Michigan Indoor Tournament Recap

As I'm laying on my bed icing my foot and feeling like poop, I realized it would be a great opportunity to write about this past weekend - our Michigan Indoor Tournament held at our own indoor facility. We had six total teams in attendance: Michigan, Michigan B, Northwestern, Indiana, Northwestern, and Michigan State. Basically, this was a tournament with most of the teams from the Great Lakes Region who will be vying for a spot at Nationals at Regionals.

Indiana:
Flywheel's first game was against Indiana. I felt really bad because they got lost on the way and there was a basketball game AND a hockey game so parking in Ann Arbor was atrocious. They got to the fields with 20 minutes before game so they had a very short warm up. However, they came out firing and scored the first point. Flywheel was not going to let them happen again and came back to tie it up and to then take a lead and never look back. The final score was 13-3 in Flywheel's favor. Indiana shows a lot of promise. #1 is a left-handed handler who has great awareness for the game of Ultimate. She can put up some nice hucks and is not afraid to break the mark. #99 is one of their go-to receivers. She is tall, can catch, and put up decent throws. Overall they were a decent team. I feel with development they can be a big competitor in the region. This is not trying to diss on them of course, but rather to just explain our game against them. They will put up hucks, and while they may not be textbook throws, they can come down with the catches that matter.

Michigan State:
We then turned to Michigan State for our next game. The final score was 13-3 but it felt a lot closer than that. Flywheel was playing in the Infamous way which is more frantic and hectic. This caused our offense to act like they were on speed and make bad decisions and throw many things away. Additionally, Infamous brought a big sideline to cheer their girls on, while definitely throwing in some heckling, however appreciated that can be... Our rookies were able to learn about certain foul calls during this game which added to the learning experience of the whole weekend. After addressing a few issues, we finally settled down and got into our rhythm. Notable players on their team include Scheidt (#6), Kotsiris (#8), and one more of their handlers. I can't quite remember her number but she had dark blonde hair and could break the mark nicely. But next time, lets keep the game a little more spirited, eh?

Notre Dame:
(*I was just informed that this was the Notre Dame X squad - they still haven't decided on a roster yet)
Moving on to day 2, we faced the Womb of Notre Dame. Last year we lost to them at Regionals on Universe point because we lost the flip in an extreme upwind/downwind game. This year, we were not going to let them beat us with zero wind. The first half took an hour to play (7-3 Flywheel at half). Again, Flywheel lost its identity and played according to Notre Dame's style. They had one handler (shorter with long brown hair) who had forehand hucks that reminded me of butter - so smooth! Additionally they had a commanding presence in one of their backfielders (name of either Katie, Kathryn, Megan, or Molly - helpful I know...). For those people facing Notre Dame - she has longish blonde hair and every time I've seen her, she has been wearing shorter running shorts. Flywheel was inconsistent and not holstering. We have throwers who can huck it and we were forcing many throws that weren't there. After half, Flywheel finished the game in 15 minutes. A one hour half vs. a fifteen minute half... Obviously Flywheel figured out what to do and played our game.

Michigan B:
This game is always interesting. We love our B team and we want to keep the friendships there. However, they are just another opponent to us and we looked to beat them. The final score was 13-0. The spirit was maintained throughout and we had two rookie lines in which they each scored! Chelsea LeBlanc is an amazing handler on B team. Unfortunately she couldn't commit to A team because of time issues but boy would we love her! Her pulls are better than some of ours and she hucks it without fear. She is definitely their strongest player and hopefully she will be making big plays all year round.

Northwestern:
Flywheel was especially excited for Northwestern. We had been looking forward to this game for a while and got to our facility extra early to go over strategy for this game. We beat them last year at Regionals in Semis and wanted to keep our win streak over them. Flywheel and NW traded points all half but Gungho's break allowed them to take half 7-5. At half time we tried to figure out what was going wrong: our backfield defense was allowing too many in cuts and our handler defense was allowing too many strikes. We told the team at the beginning of the game that was their MO but yet they still beat us to it. Personally as a captain it was incredibly frustrating. I wanted to keep telling them not to get beaten in or up the line, but I was guilty of those things - as well as many of our other experienced players. We took a big breath at half and really analyzed their offense vs. our defense. We switched things up and took everyone's blinders off. Our team suddenly had field awareness and understood some key aspects about defense. We scored 8 unanswered points to finish the game 13-7. While I am super happy we won, I feel that Northwestern lost to us rather than us beating them. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I feel that we almost got a little lucky. That will not do at our next tourney - Pres Day. Notable players obviously have to include #77 Sara Miller, #4 Lien Hoffman, and #8 Sarah Hong. Miller is a quick handler who has very good throws: both IO forehands and deep hucks. She is constantly involved in every play and is always looking for the disc. Hoffman is a great cutter who reads the disc expertly and catches very well, not to mention her great defense. Last year she was a cutter but today she handled for a few. I don't know if that was because they were short of handlers or because that is her new role. In any case, she definitely stood out. Hong is another solid cutter with amazing hands, snagging loopy discs from the air.

So to recap our weekend, Flywheel went 5-0. We feel confident going into practice knowing what we have to work on and what works well for us. We have three short weeks before Pres Day and will be busting everyone's butts in order to make an impact in the Cali tournament.