and it even inspired a little bit of an angry spike from JD. YEAH! All of the games this weekend were stunningly similar, so again, I'll just give it the quick run-through - tight battle back and forth, we pulled away just in time at the end as the hard cap went on and won it 10-8, maybe 11-8 or so. Nice. This took us to an incredible game against the Tucson A squad for the bye on Sunday - Nate correctly commanded me to deliver Timmy's ancient cheer, so we did, and promptly went down 7-4 at half. Oops. But we turned the jets back on and went on a big run to take this one 10-8 as the hard cap went off. Much celebration ensued as we knew we were getting just a bit more sleep the next day. Miles of smiles abounded as we took in a little of a game featuring the other Phoenix team there before I had to drive back to Phoenix to attend Beck's holiday office party at Dr. K-gorium's Magic Emporium (which, incidentally, was fun as usual, and even included a tutorial from Dr. K on the finer points of bubble hockey).
Drove up Sunday a little earlier to get adequately warmed up and watch the other Phoenix team play a game in the quarterfinals, the winner of which we would face in the semis. They got matched up against the second team we played from the day before and unfortunately went down on the hardcap 14-13. So we had a rematch with a tough game from yesterday for our semifinal game. This time, though, probably thanks to our restedness, we started out very strong and kept on them all game long. I believe we took half about 8-5 and then just pulled away, taking the game 15-8 or so. FINALS! The other half of the bracket had New Mexico facing off against the Tucson A team, and Tucson A won that one on Ultimate point 13-12. So the finals would be a rematch of the bye-game from Saturday... once again, Timmy's cheer rang out.
And once again, we went down 2-0 to start the game. And we had a bad turnover on that point that could have led to disaster but I managed to get a handblock and pick the disc up to fire a score. We got back into it and actually managed to go up 9-7 when they called a TO and shifted to a zone. We struggled a little bit against that momentarily and let them right back in the game - they were actually up 11-10 and trapping us on our goal line, a bad situation to be in, when I fired an 85 yard flick huck to Cole past and over their entire defense for the score. A one throw zone shreddage, if you will. 11-11, and we never turned back, amping up our D and taking the championship 15-11. Wahoo! The final goal was a big flick huck to me in the back right corner; I got position on my guy, skyed for the disc / came down with the goal, and let off about a sixty yard spike in excitement as I sprinted back toward our exuberant team. Unprecedented and WAY too much fun. And honestly, in the finals, we overwhelmed the other team - they had the disadvantage of not getting the bye, they lacked Grob for much of the game (see below), but they just generally didn't have answers for our top players or the all-around team chilliness we brought. (Keith did point out that virtually all of our goals involved one or more of Cole, Justin or me, which is an indication that they did not have enough to match up with us - again, particularly after they lost Grob).
Friend Kaetlynn, who played with the other Phoenix team for unknown reasons (if we could have had her, too? Yikes!), was kind enough to take some photos in the finals and just sent me these three tasty shots of Nyet the Lesser:
That's me getting open on an in-cut against the aforementioned Southwest Ultimate legend (and captain of perennially Nationals-bound co-ed team Barrio) Jeff Grob. Seriously, dude is power beast magnum delta Jack Bauer Chuck Norris force on the field, and when he's in high gear there's not a whole lot anyone other than other athletic superfreaks can do about it. He laid out on this one (why I'm not catching the disc out in my usual hands out full in front style is beyond me) and I stepped in his way to prevent him from getting at the disc. Unfortunately this meant (as you can probably tell from the picture) that he laid out into my back and took me down semi-horse collar style. No harm, but a foul. Immediately after this shot, Justin cut deep from the weak-side, so I faked a flick to move Grob off the mark and then sent a perfect 60 yard backhand huck to the back left corner where Justin scampered for the score. Grob said, "Nice shot," and I'm pretty sure my heart pitter-pattered *just* a bit.
Of course the even more diary worthy moment is that Grob covered me for a couple of other points in the game, too. On one, I managed to beat him deep and Russ tossed a backhand that just got eaten by the wind. I got reasonable position on Jeff, but he essentially just jumped over and around me and calmly tapped the disc away. I got skyed BADLY. Eesh; like I said, he's a beast. But on another one, I faked an incut and took off, got some space again, and Russ sent up a nice low IO backhand huck. Grob jumped for it but just not high enough, and I trotted to the back of the endzone and grabbed it with two hands for the score. So yes, DEAR DIARY, This weekend OMG I beat Grob deep for a score and I will never forget this moment I cried so hard etc. Of course, it helps that Grob was banged up and having some back issues; he laid out on JD at one point and had to take himself out of the game for good. I.e. this was not full on, 100% JG we were dealing with, and he was still a preternatural force. We were hanging just fine with him in there, but I won't be delusional and say it didn't help our chances not to have an athletic superfreak and awesome opponent out there. Okay, more pictures:
That's me over Tucson nice guy Phil Brown. Who's fouling me in the back and the back of the head, incidentally. Nyet the handler, going deep and up for it? Crazy.
Of course the even more diary worthy moment is that Grob covered me for a couple of other points in the game, too. On one, I managed to beat him deep and Russ tossed a backhand that just got eaten by the wind. I got reasonable position on Jeff, but he essentially just jumped over and around me and calmly tapped the disc away. I got skyed BADLY. Eesh; like I said, he's a beast. But on another one, I faked an incut and took off, got some space again, and Russ sent up a nice low IO backhand huck. Grob jumped for it but just not high enough, and I trotted to the back of the endzone and grabbed it with two hands for the score. So yes, DEAR DIARY, This weekend OMG I beat Grob deep for a score and I will never forget this moment I cried so hard etc. Of course, it helps that Grob was banged up and having some back issues; he laid out on JD at one point and had to take himself out of the game for good. I.e. this was not full on, 100% JG we were dealing with, and he was still a preternatural force. We were hanging just fine with him in there, but I won't be delusional and say it didn't help our chances not to have an athletic superfreak and awesome opponent out there. Okay, more pictures:
That's me over Tucson nice guy Phil Brown. Who's fouling me in the back and the back of the head, incidentally. Nyet the handler, going deep and up for it? Crazy.
So this looks a little bizarre because of those pigeons on the field that look like extensions of my feet. They're not, I assure you. I poached off on this one; it was a deep shot to that guy, but I had a good angle, timed it and batted the disc away. Pretty key point, somewhere around 10-9 or so, and I'm glad I managed to jump higher than eight inches for once.
So... looking back on this writeup, it may sound like a ho-hum, we went 6-0 on the weekend and had a good time kind of affair. Let me tell you why, at least from my perspective, that was not the case. I had two mistake turns this weekend, one an ill-advised hammer to Cole in the finals (semi-D'ed by Gretchen; I think Cole was just being nice) and the other a too-far huck to Lindsey in the semis when we were already up 14-7. That was it for my turns*. On the other end, that huck to Lindsey was the only one I missed all weekend long. And it's not like I was being Mr. Conservative handler - I can't be sure, but conservatively I'd say I went 24 for 25 on deep throws for the weekend (96%), and it may have been more than that. Obviously it helps having targets like Cole and JD, but the throws weren't fifty fifty discs that were working out; they were on the money back corner float down "golden throws" as described by JD. I was, in a word, en fuego, hitting everything with all varieties, and probably had the best Ultimate hucking weekend of my life. I really hope someone (HINT HINT JD!) comments and confirms this so I don't just sound like some self-congratulatory jackass, but I was just feeling it. It was friggin' awesome.
* - Full disclosure - on Saturday, Jose fell down on the dump and I had to jack up a stall nine throw to Cole that got D'ed by Grob. And I had a perfect front corner backhand to Skunk in the finals that he inexplicable stopped on (more on that later) and didn't catch. And I put up a (as described by Cole) "too perfect" flick huck to Sara that she misread and cut to the wrong corner of the endzone on; it floated neatly to the back left corner after she lost track of the disc. Oh, and I had a flick huck to Big Nate that he milked and dilly-dallied on and let a guy D when he easily could have caught it - this was confirmed by our sideline. So *that* was it for me and turnovers, I suppose, but none of those four were my mistakes in any reasonable sense.
And that was it - we were all feeling it. Making timing cuts, calling endzone plays that worked, coming up with poach and help D's. Completely incredible. I would be remiss, of course, if I didn't include the notion that we won the tournament despite the exceedingly erratic play of Skunk - hard to tell if he was high or tripping or what, but guy was throwing crap all over the place, making terrible decisions, and as referenced above, nearly cost us that 10-10 game with a pair of horrendously bad backhands on double game point. What's even more ridiculous is that at 3-3 in the bye game on Saturday, Cole launched a beautiful IO forehand huck to him that was going to be five feet short of the endzone. Instead of catching it - you know, like you would tend to want to do in important games at 3-3 - Skunk saw JD behind him in the endzone and tried to tip the disc back to Justin! WTFTTM? Completely inexplicable, and Skunk didn't even have a good answer for it. I'm guessing "One pill makes you larger / one pill makes you small" or something, seriously. Anyways, Skunker did have some good D's here and there, but he was overall a complete moron on the weekend, really disappointing.
Okay, that negative lowlight out of the way, here's a bullet point account of the excessive list of highlights:
- I hit Monika with a huck for the score in the semi-finals which she read perfectly
- Hit Haydon for two goals against Gretchen off of endzone sets, one to win the bye game on Saturday and one after a TO in the finals. Nice!
- Dhein mainly, but we all hit Lindsey umpteen times for scores on the weekend. She was / is going to be a beast herself. But her extreme highlight was on a poor choice huck from Cole - a guy poached off on Lindsey, but she just upped and skyed him in the endzone! Hot damn. Sportscenter worthy.
- I'll just sum up numerous hucks to Justin and Cole in one bullet point - I can't even say how many there were, and they were forehands, backhands, you name it. One of the best was a forehand to Justin that got called back on a travel, so he sent it back to me, went back to where he was when the throw went up - and we just did the exact same thing again. Hilarious.
- I managed to get a few skies in myself, the best coming in that double game point game where I just went up over a crowd at the right front corner of the endzone. I came down just out of the endzone but in bounds, and flipped a scoober to Haydon for the score.
- Also busted deep for Jose and EBay on a couple of occasions. Yeah!
- Ebay made a diving grab that probably took all of the flesh off of his knees. I tried to apologize to him for the slightly out-in-front of him throw, and he replied that it was his fault for letting himself gain ten pounds and it'll be no problem on Sprawl. Nice.
- Speaking of, EBay and I played a game of burnout to get his head snapped back in the game after a couple of gaffes... and it worked. Sweet.
- Nicky had a great up the line flick off a dead disc to me for a score in the semis on Saturday.
- Attack of the killer scoobers - in the finals, they tried to trap me on the left sideline, so I crossed the entire field with a scoober to Justin who promptly fired a breakside huck to Ebay for the score. Just a beautiful play.
- But the highlight was the scoober to Cole in the third game on Saturday - I made eye contact, pointed to the right corner, and dropped an IO invert blade scoober right into his hands while the crowd gasped in disbelief. More than one "What the @#$%?" was heard, and Keith told them that I was from Boston, as though this explains anything.
- As mentioned, I ripped off an 85 yard flick to Cole out of a flick trap zone. I'm repeating it because it was one of the better throws of my existence.
- Though the backhand against Grob to Dheintime was pretty shwanky, too.
- Speaking of Cole "Advanced," he got that nickname because Russ tossed him a flick that got partially blocked about five feet in front of the goal. We're talking the type of D you basically don't have time to react to and results in a drop / turnover. Well, not only did Cole change his hand position instantaneously to adjust to the disc, but he toed himself in the endzone while doing it. It was truly ... advanced.
- Sara had a fantastic double happiness in the semis, D'ing a guy in the zone, sprinting to the stack and then smoking her defender to the front cone for the easy goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment