Thursday, April 28, 2011
Regional Preview
Rather than write another preview, I will put up the link of my writeup on USA Ultimate... http://www.usaultimate.org/news/preview-2011-college-womens-regionals-great-lakes/
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Regionals - get into it
Our Regionals is this weekend, along with many other teams, and boy I will not be lying when I say I am PUMPED UP! I've always been pumped up to play in this weekend but I don't know what it is about this year - maybe it is because it is my last year playing, maybe it is because I absolutely love this team... not sure. But whatever it is, I get so jacked whenever I think about this weekend.
Getting yourself 'into' this weekend is super important, I feel. I have spent this past week thinking about the teams that are going to be there, who their top players are, what style of offense and defense they run, and when we are going to play them so I can be mentally ready when that team steps onto the line across from us. I have memorized the schedule so I know when and where we are going to be playing. These details are important in focusing for the weekend. Nothing can distract you going into this and knowing all of the details takes away from the distractions.
I've also been visualizing. If I can't fall asleep at night or I can't find anything else to do, I've been visualizing my play at Regionals. I visualize myself getting a hand block, throwing the goal to Pimp, catching the goal from Adrienne, hucking to Bemu, switching on defense with Paula, etc. I also visualize Northwestern's (our biggest competition at Regionals) players and what I'm going to do to stop them. This task I also find extremely important in getting yourself ready for the weekend. If you can see yourself doing these things, you have a lot better shot of actually doing them.
On a related note, I have been visualizing things I have done in games. I'm not visualizing a layout Callahan, a 'greatest', or throwing a full field huck. I wish I could do all of those, but I have not yet done them this season, let alone my college career. I don't find it beneficial to be spending my time visualizing those things when I can visualize things I CAN do. If I happen to get a layout Callahan, I will be extremely happy. But if I can shut down my girl and not let her score a goal while I am throwing our team's goals, I will be more happy.
This isn't the time to be trying ridiculous new things. Your team has gotten to where it has because it has been doing certain things. Keep doing those things. You can always improve on those fundamentals - no team is perfect. But trust in your team and your players and your system. You've been great so far and now its time to be the greatest in the region.
You have many other days to eat a bunch of sweets, drink alcohol, or do other 'harmful' things to your body. This week is not the time. This may be the last weekend your team plays together, and honestly, who wants that? Get yourself mentally and physically prepared.
Go get 'em.
Getting yourself 'into' this weekend is super important, I feel. I have spent this past week thinking about the teams that are going to be there, who their top players are, what style of offense and defense they run, and when we are going to play them so I can be mentally ready when that team steps onto the line across from us. I have memorized the schedule so I know when and where we are going to be playing. These details are important in focusing for the weekend. Nothing can distract you going into this and knowing all of the details takes away from the distractions.
I've also been visualizing. If I can't fall asleep at night or I can't find anything else to do, I've been visualizing my play at Regionals. I visualize myself getting a hand block, throwing the goal to Pimp, catching the goal from Adrienne, hucking to Bemu, switching on defense with Paula, etc. I also visualize Northwestern's (our biggest competition at Regionals) players and what I'm going to do to stop them. This task I also find extremely important in getting yourself ready for the weekend. If you can see yourself doing these things, you have a lot better shot of actually doing them.
On a related note, I have been visualizing things I have done in games. I'm not visualizing a layout Callahan, a 'greatest', or throwing a full field huck. I wish I could do all of those, but I have not yet done them this season, let alone my college career. I don't find it beneficial to be spending my time visualizing those things when I can visualize things I CAN do. If I happen to get a layout Callahan, I will be extremely happy. But if I can shut down my girl and not let her score a goal while I am throwing our team's goals, I will be more happy.
This isn't the time to be trying ridiculous new things. Your team has gotten to where it has because it has been doing certain things. Keep doing those things. You can always improve on those fundamentals - no team is perfect. But trust in your team and your players and your system. You've been great so far and now its time to be the greatest in the region.
You have many other days to eat a bunch of sweets, drink alcohol, or do other 'harmful' things to your body. This week is not the time. This may be the last weekend your team plays together, and honestly, who wants that? Get yourself mentally and physically prepared.
Go get 'em.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Conferences: Ours plus notes on others
Trying to find something to distract me from studying, I decided to write my recap of our Conferences Championship this weekend. Approaching this tournament is always interesting for Michigan. For the past few years, we have been the clear number one seed at this tournament, and that showed again this year (Michigan with a USA Ultimate score of 1868 and the next highest was ND with 1112). However, it is the post season and anything can happen. The weather in Michigan in April is unpredictable and it gave us a temp of 53 (felt like 37) with 20mph winds and sleet/rain/some snow. Even though we were favored, we couldn't let that get to us and we had to perform. This is not a tournament to sluff off. We had to prove why we were favored.
For the most part, we did. But there were moments of some really bad Ultimate on our part. Overall we scored 59 points on the weekend and had 10 scored on us. Those stats are pretty decent but could have been improved. Some of our games went to cap and that was all our fault. Silly drops, not thinking about the wind when throwing, and a stagnant backfield left us playing longer than we should have. Don't get me wrong, I am not attacking or downgrading our opponents - I just personally think we could have played better than we did.
On the plus side, it is really nice to walk away from a game winning 15-3 having a list of things to improve upon. While that says something about our game (we weren't playing like we should have), it also says that our team has not reached its potential yet. We have a lot to improve on before Regionals in 2 weeks. Being ranked 5th in the nation has put a target on our back, something we haven't had for a few years. We cannot get comfortable with where we are.
---------
On a semi-related related note, I looked at scores from across and the nation and was surprised by a few:
1. Northwestern lost 2 games on Saturday but ended up winning the Conference (I'm guessing the wind helped with those losses)
2. UNC beat UNCW 13-9
3. Stanford crushed Cal 13-5
4. Wisconsin Eau-Claire beat Wisconsin 8-7
5. Iowa State beat Iowa 11-6
Who knows what will happen next week in the last round of Conferences and then again at Regionals in 2 weeks. Interesting interesting things I'm sure. But that is not something I can control. What I can control is how often I get outside to practice throwing, how hard I work at practice, and how I mentally prepare myself for the big weekend.
2 weeks. Get er done.
For the most part, we did. But there were moments of some really bad Ultimate on our part. Overall we scored 59 points on the weekend and had 10 scored on us. Those stats are pretty decent but could have been improved. Some of our games went to cap and that was all our fault. Silly drops, not thinking about the wind when throwing, and a stagnant backfield left us playing longer than we should have. Don't get me wrong, I am not attacking or downgrading our opponents - I just personally think we could have played better than we did.
On the plus side, it is really nice to walk away from a game winning 15-3 having a list of things to improve upon. While that says something about our game (we weren't playing like we should have), it also says that our team has not reached its potential yet. We have a lot to improve on before Regionals in 2 weeks. Being ranked 5th in the nation has put a target on our back, something we haven't had for a few years. We cannot get comfortable with where we are.
---------
On a semi-related related note, I looked at scores from across and the nation and was surprised by a few:
1. Northwestern lost 2 games on Saturday but ended up winning the Conference (I'm guessing the wind helped with those losses)
2. UNC beat UNCW 13-9
3. Stanford crushed Cal 13-5
4. Wisconsin Eau-Claire beat Wisconsin 8-7
5. Iowa State beat Iowa 11-6
Who knows what will happen next week in the last round of Conferences and then again at Regionals in 2 weeks. Interesting interesting things I'm sure. But that is not something I can control. What I can control is how often I get outside to practice throwing, how hard I work at practice, and how I mentally prepare myself for the big weekend.
2 weeks. Get er done.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Missing Graduation
After much debate and discussion, the decision was finally made for me to not attend the University of Michigan graduation in the Big House (our football stadium).
Michigan's graduation each year falls on the same weekend as Regionals. It is up to the Seniors each year to determine if they are going to graduation or Regionals. Whatever is chosen, there are no harsh thoughts or feelings towards those going to graduation. I emailed Jeff Kula and other USA Ultimate people and tried this year to get Regionals on the second available weekend, but there are more schools that graduate then so the weekend of April 30th was chosen. After I heard that, I accepted it with a heavy heart because I knew my parents were going to want me to go to graduation over Regionals. Its something that I accepted and just had to move on from it.
But the other day, I came to a realization that led to an interesting phone call with my parents. At graduation, each Senior is allowed to sit wherever he/she wants - allowing each Graduate to sit among his/her friends. I started to think about who I was going to sit with and it left me stumped. I started to think of my close friends - my house came to my mind first. My house has 5 Ultimate players (out of 6 people total) and only one other is graduating, Becky. Becky and her parents decided for her to skip graduation and attend Regionals. My other close Senior friends are taking a fifth year. My other other close friends have either graduated or are graduating next year. So really, I didn't know who I was going to sit with. Graduation is a time to acknowledge your achievements throughout your college career and to celebrate with your friends the success you've had on the way. If almost all of my close friends were going to be at Regionals, then that is where I wanted to be.
Don't get me wrong - I find the ceremony of Graduation really awesome. But I didn't want to spend the entire time sitting among other random groups of friends thinking about my friends who were going to be playing Ultimate in Rockford, Illinois. These were the people that I spent most of my college career with. I've grown with them, played with them, traveled with them, cried with them, laughed with them, matured with them... Ultimate, and the friends I made within Ultimate, is what defines my college career. THIS is how I wanted to spend my graduation.
To compromise with my parents, I'm attending my department graduation on Friday afternoon. They will still see me graduate, hear my name called (which is actually different than if we went to the one on Saturday), and get to take pictures of me in my cap and gown. But then I will get to go and join my team and play in order to make it to Nationals.
This is how I want my college life to end. I want to be among my team, my friends, and my Flywheel family. Not to mention I want to be with MagnUM guys as well - certain ones in particular being Spencer (my housemate), Jonathan or "JAMP" (my brother), and Jeff (my boyfriend).
I am now SO looking forward to both graduation AND Regionals. I get to graduate, participate in the ceremony, and then play in Regionals as we fight our way to Nationals.
In the end, it all works out.
Michigan's graduation each year falls on the same weekend as Regionals. It is up to the Seniors each year to determine if they are going to graduation or Regionals. Whatever is chosen, there are no harsh thoughts or feelings towards those going to graduation. I emailed Jeff Kula and other USA Ultimate people and tried this year to get Regionals on the second available weekend, but there are more schools that graduate then so the weekend of April 30th was chosen. After I heard that, I accepted it with a heavy heart because I knew my parents were going to want me to go to graduation over Regionals. Its something that I accepted and just had to move on from it.
But the other day, I came to a realization that led to an interesting phone call with my parents. At graduation, each Senior is allowed to sit wherever he/she wants - allowing each Graduate to sit among his/her friends. I started to think about who I was going to sit with and it left me stumped. I started to think of my close friends - my house came to my mind first. My house has 5 Ultimate players (out of 6 people total) and only one other is graduating, Becky. Becky and her parents decided for her to skip graduation and attend Regionals. My other close Senior friends are taking a fifth year. My other other close friends have either graduated or are graduating next year. So really, I didn't know who I was going to sit with. Graduation is a time to acknowledge your achievements throughout your college career and to celebrate with your friends the success you've had on the way. If almost all of my close friends were going to be at Regionals, then that is where I wanted to be.
Don't get me wrong - I find the ceremony of Graduation really awesome. But I didn't want to spend the entire time sitting among other random groups of friends thinking about my friends who were going to be playing Ultimate in Rockford, Illinois. These were the people that I spent most of my college career with. I've grown with them, played with them, traveled with them, cried with them, laughed with them, matured with them... Ultimate, and the friends I made within Ultimate, is what defines my college career. THIS is how I wanted to spend my graduation.
To compromise with my parents, I'm attending my department graduation on Friday afternoon. They will still see me graduate, hear my name called (which is actually different than if we went to the one on Saturday), and get to take pictures of me in my cap and gown. But then I will get to go and join my team and play in order to make it to Nationals.
This is how I want my college life to end. I want to be among my team, my friends, and my Flywheel family. Not to mention I want to be with MagnUM guys as well - certain ones in particular being Spencer (my housemate), Jonathan or "JAMP" (my brother), and Jeff (my boyfriend).
I am now SO looking forward to both graduation AND Regionals. I get to graduate, participate in the ceremony, and then play in Regionals as we fight our way to Nationals.
In the end, it all works out.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
SOTG
I've gotten into some conversations about SOTG recently and instead of just letting those thoughts stay in my head, I might as well post them in a place where who ever in the world wanted to read them, could.
One of the things I will say from the beginning, and I hope its stressed throughout the post, is that I find SOTG extremely important. Especially in the development of the sport, I think that SOTG is a crucial and critical part of the game. For the most part I think that most people will agree with those statements. However, I think each person has a slightly different view of what SOTG actually is.
I find that too many times, more so in the women's college division, SOTG is a synonym for "being nice". I really don't like that idea. You can still not have the best spirit but be nice about it. Being nice is an added bonus that will add to the overall 'feel' of the game, but it doesn't necessarily constitute spirit. By all means I think being nice is awesome and I love when teams are nice. But being nice doesn't necessarily mean you have great spirit. Last year we played a team at Centex and lost miserably 2-13. Obviously we could not score and we didn't play well against this team. After the game, the team came over and sang us a song with one of the lyrics being "we couldn't stop your hucks, your defense was great". Clearly, those were wrong. They DID stop our hucks and our defense COULDN'T stop them. While this team may have been going for the 'nice' factor, I was not happy with this at all. It was just another way to reopen that wound. I had a bad feeling in my gut after being blown out by a team and when they sang lyrics that were obviously not true, I just honestly wanted to walk away.
Having good spirit is making the right calls. So when a girl travels for the fifth time in a point each time she hucks it, calling that travel each time is correct and spirited. What I don't consider spirited is when you are winning 13-1 against a developing team and you call a travel on a girl who took a TEENY tiny step that gained her no advantage. Instead, I like to go up to her after the point and let her know she was travelling.
Sometimes when a team makes a lot of calls, their opponent will deem them as unspirited. I hate this idea. Making the right calls is spirited (see previous paragraph). It is up to us as players to make calls since we don't have refs that will call fouls and violations. That is what spirit is about. You shouldn't not make a call because "you feel bad" during a competitive game. Make a call and stick to it. SOTG is there to encourage good and fair play.
I would say about 99.99% of this post relates to college women's ultimate. I don't necessarily see that is the college open division or the club women's division.
*One side note. There have been a few girls I've played against who make the right calls but do so in an ugly manner. What I mean by that is snapping at the other team when explaining the rule. You may be right, but there is no reason to do so in a mean or smart-ass tone. Just explain yourself in a respectable voice. That is all I'm asking for.
I've reread this post a few times and I really hope I'm not coming across as an asshole. I like SOTG. I think games should be played in a spirited way. I just really don't like when teams aren't spirited or don't necessarily know what spirit is. You may disagree with my post but each person is entitled to his/her own opinion. And since this is my blog, you are going to be reading my opinion.
Last year my team was ranked last in the spirit rankings at Natties. Since I was a captain, I definitely was a little bummed about it because this was MY team. Who knows exactly why we got that but I really hope it wasn't because of our calls. We have girls who are not afraid to make calls and sometimes (like I said earlier) it is deemed as unspirited. I'm definitely hoping for a better spirit ranking this year if we make it to Natties - although since we were at the bottom, we can only go up...
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