Vegas Day 2

Another morning where we all woke up with all of our organs is another successful night in Vegas. None of us will ever forget when Dan had his spleen removed last year as he slept in that tub of ice. Yeah, it was pretty dangerous, but he lost that Rosham, and Watson had every right to cash in on what he was owed. His pound of flesh, or 1.54 pounds of spleen, if you will.

So, with Yi all healed up by now, we drove back out to the fields. After initially predicting we would be opening against Cornell, we were happily proven incorrect when we learned that UCLA were to be our opponents. Unlike last year, we really did get a chance to play against some diverse as hell teams at Vegas this time, and it was also much easier to figure out where you stood exactly in the overall scheme of the tournament. Kudos, cultimate. Kudos.

Smaug, a clever literary/climatological reference, came out playing pretty well, and we fired back. Breaks were traded, from what I can remember, and we played well enough at first. What was pretty cool about this game, from a Dartmouth perspective, was that we really adjusted well to one of the problems we were having - dump set up and pushing the stack up the field with our handlers. After a halftime demonstration from Coach Seigs and pretty consistent reminders from the sidelines, our handlers got much better very quickly at setting up in a more dangerous position before making their cuts. We ended up losing this game because we could not finish on D, not getting breaks on points where we held the disc 2 or 3 times. A shitty call towards the end allowed them to end the game on a break, 11-9, but as frustrating as it is to play a solid game and have it marred by an egregious call, that was not the reason we lost. We convert a break earlier, or hold onto the disc a bit better on one of our O points, and it doesn't come down to Charlie's decision to jump over a player instead of implanting his pivot foot on the dude's neck. Ah well.

Next came UC-Berkley, UgMo, who we lost to at Vegas last year on Universe point after controlling the game for most of the way. This year's team impressed me way, way more than the 2006 incarnation did and did not depend on one stud the way that team seemed to. That also meant we couldn't just isolate one guy, and instead had to play their whole team. And in that respect, this game was really what we hope for out of our trip to Vegas (besides those free cards Crank was still distributing late last Spring. We come for those too): an opportunity to play solid ultimate against a West coast team that has a bit more practice, but at least 2/3 less grit, than the Pain Train does right now. We ended up losing this one 12 - 9, and from what I can recall the end was sort of like the end of the aTm game - we played hard, dug our heels in, but just didn't have time to make up the lead that had never seemed too daunting the whole game. Still, the attitude of this team again shown through, and we took these two successive losses for what they were - learning opportunities, games we could have won but didn't necessarily blow.

Plus, due to a surprising loss to Las Positas, we had the pleasure of taking on Carleton in the final round of the day. CUT is, like Mamabird, a top-tier team in college ultimate right now, and they rely on gritty play and rock-solid disc skills to take them places, due to the frigid, Hanover-like weather they go through. We really wanted to step up against this team and knock them on their asses right off the bat, but while we traded points at first, they scored on two throws on both of their first posessions thanks to a complicated play in their Ho-stack setup that looked like a weather pattern - the swirl, as Chimpo so elegantly put it. Long story short, we lost 13 - 7 and could have played better. Still, we scored on a decent percentage of our chances, even breaking them once. Still, our D did not force many turns, and if we can get to the point where we can rely on our stud D line to make every single throw a difficult prospect, games even against teams as gifted as CUT will be closer. Not a huge step forward, unlike most of our other endeavors this tourney, but still no grounds for discouragement.

So, an 0 - 3 day. Hey, it happens. I can say with absolute certainty that we have never played ultimate that well without winning a game, and we were straight chillin as we stole our pizza and watched the coaches game under the lights. Seigs, decked out like he was playing the title role of "Little Miss Sunshine" in a production directed by people who had never seen the movie, threw nothing but "Completions. Completions." Except for one turnover. Still, he D'd up Ben Wiggens, extending the rivalry which is approaching Mongoose vs. Black Mamba proportions. (Seriously - white guy with dark hair, defensive specialist, taking on the former MVP? It was destined. And if you got this joke, please let me know, because an obscure TV commercial for a Playstation game is a pretty pathetic name to drop.) In conclusion: my jersey got major facetime.