Played Woodbridge fall league with Team Reptar. Our opponents were pretty weak, so it wasn’t the best game, but I still enjoyed the unexcepted opportunity to run around and play. Gonna start playing with them every weekend, I think.
First night of fall league. Met my team, which turned out to be pretty cool. I was told it was very top-heavy, but I think all the players are at least decent. No one’s unathletic. We lost our first game to Bosco’s team by 1, then beat shockey’s team by 1. Everyone played well, though some of the newer players need some coaching. I got a decent number of Ds (mostly poach Ds) and threw some nice goals (mostly to Kamil). Indoor is a great workout.
3 days of ultimate with Metro North. Played 7 games total. Didn’t play that great overall, but improved throughout the weekend. Best game was the last game against Wildcard.
In general, my main places to improve are fitness (as always), throwing, and switching my mindset from D to O. My biggest issue was too many bad throwing decisions after getting a turn. I play much better when I look for breaks and move the disc quickly, not try to huck it. I don’t think I completed any hucks at all this weekend.
Btw, we finished 7th at nationals and qualified for the Pro Flight for next year.
I believe that love will find a way.
My first Northeast regionals experience. Pool play on Saturday was fairly easy. I think we beat every team by at least 6-7 points. Winning our pool put us up against Slow White in semis. That was one of the best games we’ve played all year. I didn’t play much (only a few points), but the team played well as a whole and we won on universe point. Since there are 4 bids this year, winning against Slow (only the 2nd time I’ve ever beaten them) made sure that we qualified for nationals, since we couldn’t do worse than 3rd at that point.
On Sunday, we played Wildcard in the finals. The game was decent but they played very strong D, went up 8-6 in the first half, then scored a few more breaks in the second to seal the win. Then we played Slow White again in the 2-3 placement game. Once again a solid game. This time they came out on top. Our defense converted 2 breaks (same as Saturday) but O gave up a few more that we couldn’t make up for.
T minus 18 days until Nationals.
Signed up last-minute for a hat tournament in Enfield (just north of Hartford). Ended up on Barb and Timmer’s team. We started off weak, getting crushed in our first game. But then we dug in and won the next two pool games and three straight semis games to win the tourney. The final was us vs. the team we lost to first game. We were really tired (the day was HOT) and had lost some players to injury and concerts, so we picked up a few replacements. They also lost their best player, but picked up quality replacements as well. Victory was sweet, esp because we got a round of free wings for winning. I also met a bunch of cool CT ultimate players.
In some ways the worst Wildwood yet. Cops were super annoying, got a $333 ticket for open display of alcohol. Played quite poorly most of the time. Shrooms didn’t do much. Diana wasn’t there.
In another sense, tourney was pretty good. Weather was great - not scorching hot, not pouring rain. Cline’s dance party at Stardust was sick. Stayed up till 4am both nights, got quite drunk but wasn’t hung over. Partied with lots of people I like. Played well against Rabs and Humiliswag. Saved a bunch of money by sleeping in my car (the ppl whose house I slept in front of were not too happy). Chilled with Jennie, Barb, Robb and Max a good amount.
Played a lot, esp on Saturday. Weather was super hot. Started off well, then went crazy and couldn’t stop hucking it away. Sunday was hotter and more humid, but we had a few subs and I felt way better. Didn’t cramp at all, had 0 turns, played fairly well.
We beat Muff N' Men in the finals to win the tourney.
Two days of fun in the sun with the sharkfuckers. Played 7 games with a combined point diff of 94-45. Wasn’t too tired because we didn’t have that many points to play. I had some silly turns of Sat but tightened it up on Sunday. The finals was my best game - no turns, at least 4 assists, a handful of Ds, and a hand block followed by a Rochester for the goal. We won $1000, threw it in the air, swam in it naked and swaggered around as much as we could.
Didn’t do too much in the way of workouts conditioning. Mostly played ultimate:
Today, a return to real workouts. Threw with Miriam at Wooster Square for over an hour. Worked on torso torque on my flicks, spin on my leftie backhands, and flight path on my hammers.
Two days of low-level pickup. Sri Lanka doesn’t have much of an ultimate scene, but a few players are trying to get it off the ground. They run pickup several times a week in Colombo, and occasionally travel to other cities to play. A few of the players have been to tournaments outside the country (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia) but most are casual players.
The pickup itself was fun. The weather was really hot and humid. I didn’t have cleats, so I played in my barefoot shoes. There wasn’t much stacking or force-holding, but everyone knew the rules and played with a lot of spirit and competitiveness.
Diana and I picked up with teams for a day of ultimate at the Grizzly Open. Diana played with the local powerhouse Care Bears. I played with (and even captained) a team of pickup players from the area. We both had a lot of fun playing and teaching. Diana even won the tourney in a very close game.
Three days of ultimate, partying and foolishness. We played mostly ok, considering the shitty weather, non-seriousness, and future water consumption. Our ladies (esp Sachie, Hanna, Raha) were consistently great. The rest of us had our moments of greatness and bogusness, but overall it was a glorious time. We lost in the semis of the middle bracket, played 8 games on the weekend, and sang “Everything is Drinking” at least 50 times. Max also got birthdayed at the sushi place and Markham won the party.
Started the playoffs with a game against Vanni’s team again. They scored the first few, but then we jumped out to a 10-3 lead and never looked back. We got pretty sloppy in the fourth, messing around and throwing fullfield hammers and thumbers. We just barely missed the big 4-oh, winning 39-16 or so.
Played RABS in WL. We were close most of the way but got frantic on O in the 4th quarter and let them widen the lead for the win. We played pretty solidly overall and adjusted well to their game (taking away the deep cuts and the around throws). I did not play that well down the stretch, throwing away some bad throws in the 4th quarter. I also hurt my knee on a high layout in the middle of the game, but that seems to be doing better.
Played a WL game against Vanni’s team. We had all of our guys there, so I didn’t really play that much. They also weren’t that strong, so the game was pretty relaxed for us. My fav play of the night was Robb throwing me a thumber just outside the endzone, and then me turning and throwing Billy a Rochester for the score. Final score: 39-15
Overnight tourney in Pittsburgh. Not sure how much I’ll play, but if I can’t run I’ll definitely be working out on the sideline.
Had an excellent time playing with the Molar Bears at Mosh this weekend. For a first-year team, we set the bar pretty high for level of play, level of fun, and finish in the tourney (lost in the finals). The wind was rough and the cold was somewhat annoying, but I had a lot of fun.
Bicuspids bite, molars crush
Bears love cold. Let’s win Mosh
We cruised through regionals, winning all our games by a good margin. No team made it to double digits against us. Our O line didn’t get broken once all weekend, and we had very few unforced turns all around. The intensity was good, even when we were winning by a lot.
We spent an hour or so on Saturday talking about spirit. Amp often gets low spirit scores, though we don’t think we have poor spirit. So there must be something we’re missing, something we need to pay attention to and improve so we’re not seen as jerks. Some good points were that we want the teams we beat to cheer for us and be proud when we represent the region. We don’t have to make friendly banter on the sidelines or smile at everyone, but we do need to respect our opponents as worthy adversaries and recognize when they are doing something well. Some teams we mentioned as examples of good spirit are Polar Bears, Slow White, Fury, Riot, the men on CLX.
For me personally, I played well on the weekend, though I didn’t play much (esp on Saturday). I did have one drop and one rushed semi-throwaway that I should not have had, but besides that I think I was very effective all around. I did notice myself rushing during our last game. I’ll try to remember that feeling so I can notice it in myself in the future. Brayden (the AG coach) also gave me some good feedback during the game.