Nationals this year was good and bad in a lot of ways. We played very well during most of our games, we won more games than any previous year, and we beat one of our arch-rivals (Polar Bears) in a strong win on Friday. But we also finished worse than last year and lost our last game on Sat to a team we should have beaten.

On Thursday, we started off strong with a close game against CLX. We had the opportunity to win it, but some late-game turnovers (two by me) gave them the lead back and we lost 13-11. We rebounded and fought hard to win 11-9 against 7 Figures, then crushed Cosa 15-4 in the last game. On Friday, we lost our pre-quarters game 15-10 to Slow White, beat D'oh 15-11, then took down Polar Bears 14-8. The Polar Bears win was extra satisfying because we clearly saw our defense working well. For the first half of the game, we shut down their deep cuts with strong physical defense. In the second half, they started to bring all their cuts under and across, and we took advantage by playing tighter and getting a bunch of Ds. I think we scored 3 or 4 breaks in a row in the second half. For our last game Sat morning, we were up a few breaks on Santa Maria but they came back to win on universe (13-12).

My takeaways:

• Continue to improve throwing and reduce turnovers. I only had turnovers in the games that we lost (2 each game vs CLX, Slow, Santa Maria).
• Be more disciplined on D. I still give up the deep sometimes.
• Still not great under pressure. Half of my throwaways were rushed throws at crucial moments in the game when we should be extra careful. When the pressure is on, respond by being even more patient and conservative.