Williams Purple Valley 2006

Game 1: Dartmouth vs. Amherst

As the convoy of Dartmouth cars rolled up to Williams, we could see two things. Firstly, these fields were not long for this world – it was like playing on some type of loose, muddy ground. Almost exactly like that, in fact. Anyways, we rolled up and got into the game, somewhat. Points were traded, breaks were gotten and lost… to be honest I was still pretty blacked out during the first half. The most important moments came towards the end, when the cap was put on and an Amherst player pulled down a huck a few feet out of the endzone and tried to call a timeout. Devlin, with visions of Aaron Bell and Ego still fresh within him, immediately called them out on this violation of the rules. Do you think Chris Webber ever forgot this rule? Neither did the Dart.
So we get the disc back, marched it down and scored. Apparently this was on Universe point (it was certainly game point for us), and the fact that nobody is really sure tells a lot about how involved our sidelines were… don’t worry, it got better. But yeah, sort of bizarre to see the team start celebrating and not understand it for a second.
I should also mention that this game, while a bit sloppy on D, did feature some great help deep. Amherst was a fairly one-dimensional team, at least this early in the season, and had little interest in anything other than playing the field position game. Last back calls and drops for help were all in order.
We win, 10 – 9 according to my sources.

Game 2: Dartmouth vs. BUFO

Not. Particularly. Close. This game was fun… they have B team uniforms which are not only different from WUFO’s regular jerseys, but not even the same color. Seems like a pretty large investment. And their primary handler wears a different color uniform, almost like a goalie in soccer or that one player in volleyball, who, ya’know, wears a different color uniform. What’s the deal with that? In this particular case, the orange wearing handler had some decent chucks, but pretty weak fakes. Think about someone taking a disc, holding it in neither a backhand nor a flick grip, and making a windmill motion in front of him. Kind of like he was trying to clear out the air.
We win, a lot to a little.

Game 3: Dartmouth vs. Brown

Oh, God, so awesome. We came out firing, they came out hucking, it was a great back and forth game. We went up a break or two early, mainly traded to get to 6-5 good guys, with the disc on their endzone, almost punched it in to take half, but couldn’t quite pull that point out. They got the turn and the score, then scored again and took half.
We regrouped at half. Remember, this was still somewhat a tryout tournament for the Pain Train, and we were working in all of our new parts. But after some inspiring words, we came out firing again, layout Ding our men, shutting them down deep, challenging every reset. The Pain Train got gritty. They made it to 12 first, but we came back to tie it up and send it to Universe. They received the pull and marched it down to close to the endzone, then called a play for their new fast (kind of) receiver. Unfortunately, they did not look up long enough to realize that Rem was covering him, because I have got to believe that Vandenburg knows enough not to test him. One ridiculous layout D in the endzone later, we were marching back up the field, a run capped by Cobbles holding the disc just outside of the endzone and Ranger destroying his cover on a Valhalla call. Man, just a huge win.
13 – 12, if you believe the hype. Don’t forget that C-Mo wasn’t there for Brown, instead off practicing for some DoG team… This one was fun though.

Game 4: Dartmouth vs. Kraftees (WUFO Alums)

The sun quickly setting, we finally left the completely destroyed fields and headed down to meet the Kraftees. They had a wide variety of talent, from the recently great to the truly crotchety. It was cold, we remembered that this was indeed a tournament to tryout the new guys (a fact that may have escaped our notice during Universe with Brown.) Lots of hammers went up, they caught most, when we really turned it on we scored relatively easily, but after a long day the weather was limiting our athleticism, probably the main advantage we had. They pulled out the win, but this loss didn’t particularly hurt. Taking second in our pool was more than enough, and we headed towards the food and the party with heads held high.
11 – 8, Senior citizens.

The Party: Dartmouth vs. Williams Security and ID tags.

That cool band from last year was there again. Cops were inside the party. There was no Hat Game. Apparently the girls cheered La WUFA, but got drowned out by the BMo guys chanting USA, USA. Why do they do that? I am so confused. Is it because of that one guy’s hat? We must get to the bottom of this issue.
My lack of enthusiasm for the party this year most likely came from my enrollment on Team Sober for the night. Not good times.

Game 5: Dartmouth vs. UNH

They scored the first point somewhat easily, and looked to be an actual threat. They often forgot to set dumps, and played with an odd mix of fairly good spirit and a propensity for cursing wildly in situations that didn’t really require it. We beat them pretty easily, but more importantly played really solid Pain Train ultimate. It was a great way to start off the day, even if we did lose Socks (despite his best efforts to sneak into drills) on a nasty collision with Freshman Alex Kell.
This game we really got back to our almost exclusive use of the Ho Stack, which worked magnificently. They constantly tried to bracket us and every time the flooding-one-side-make-one-man-cover-both-cutters move worked to perfection. We had both good in-cuts and high percentage deep looks, a nice mix that did not allow UNH any time to focus on taking one dimension of our game away.
13 – 8, I think. Not close.

Game 6: Dartmouth vs. Middlebury Alums

Wow, that one guy on Midd is tall as shit. I mean, seriously. This game was a bit more intense than most Midd games are, we ran with them the whole time except for right after half, when we couldn’t get anything going and they went on a 4 or 5 point run. After scoring once, we regrouped and decided to start winning the games to 3. We scored once, and then sent down some quick pressure on their handlers which, combined with an amazing pull, didn’t allow them out of their own endzone. The disc would stay there, as Mackey got big and just absolutely ripped down a Callahan from Tally McTallstein. We kept up the pressure, changing our defensive sets and really leaving it all out and clawed back to 11 – 14 before they scored the winning goal. Another alumni team, another loss. Not too big a deal – it allowed us a match up against….

Game 7: Dartmouth vs. Harvard

This game started off with a sweet poach D by Chimpo on Harvard’s first or second throw, which we converted for a quick break. Tone, consider yourself set. The boys from Cambridge desperately miss Chen and Marsh, but are still a formidable team. The same dump and swing is their bread and butter, but without the miraculous play of those two it doesn’t look as easy as it used to. Their new receiving corp is also a bit thin, featuring kids who either got sick D’d by Mackey any damn time he wanted or just looked shook. One interesting development is their new Beau Jr., some tall ass kid who pulled down a ton of scores that nobody else could reach and whose pulls are fairly decent… but at least they are not crazy blades a la Chen.
We pretty much just converted on everything this game. We had jugular calls from 20 yards outside of our own endzone go for scores, we had more poach Ds (Zargham was up in that bitch) and one just unbelievable layout D by Watson on the first throw, as he sprinted the entire way down the field and seemed to change directions more than 3 times in the air as he whipped around Scared Handler X. Sick nasty, JWats. (There, are you happy? This kid has blitzed me at least 3 times since PV. “where’s the recap lamar?” “are you close to finishing it?” “don’t forget to write the recap, lamar”. But I digress.)
So that sick D from Wats put us on a run of breaks to end the game. Up 12 – 9 after two straight breaks, we went down with a clam, switching up defenses on the last point. After frustrating their handlers for a few throws, Harvard said to themselves “Hey, we run clam all the time, isn’t there some way to beat this?” and then proceeded to do exactly the right thing, bringing in the close and deep open side defenders and then sending a blade behind them. But for the second time against a regional opponent on game point, the opposing handlers forgot to look out for the fast kid wearing number 1. Rem came from roughly two football fields away (I think he was sitting in Papa Charlie’s when it went up) to fully extend and get his hand in between two Harvard receivers and break up the pass. We picked up, worked it easily and converted on the third straight break to take the game 13 – 9.


So that’s where we are at now. Way happier leaving this tourney than we were a few weeks ago after Yale, with two big wins against Regional opponents under our belts, as well as three less important in-Region wins and two losses to Alumni teams (one of which, Midd, went on to win the whole thing). We have still got a lot to work on, and no teams are peaking yet, but PV was exactly what we needed to get back on track mentally. Get at me, Dartmouth.