Shabooyah, sha, sha, shabooyah roll call! My name is James,
I am an ’11,
I’ll tell you about our games,
And nothing rhymes with eleven!
Shabooyah, sha, sha, shabooyah roll call!
For some reason, I decided a few days ago that that’s how I’d start my very first post.
So, all about Lemony. Lemony Fresh, a five-year tournament that has a spring and a fall classic involved, went down in East Greenwich, RI in Goddard Memorial Park on Saturday, November 10. Nobody knows where this is and probably no one cares. Well, I guess it’s kind of relevant because the A men were at Brown, so a weekend full of Rhode Island ultimate about to be dominated by the residents of Hanover? We will see.
We left campus at 5:15 in the morning because it was a three-hour drive and our first game was at 8:30. That makes enough sense. So we were ridin’ dirty, most of us passed out after a big party night the night before (or the night during?)
We finally get to the tourney at around 8:30, where we check in and realize that the TDs rescheduled our games so that we’d get a first-round bye. First-round bye. Meaning, first game at 10:30. Commotion ensues.
A bunch of people are out like Aurora Borealis for the next two hours, while a bunch of us went on a mission to find Sam Welch some cleats, which we found at Robert’s Music Soccer World. Sergio Mendes - Mas que nada anyone? On our way back to the park, we drive to our fields which were a ways from the front fields, and in the process, bam! We hit a cancer walk. No joke. We drive right into a bunch of grannies walking hard for a cause, and for a good 5 minutes feel worse than someone watching Diversity Day at The Office.
Anyway, games! That’s what this is for. Our first was up against Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s B team on a field with rolling hills. Estimated conditions of first pull: 30 degrees with wind the both of us, we were a little rusty and getting the hang of things, but we scored first. Then again. Then again. Then again. Then again. Then again. Then again. Then halftime. I won’t lie, but some of us were having delusions of fall season B team grandeur until WPI took maybe 50 seconds to score right after the half. They came back but we were able to tough it out to the hard cap, victorious 9-6.
Teeny analysis: Wind was going pretty cleanly either downfield or upfield, which made for some great hucking conditions, which although WPI recognized, may have been a little ridic wit (Gardner at one point actually pleaded with them to stop). Our zone defenses were unstoppable, they may have seen a zone at some point in the past but had no idea what to do with ours, too many floaty D-able passes. We made the right decisions by keeping it between our handlers with short passes, they kind of put the heat on with their first zone D in the second half but we converted a lot of our endzone opportunities, who said freshmen can’t be chilly?
Game 2: Brandeis B. Another horrible field shaped like a trapezoid, but disc is disc! They had two or three decent handlers who knew their way around, a big dude in tight jeans who was unstoppable on in-cuts, but come on, this is Disembodied Titty! Up 7-1 at the half, kept cruising to a 13-4 defeat. Wait, did I say defeat? I meant win.
We were nice and warmed up from our first game and knew exactly what to do and how to do it. The wind calmed down quite a bit too, almost a serene setting. We found out that they were in love with their flick, so much so that I boldly predicted that I felt a d-block on one of the handlers coming on. I did in fact get an index finger on one, but later we switched to zone so the fun was over. (If I self-call again, I’ll have to carry Pat to Sachem on my back.) Our zone at one point almost pushed them out the back of their endzone. But we played a lot like a Spring Break B team (I actually don’t know what Spring Break is all about but that’s what I hear), downright frosty with the disc, great decision-making, short passes, not many hucks, and another Gardner reference:
“We should stack behind the handler and run baby talk all day.”
- Quoted ad verbatim at halftime.
In the words of Trey, it was http://www.tittybombs.com. Click! I never have, so I actually have no idea what you’re about to see and am in no way responsible.
We went into town for lunch during our second bye, which technically now registers on the UPA site as a forfeit by Rhode Island College for never showing up. Fat and happy from some Subway’s we play our last team, Hartford B, which looked menacing to me because of their coordinated red jerseys and a tiny fear deep down within my soul that had be contemplating if we were just a puffing, choo-chooing fluke.
Hartford was athletic, stayed with us on most of our cuts. That said, a quote from an unidentified player on our team: “They got druids on their team and we’re still kicking their ass.” REMAINS unidentified. (They were just dudes wrapped up head to toe in blankets, but two girls and a dude who looked like a girl actually came in the game.) 7-2 at the half, they actually had some no-swill throws, but this trolley couldn’t be stopped.
After the half we threw a zone for fun, just kept going up and up, and 13-3 was the final tally after maybe 50 minutes of play. Faster than a sleepy Trey who consistently drove 80 miles per hour and made it look like 55. By the way, shoutouts to our drivers who were on the road for a total 7 hours, starting from the wee hours of the morning.
Team analysis:
This team is learning very quickly. A little more than a month ago, a lot of us were fresh or pretty fresh, but we’ve been learning all our schemes, throwing better, deciding better, hustling harder, and we’ve been improving together as a team. I believe it was Victory (or someone in Trey’s car on the way back, it’s my last memory of yesterday) that said that there were no weak links on this team, and it’s so true. In addition to the ‘11s that make up the vast majority of the team, our veteran upperclassmen leaders are really showing us how to do it, and together we make a great team. World, watch out: Discomfort Trolley is on the loose.
Final story of this post that went on way too long:
So on our way out, I was disturbed by the fact that we hadn’t seen any TDs come by our slummy fields in the boondocks the whole day and check up on us, get our scores, anything. So after we won our last game and headed out a little earlier than the rest of the team, I decided to go to the gazebo where they organized whatever organization there was. Here’s my conversation:
Me: Hey, I’m from Dartmouth, so I guess we won our division, do we just go home now or do you guys have something for us… or anything?
TD: Oh yeah, I do actually, give me a second (continues to fill our division’s scorecard, I see those 4 wins and 0 losses)
He then goes into the back of this big van in the parking lot with a bunch of stuff, rummages around, and after a few minutes, emerges from the depths with a bottle of J. Roget champagne in each hand.
Welcome to Dartmouth Ultimate.
- Cuddle Puddle
