3BK-6,7

Got behind a little bit in the game write-up dept. Last week we squared off against Los Tigres Del Norte, Bill's Monday team featuring Justin Griesy AND Big Nate. Big Nate wrote on his registration from that he would be missing everything except the final tournament, dropping him well below where he would've been drafted. Bill took a flier on him, and what do you know, turns out Nate could show up at everything. Pretty lame in the grand scheme, as now their team has two of the more dominant big dudes in the league. Ah, well.

We hung with them okay - they threw a ridiculous amount of zone at us largely b/c they only had 6 guys (conveniently enough, their top 6 draft picks), and the game effectively turned into a battle of who had more new players who were apt to make silly decisions / mistakes. Turns out that was we. We hung in just fine -

0-1,2;1,2,3-2;3-3;3-4;4-4;4-5;5-5;5-6;6,7,8-6;8-7,8;9-8;9-9;10-9;10-10;11-10;11-11;12-11;12-12...

You'll note that after we took half up 8-6, we promptly let them right back into it. These were two super moronic turns that set the tone for the rest of the evening. At 12-12, they brought a four man cup, and it was way more than our inexperienced team could handle.12-13,14,15, all she wrote. Nate and Griesy made a ton of plays, though I did, too; still, it was a pretty dumb, frustrating game and a solid reminder why it's annoying to play in middling leagues with zone - it consistently boils down to which team had more people show up that are going to make mistakes. That was most definitely us, as the bulk of our turns came from people throwing to e.g. Ashley on Big Nate matchups. Sheesh, I don't really like remembering that one. It left us at 3-3 and +7 on the season.

Beck has still been hurting a lot, and in that game could barely run; we played a lot of zone as a consequence since she and Lindsey were playing savage up until Ashley showed up for the second half. After the game, though, Beck made the executive decision to shut it down for a while, so she came and watched tonight's game instead.

Ah, tonight's game - we showed up about 7:10 to see howling winds and turn after turn after turn in the 6 o'clock games. We were matched up with Kevin Hatch's / Lisa Malo's team "Tickle Fight Club," a team notorious for zone-lust, so I was less than amped given the previous week's experience. But with such a strong upwind-downwind game going on, we made it a priority to just not make turns near the upwind goalline and effectively make a lot of ridiculous throws deep. Wahoo. This more or less gave me license to turn, and turn it I did, always with the idea that one 20% throw is more likely to be completed than fifteen 50-50 throws.

And the strategy worked - we got a bunch of short field turns and ran away with this one before it even got going. Something like this:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7-0;7-1,2,3;8-3;8-4;9-4;9-5;10-5;10-6;11-6;11-7;12-7;12-8;13,14-8;14-9;15-9

That run to start the game included two Callahan goals, one by Stefan and one by me. Fun times. We played okay and more or less stuck to the chuck it and play D scheme; I hope it wasn't boring for people, but it's tough with so many newbies on the field to play decently in a windy game (it did die down relative to the 6 o'clock games, but was still generally more than the bulk of people could handle). You'll notice that we got beat from the point of 7-0 on, which meant that the bulk of the second half was a dumb upwind downwind game and that we generally weren't playing well*.

* - I don't understand it, really. We have a couple of tall guys on our team, and we specifically told them about the huck and play D plan, and specifically told them about staying behind their guys when on and the opponent was going downwind. Our words had no impact; we ended up hucking to no one several times, and we got repeatedly beat deep. Unfathomable. Between this and the students this week, I am not sure if I can stomach any more complete inability to follow instructions over the next week.

So the Callies were cool, and my hucks were pretty on (though necessarily blady because of the wind and arcing it over / around the cup, and people did not make the plays that they could have). I caught a few scores, too - the big goal of the night was a BH from Al that he threw without seeing a poach D; the poacher stepped out and smacked it, killing all of the spin on the disc and sending it spiraling in a bizarre arhythmic mess earthward. I laid out and got my arms under it, football style (the disc was flipping end over end) in time to grasp the disc - cool layout goal, but it happened to be in a bare patch of sand-earth in the endzone. So my forearms / hands are skinned to bits. Beck did not approve, methinks. But yeah, it was WORTH IT.

Good game, and we definitely got some hot running and D in. Team still seems very shaky - too many dudes who are unsure of themselves with the disc. So it goes. It hasn't helped that Stefan's been dinged pretty much all season long. We're now 4-3, +13, and we've got two regular season games left against Keith's team FIGJAM and Steve's team Black Smoke Monster. Then it's playoffs, then it's back to all Sprawl all the time.

Speaking of the beast, we hit up practices again last night (though I had to miss). Sounds like things were choppy-as-expected in the first time back, but looks to be an exciting club season. I've won all five of the SLUG scrimmages I've played in (with, remember, a coin-flipping process to determine teams, so no rigging here) but will have to miss this weekend's in favor of a trip to SA / Austin and a GPGDS show. NICE. Anyways, back in the swing, and I'm sure tales will come tumbling down the pipeline from the Ultiverse soon. There are a bunch of tourneys coming up in April, not the least of which is Uoma Donna - I'm playing on a team featuring the one and only Genevieve "G" Maricle, in from DC, so that will be dope.

Oh yeah, and Kaysie / Lisa were nice enough to compliment me on my weight loss. I weighed 166 after a big sweaty workout at the gym on Monday, so I am officially down to my high school football playing weight. Hold on, wasn't I 190 as a Texas Football senior tight end? Um, yeah, I was also 6'2". Really what happened was I would lift weights and drink protein / chocolate shakes all summer long to get up to 180, they would embellish the stats in the program a bit, and then I would promptly lose 12 pounds at two-a-days to fall to the high 160's. I natch had to still block dudes who *actually* weighed 210 and what not, so that was awesome. Good times. Regardless, the point is that my diet / exercise regimen to take off some pounds to save the wear and tear on my knees has worked so far, and I am a svelte dude these days. ANd you can even see something resembling my abdominal muscles. WOAH! Still need to be careful - I'm a bit stunned than I made it through Houseguestapalooza intact - but there's another trip this weekend, and it's very easy to let it go, I'm well aware. I'm pretty good with this weight, though, so I don't need to be *quite* as stringent with desserts and such (and my food diary agrees, as a big chocolate milk shake made an appearance in the food diary the other night. YIKES!).

Speaking of, I'm going to the gym sooner than I can fathom, so I should get to bed. The 3BK train is still going well and is still fun, though I constantly worry I'm not being positive enough. I just wish we could stay on top of a game like the one tonight - people just get complacent / goofy so easily! Frustrating. But all good in teh end.

Seriously, seriously, bed now. I'm well aware I owe a lot more March accounts writings and a bunch of album reviews (though I did get one of those out today).