Sectionals

See, it is one thing to bang out a quick recap of what we do at practice. Writing a full weekend's worth of game updates is much less pleasant - add to that the fact that I can barely sit still this week in anticipation of Regionals, and man, I don't know how much effort I'm going to put into this. I guess I gave away that we made Regionals.

We got there somewhat latish, cause the bus got lost? I dunno, I was amazingly fast asleep on the bus. Hibernation. Warm ups, scrimmage ourselves with a litany of spies from the other teams in the section watching us, etc. Luckily for us, we got all of our weak playing out in that first scrimmage.

A few teams never showed up, costing the section a bid to regionals, and turning a 4 (and, for a brief moment, 3) game tournament into 7 games for us, the top seed. Started against Bridgewater State once the situation was fixed. Umm. It wasn't close. They've got a good handler guy. Nobs took a girl to the house quite a few times. Huge layout Ds by Carson, Cobbles and Dermott in this game.


Then, UNH. We've played them a bunch over my tenure at Dartmouth, they always seem to have some type of chip on their shoulder - hard to explain exactly what I mean, but they certainly don't like us. Last year at Sectionals some short chump threw up a big spike on us when they scored to make it 12 - 2, which I didn't appreciate. Anyways, we played them hard, and stuck to the fundamentals. They have some very legitimate talent, which we shut down for the most part. A lot of teams in the section like to rely on the deep game, not wanting to do the work required to be a good ultimate team, and we never let them this weekend, which was baller.

Next was Colby. I always wonder what it would be like if I was playing Denton King in these games, and he was just some dude in a blue shirt with a big C on it, instead of this glorious ATLien I know and love. Anyways, I don't recall all that much about this team except that it had some good Ds against us - really the only team that I recall actually blocking discs we threw, as opposed to getting turns off our drops. Not that they did it often, but I recall a few shots to the endzone getting knocked around.

Last game of the day was Bowdoin. Now, this is a legit team. We're better, no doubt about it, but these guys have some good skillsets - interesting D looks, good break throws, rips in the air, etc. I think they actually broke us before we broke them, but once we busted out our zone look, we got Ds pretty reliably. This was by far our closest game of the day, in fact of the weekend, 13-8. As Socks said afterwards, we done well, but man, we need to fire it up, actually force those turns instead of waiting for them.

Bus to Chinese buffet and then to Graham's, I slept through what I'm told was a nice desert. In the Maineline motel, we got a bunch of rooms. Some folks played video games, Dermott watched Planet Earth, I saw the Flyers sucker punch the Canadians in Montreal, then flipped over to the end of True Lies.

"BYE!"

Ok, so we went back on Sunday morning, I don't recall much of the last pool play game, but then we had Dalhousie in the semis. Dal, I feel, has always demanded some respect on this team, ever since they destroyed the Pain Train in 04 or 05 with a bunch of ineligible players. In years past, they haven't brought many guys - it is a long, long drive, and usually during their finals or something. THis year, they had a lot of dudes, and I'd estimate the median age at 47. But we came out firing on all cylinders, really ready to lay it down. They planned on forcing us out, but we both managed to easily get open under and take those deep shots they were giving us when they were open. Beautiful, really fun game. There was an awful travel call against me, but so goes life.

In the finals, we saw Bowdoin, victors of UMF. So we were spared having to directly dreg up memories of last year's nail biter in the semis, 16-14. No question, NONE WHATSOEVER that we would have rolled the Beavers, but it's nice to keep your mental health in positive spirits the whole time. Bowdoin, as they showed with their 3 man team last year, only really cares about making it to regionals, which they had done by making the finals. So, they opened up the rotation a bunch, and we rolled to Sectional victory 15-7.

So, because of various other Sectionals results, we've earned the second seed at Regionals. Harvard is top dog on the other side of the bracket, having bested Tufts in Sectionals. Below us are B Mo, The EMen, Umass, WUFO, BC and MIT. We'll face Rhode Island in the first round on Saturday morning, and from there it's all up in the air. One thing I am happy about is the fact that Bowdoin and UMF got some respect in the seedings this year - I feel that they are strong programs, and while they are rarely talented enough to get out of the first round of regionals, they can certainly do damage to any team in the region.

Ok, that's all from me for now. It is raining in Hanover, which meant we just had tossing, no practice yesterday - but that's ok, we needed to get our legs back under us, and touches in the rain are valuable as well. Wow, regionals in like 4 days. Go pain train.

Lite

As in, Lite practice today. Also, DUF Lite is a yellow bequest shirt someone (Jake Routhier?) has.

Where was I?

Oh yes - practice. And its comparative lack of weight. But only in a good way - we ran a good hard scrimmage to three, or maybe it was to five, and then worked on mark positioning, man defense and cutting off of one another's cuts.

Then talkie talkie and stretching. Series starts tomorrow.

woot woot.

Scrimmage Scrimmage Scrimmage

A recipe for today's Pain Train practice. Winds picked up at Sachem for the first time since we got back out there, so we focused on running zone. In the first scrimmage, it was a lot of D line pulling, throwing a zone look, O line working it fairly well but not all the way and then D line trying for a quick score before O's zone got set. I guess that is somewhat close to the things we can expect to see against other teams - our D might face some zones, but I'd guess not a ton, and I don't know for sure how often our O line is planning on running a zone (since I've predicted zero turnovers for them from here to Worlds, I'd guess never.)
Then a break, some more scrimmaging focused on getting off the sidelines, then another scrimmage that the O line romped in. At the end, huddles and optional half hour of plyos as the thunder rolled in.

Sectionals this weekend, good focus on that at the moment. I heard we might be staying at hotels, which will be different from previous years, but I'm looking forward to insisting that ESPN be on at all times, as that one book about ultimate clearly states is my right.

lamar

Not Much To Report

We practiced again today. As Schmidty put it in part 17 of his Day blitz, "As it is a day, yes, we have practice." It was fun, although we were missing GBot, Ziggity and Mackey (all for valid reasons) and it was amazing how different practice feels when you don't have even one of your teammates there (or rather, when even one of your teammates isn't there. I could go back and change that sentence, but why bother?)


Oh, and the PLayout won Sectionals by like a million and three.

lamar

Back At Sachem

It is real sweet to get back on our homefields at Sachem. We've finally been approved to play their with our cleats on, so we have at this point moved away from Radclif, as well as it has served us, to get back at our home base. A field is a field, but it is great to get out there and be right next to the BNess guys, who brought their heckle during the warmups and alternated between playing boot and ultimate.
On the A side, we started with an O vs. D scrimmage to three, with double scoring rules in effect. For sort of the first time, the need to score twice was an impediment - I think we turned it two or three times after the initial scores? Anyways, as always when we're playing ourselves it is difficult to know if we should be encouraged about the good D or frustrated with the stagnant O, but whatever.

So then afterwards we started to do some sortof 5 pull with the 'stud' lines on O and D playing against the other guys. If nothing else, it was a lot of fun to play with guys we normally don't get to - swinging to Dorner and communicating in the zone with Nick Brown and Schmidty was cool. Anyways, O Studs struggled in the first 5 pull set - they didn't get a score, although most of their turns were just misexecutions, and the other guys line did get one score for ourselves. In the next set, O started to do a bit better, with some big flick puts from Mischa getting pulled down.
Next, we switched it up so that the stud D line was playing against the rest of the team, and this time we played normal scrimmage rules (i.e. play until there's a score, not just two turns) except with the D pulling every time. This was fun - our studs only really got beaten when the other team scored very quickly, from what I recall. I think there are some good things to pick up from that, and also that we've got to run our zones more in that set so that when we want to throw them we're totally prepared.

Conditioning was 10-20s, with throws. I actually prefer this to 5-10s, you're not hitting the same turns, and the rest is longer. I dunno, it was a good one, especially because it helps the guy about to run work on his throws - they've got to be flat, spinning hard and reaching the guy just as he turns. Money money money.

After practice, we talked about the day, the week and so on. After the huddle, discussion turned to the playoff beards we're all working on, and particularly to Mountain Man Meyers, who insisted he was about to shave. This couldn't be allowed to happen, so after a ton of berating he agreed to Rosham for it with Watson. The stakes were high - if Beans lost, he couldn't shave until our season was over, and if he won Watson had to wax his back at the post-Regionals party. However, Watson won the first throw, and after a dramatic pause threw his Fire to win the battle and condemn Molly to a few weeks of discomfort.

Oh, and the new shorts came. Ballllllller.

lamar

Saturday Practice

Sectionals was canceled for us Male-types, because Maine is wet still, or something like that. I don't really get it. Anywho, we'll play in Sectionals next weekend, location tbd, but we didn't let this gorgeous day go to waste. We got out on the fields around 12:15, fought hard to three and then broke the team into handlers and cutters. Seigs, who came up to help us out for the day, worked with the 6 handlers on dump positioning in a variety of situations and looking for a second break look when the mark has overcommitted. The cutters worked on timing in cuts on top of one another and then timing in cuts to deep looks - from what I could see there were some purrdy, purrdy connections out there.

After the drills we went back into a scrimmage between O and D, which was originally supposed to go to 5 but kicked our asses during the first few points because of the stipulations that each turnover be moved to the sideline before the other team could play and that every score needed to be thrown twice. Big stuff in this game from Kell, who got deep for some puts (and also had a gorgeous put of his own in the first game) and used his body well to keep the defenders off of him. Watson and Misha had nice deep looks to Misha and Carson respectively that were juuuuuust out the back, and Cobbles put up hucks on the break side with seeming impunity. I'm not totally convinced I used that last word correctly.

We're headed back out to Radcliff tomorrow, some time in the afternoon so everyone can recover from their Manischevitz rage tonight. Go Tribe!

lamar

Ugh

It was friggin hot today, just a gorgeous day for ultimate. I was so psyched to play all day, and then I got out there and sucked like none other. So I'm going to move past this and give the practice less attention than it deserves, except to say that the O line stepped up and finally beat down the D in a scrimmage.

Don't think I'm losing my blogging mojo, I'm just not pumped to replay the day.

lamar

Practice Report Wednesday

Back to the fields in White River Junction - good stuff. Great stuff. Tons of folks out there today, only missing what, 2 guys? Awesome. Particularly encouraging is seeing guys like Baller and GMail get out on the fields with their teammates, even when battling injuries that keep them out of scrimmages.

So we scrimmaged a lot, O vs. D, and worked on some defensive sets. More power position and hucking work, I was particularly stoked about the Misha-Mackey and Kell-Dermo match ups, which we got to see time and time again. Today was a 'big shot' heavy day in scrimmage, as relatively few goals were scored by just working it up. Billy and Kell both cut well for the D line, opening up space and providing bail outs when the handlers got too passive or covered, and Dermott's breaks up field set up a lot of yard gainage. On the other side of the disc, the boys in white played chilly offense and were not perceptibly thrown off by our defensive looks. Good to see, frustrating to practice against.

Conditioning at the end, throw and run in pairs. Buzzam.

lamar

First Monday Practice

MWF

3-6

That's what I'm talking about.


So we got pushed around by some lacrosse bullies, who we totally could have taken, and that sent us out of the friendly confines of Kilowatt field in search of greener grass. We found it somewhere in Vermont. I could not lead you back to those fields if I had to. Which I might have to at some point. Better get to memorizing.

Today was a day all about zone. We ran the same offenses against the same zoney looks for point after point, trying to iron out all 4 sides of the disc (O line offense and defense, D line offense and defense = 4 sides of the disc). Made some progress, particularly on the O-line's zone communication, which is key because we can plug some of those guys into D line spots when needed. Then we played a hard fought O vs. D game to 5, which D took 5-3 thanks to some heads up bailouts by Will, a huge grab by Dermott and nasty run past D on the final point by Alex Kell. On the O side, our superstars Watson and Cobbs dominated, but everybody spread the field well, opening up huge looks to Nobs, Schmidty and Nick Breezy.

FIRST PRACTICE!! HOORAY!!

and it was Kell Day. We're in to the '10s.

Up it up,

lamar

Practice Report April 13

The Pain Train headed out to Kilowatt fields again today, again short of a full cohort but just barely able to reach the magic number of 14 with the inclusion of Capitan Emeritus Ranger. Started with a basically O vs. D scrimmage to 3, a bunch of miscues on this one. Then, after some minor personnel swaps, we ran it to 3 again, with promised punishments for any and all turnovers. O line had two turns, both enormous lay out Ds from McLargeHuge, and good heads up-ness by the D line saved two other turns (arguably even three). Ran some 5-10s as punishment.
Then, in the last scrimmage, we mandated everyone play zone, and there were no fast breaks. Worked in the Box and 1 we saw from the boys from Cambridge, and both sides generated a lot of turns, which is both exciting and worrying. Now is when we work.

Anyways, punishment this time was kill drill, we ran 20 double cuts, catches and throws. Nick Brown showed up just in time to not play a single point but to get to run this workout.

Good stuff, train. Oh, and it was Bullocks Day. Nice.

lamar

Practice Report April 12

Just got back from a practice on a local field. Good stuff from our leadership, getting creative in order to get us some touches on the grass. We were missing a ton of folks today - Watson's becoming an engineeeeeer, Mackey and Bullocks had business in the NY State capital, Nick Brown is out melting hearts somewhere, Kell is out crushing skulls somewhere, etc. etc. Still, we showed up with 14 plus an injured Robin and then we scrimmaged O line vs. D, ran a drill meant to improve our big puts out of power position and ended with some 7 offense against 6 defenders, a drill meant to improve our on-field communication. D-line, I'm proud to say, got 3 Ds before our buddies on the O could even get 3 goals, but alas when we were on O we only managed 4 goals before they won with 3 turns. It was good stuff all around - a full field, a lot of us in cleats, shorts, t-shirts. Working towards Regionals.


Also, a cool thing happened yesterday on the Green. Miserable day - cold, rainy, windy. Great for working on throws and catches in adverse conditions. So a bunch of us were out on Baker Beach, about to start going over D bids, when this guy shows up, asks to talk to us. He lets us know that in general, we should be going through Club Sports, but then says "You guys are pretty good in general..." He notes we're not wearing any cleats, and based on our reputation for being careful, he lets the few of us out there play on the Green, as long as we promise to keep moving around, going to different spots so as to not hurt any grass.
It was a really nice moment in what often seems to be a contentious, difficult relationship with the College administration. It is great to hear that the work we put in at being good Dartmouth citizens can come back to us, and it absolutely made me more likely to take good care of public spaces than I was before.

Practice again tomorrow and Monday, we'll be spending this week getting our own individual games ready for the Series (Sectionals is next weekend) and then spending the following two weeks really getting ourselves together as a team.

Rock.

-lamar

At Long Last...

THE ROCK .... HAS RETURNED ... TO HANOVER.

Ok, so I am sort of declaring blogger bankruptcy for the moment. I sort of, um, lost my password for a while, and was busy, and there's this war... anyways, lots of excuses for not keeping this lil blog updated. But I'm back, and I'm doing a quick recap of the regular season, and then I'll be all over this blog through the rest of the Series.

VEGAS

Las Vegas was awesome. We made our annual sojourn to Nevada (ask Carson how to pronounce it) in February, and played one of the most outstanding games I have ever been a part of, against UCSB. Despite our best efforts, we didn't stay off UltiVillage (an oft-repeated goal), which is sort of nice, as some damn good ultimate is now going to live forever on the interwebs.
We also played UNT, Whitman (right?), St. Olaf, Wesleyan, Humboldt, Colorado and Davidson. Although the Tide game rightly stands out above all the rest (it was a Universe point loss, by the way. No matter.), I was particularly pumped by the game against Colorado. We kept it close, losing 10-13, and that was without playing particularly well or firing on all cylinders. I wrote on this blog last year that I was disappointed after we faced Colorado for the second year in a row (it's now been three) because we didn't make much improvement. This year, there was no question that we were in the game with them the whole way.

SPRING BREAK

Spring Break was interesting. We lost the first weekend to God's wrath in the form of tornadoes, but still got in games against NC State (win), GA Tech (win) and Minnesota (Universe loss). We then spent a fun, if a bit too Spring Break-y, week on Folly Beach, playing brutal, uninspired ultimate in our daily scrimmages against a series of chumps in shirts.
HOWEVER... Southerns. Long my least favorite tourney, we have hit up Statesboro on our first weekend of Spring Break for the last two years. This time, however, we showed up after having been out of New Hampshire for a week, and we took it to teams. Boom boom boom.
Day 1, in pool play, we take down Ohio, Rutgers, Northwestern and LSU. Nothing too amazing happening here, but we did take care of business, which was a good thing for us to learn to do. Come Day 2, we faced WUFO first, and man did we do it. Watson had to leave us that morning, but we adjusted, Schmidty and Dekrey ABSOLUTELY DOMINATED and it was as if we weren't missing one of the best players in the region.
Next, Ohio State. I don't really get why people like this play ultimate, which may seem odd coming from me, a guy known to get chippy from time to time... but seriously, how is that mindset fun? We were up big at the beginning, they clawed back and we put the cap on, apparently 15 minutes too early. Curses were exchanged, blah blah blah, but then we got the chance to come out and take the last two points, to win the game on our own terms.
UNC-Wilmington awaited us, the one seed at the tourney, like us a Centex-invitee that stayed out of Texas this weekend. After living and dying with our D line all weekend, the O line played clean, efficient, almost flawless ultimate during this game. That allowed the few breaks our D line eked out to provide enough, and we won this one on Universe. This is when you learn to win these games, not at Regionals. Man, awesome.
So then we showed up, played Tufts in the finals. They were up big in the beginning, and really patrolled the skies. But they didn't have the depth our roster allows us to employ, and towards the end of the game we were able to just run them into the ground, playing boring, handler-based ultimate. We won going away, taking the tournament.

wow.

YALE CUP

We didn't play very well. I hesitate to play psychologist and write this off to the fact we were the one seed - I really don't think we came in thinking we were going to get this tourney on a silver platter or anything. We just didn't play well. It is good to know that we haven't done jack yet, that a win in Georgia doesn't get us any closer to achieving our goals at Regionals, nor does a loss in Connecticut push us any further away.

So that's where we stand. We're 23 guys, 22 days away from playing at Regionals. Keep checking back, I'll be jotting down notes about workouts, practices, team meetings and tournaments as much as possible.

lamar