Easterns

Wow - what a weekend.

On the plus side, we learned a lot this weekend. We learned what we cannot have happen and what we need to improve on. Additionally, I felt our play improved in certain areas from Pres Day. I feel that as long as we can walk away knowing those things it was, in short, a successful weekend.

On the other side, we have a LOT to improve on.

Harvard and NC State:
Our first two games were against Quesar and Jaga. In general we came out a little weak, probably after the long drive from Michigan. But we were able to turn things out. Nothing was too noteworthy of the games. Harvard is a different team than their Nationals team last year - I'm guessing a lot of it having to do with Jenny (#2) graduating. NC State has some throwers and some cutters, but Flywheel was able to shut them down.

Iowa:
In my four years, we have never played Iowa so we were excited about playing this team. Additionally, they had just come off a win at Midwest Throwdown so they were surging. Looking back on this game, I really don't know what happened in the beginning. They came down in a zone, we made poor decisions, they transitioned to offense really quickly, and before we knew it we were down 5-0. We were making simple mistakes so we knew if we fixed those up we would be able to hang with this team. After a time out and a half, we changed our mentality and came out strong. Unfortunately, we had dug ourselves into too big of a hole in the beginning. Plus side: we won the second half with a score of 8-6. On the other hand, we lost the game 13-10. Iowa has some quick cutters that transition to offense in a split second. I feel like this was one of the biggest factors into us losing the game.

UPenn:
Our lovely grad student Pimp went to UPenn for undergrad so she/we were excited to play her old team. Final score was 13-7. Smart match-ups and constant attacking won us this game. Southern BBQ plus paper plate awards followed leading to a fun and relaxing evening.

Sunday:
I might compare our Sunday to this. Our skill, our mental game, and our final scores all go along with this ride

Wisconsin:
Our game against Wisconsin was, in the end, a heart breaker. All of us were fired up to play them and it showed. We started on O and traded points until it was 2-2. Our defense clicked, we had switches, we had smart matchups, and our O delivered bringing the score 5-3. However, Bella battled back making it 5-5 and then eventually taking half 7-6. After what seemed to be the longest point, Flywheel tied it up at 7s but soft cap went on. Then it was at 8s - bringing it to universe point. Bella started on O and never turned it. We had them at stall 8 or 9 three times that point and their score was a high lofty pass to the sideline in the endzone for a really nice grab. We were knocked out. For some reason, this loss hurt tremendously. I've been knocked out the championship bracket at Nationals the past two years and this loss ranks up there with those. Luckily I have a boyfriend who plays ultimate and understands this all to call during moments like these. After some personal regrouping I was ready to discuss what happened with the leaders of our team. We decided on a few things, mainly that we do deserve to win games against good teams and we need to improve our defense, and got ready for our next game.

Texas:
This game was great. Amy K is a friend to a few of us so we were looking forward to playing them. They came out strong and scored the first point, but we knew we could do better. We broke their zone and played confidently the entire time. Texas is a team that has players very comparable to us which made the matchups fun. At one point, Amy threw a long disc that was going out of the endzone. I slowed down because it was going OB. However, one of the girls caught it OB, threw it back in, and my girl caught it for the Greatest. I was speechless. For one, I've never been in a game when a Greatest has been scored. Two, it was my girl who scored that. There was nothing I could do except applaud their effort and be happy for them. It was wicked cool. Final score was 11-6. Cool cool

Iowa State:
Oh my. Yikes on all accord. Apparently we were tired and played that way. Pretty soon we found the score to be 7-1. We were playing terribly. We weren't communicating in the backfield, we were being lazy on D, we were forcing things on O, and we were moving at 1/4 speed. After some uncharacteristic Amp yelling and Julia drawing out basic cuts, Flywheel decided to we are going to win this game somehow. Bemu hucking to Pimp for the score. One point. Paula's around backhand to Kim for the score. One point. Amp striking in the endzone. One point. Pimp cleaning up a mistimed jump/catch. One point. Pimp doing that again. One point. Pretty soon, Flywheel was making this a game. And here comes the "highlight" from that game. We started on D, Bemu pulled it out of bounds and Iowa State was setting up their O. We then realized that we only had 6 players on the field! Since the pull had already gone off, we could not put another player out there. It was going to be 6 vs. 7. We threw a poachy type zone to throw them off. Turn. We worked it down the field but then we threw an uncharacteristic hammer. Turn. They worked it down the field but threw it out of the endzone. Turn. Finally, we worked it down and Pimp caught the score! Somehow, Flywheel had managed to score with one less person on the field. We couldn't score during the first half with seven players but could during the second half with six. Maybe next time we go down we should play with fewer players... Ehh - probs not. But still - it was amazing. It definitely fueled us but, unfortunately due to cap, the score ended with them winning 10-11. We were SO close to coming back but damn the time limits!

During out debriefing we focused on the same thing from Pres Day - what is important is improving, not necessarily winning. I would rather not win a tournament during the regular season, but keep improving each time, and then perform exceptionally well at Nationals. The good part is we know where we need to improve. And also on the plus side was that our zone O looked good! This was the first time that I was confident during the entire weekend we could break throw any team's zone. And thank goodness! I was starting to get annoyed with losing to zones.

We now have two weeks until Centex to go over a few things at practices. Here we come Flywheel!