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.
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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.
Dude, your last paragraph is bomb. It's how I feel. Not only can I not control the other teams and upsets...but I can't control the loss that's in the past. Just the future.
ReplyDeleteGood luck at Regionals :-)