Boston Invite Recap

I had a lot of fun this weekend, and it was great to play competitive ultimate again after a six-week break due to my sprained ankle. It was also great to see a lot of people and players that I met this year or played against in high school. There were a couple common threads running through the weekend, generally dealing with players not knowing the 11th edition rules and playing on a team that had never practiced together, and many of us had never played together.

With regards to the former, it was especially noticeable for us, with only two, possibly three, players having played in the college series this past spring. We got in quite a few rules arguments this weekend, some that would have come up anyway under the 10th edition, and many regarding the changes. As expected, there was confusion about the new interpretation of the pick rule, but that was all resolved fairly quickly and with little incident. There was a lot of disarray regarding marks and marking fouls. As usual, a lot of illegal marks went uncalled - I think that the "disc space" call will become a lot more frequent once people realize that they can use it and that almost every mark violates disc space. And unfortunately, a lot of legal marks had fouls called on them, both for us and against us.

One of the big things that needs to stop, in my opinion, is lunging into the mark, calling foul, and then making a throw. In the 11th edition rules, this is supposed to be illegal and a turnover if the throw is incomplete. Only one team correctly called us on this, and because they had made many bad calls earlier in the game, it was not received well. Among those bad calls? The thrower hucks it, and on the follow through smacks the marker in the face. The marker falls to the ground and has to take an injury sub, and the thrower calls foul because the marker "tried to block the disc with his face."

Playing with Brooklyn was an interesting experience, as the team is generally very confrontational. No stranger to confrontation myself, and armed with knowledge of the rules, I threw myself into foul debates and angry arguments. But Brooklyn didn't stop there, including almost getting into a brawl with players on Alpha Dog (aka Tufts) after our captain was angry with one of their players for blocking his cuts with his arms, and shoved him to the ground. The best line of the tournament came when the Tufts player called a foul and the response was "Contest! ... no ... DOUBLE FOUL!" Later in the game, another one of our captains was hit in the face with the disc after getting skied in the endzone (play called back on a marking foul) and shoved the offending player, resulting in another dicey situation.

Unfortunately, the anger wasn't all directed at the other teams (and French Canadians in general). Teammates yelled at each other and bad-mouthed each other on the sidelines (usually deservedly), which I'm generally okay with, but the problem in this case was people taking it personally and refusing to let it go. We'll need to get over this and be able to talk to each other without it getting personal if we want to be successful this club season. And I'm generally optimistic, seeing as we haven't practiced yet and most of us haven't played together yet. These are things we'll work out as the season progresses.

Speaking of things to work out, we made a lot of mistakes this weekend, which explains why we dropped seed so much. I was happy with the general level of turnovers we were generating on defense, but not with our conversion rate on either offense or defense. In general, we had far too many decision-making and mental errors leading to turnovers. I was not too bothered by execution errors in throwing a little too outside or behind our receivers, or hucks that floated a little too much, but the amount of drops we had was ridiculous and really needs to be curtailed. It wasn't just a few players, either, but drops across the board. But I think that this is to be expected from a new team, although it doesn't make it any less frustrating. I think that the most frustrating thing is knowing that I can run with anyone on the opposing line, but that not all of my six teammates can, which made it easy for other teams to move the disc on us, especially on the open side, and especially without us knowing any junk defenses.

But on to the games! Our first game was against the "Providence Pack Dogs," aka Colin Mahoney and friends. We came out quick but then they adjusted and started to grind us down, taking the capped game 13-9. We had trouble containing them and their deep game, even going upwind, and they punished us when we turned it over going downwind. They had a couple upwind breaks early in the second half that put the game out of reach. Also, Colin Mahoney had two layout D's on the first point and buttery hucks.

Next we had Nor'easter, a team that wasn't confident in their throws, particularly in the wind, and so we basically won the game by converting our O points going downwind and getting a few breaks by forcing them forehand and fronting them when they were going upwind. This game shouldn't have been as close as 15-9, but it was a win and that was what mattered. I also ended up with a layout D in this game, which makes the first since Lewis & Clark at NW Regionals, 8 weeks ago. It's a good feeling.

After a two hour bye, we ended up against Magma, the first of two French Canadian teams we'd play on the weekend. We started off well, after going down 2-0 we took the lead 3-2 and traded until just short of half. We were down a break or two but kept battling, again forcing them underneath into the wind and fronting, which worked almost as well on the open side, but Magma had better breaks than Nor'easter and was able to convert a few more breaks than we could, especially after some of our suspect decisions close to the endzone. We should be getting more conservative the closer we get, not less. Especially with our 'D team' on the field. We found ourselves down 14-10, receiving on game point, and scored, then answered with a downwind break, and then had the disc to break again but turned it over, ending the game 15-12, but it could have been 14-13 with them going upwind again. Unfortunately, this guaranteed us 4th place in the pool, with a meaningless game against 3-0 Run Silent, Run Deep, who had clinched first.

And of course, when do we bring our best offense? In a meaningless game! We shot out to several early leads, including an 8-6 halftime lead, receiving to start the second half. My favorite point was then they threw zone on us and I got to be the middle handler, and I threw a lefty backhand, several high backhands over the cup, and a hammer for the assist. At this point I was trying to rest my ankle, and I only played O points and handled. Until, that is, we squandered our 11-9 lead to go down 11-13, with the "cap on." But with it being the last game of the day and their misunderstanding of the cap rule (win by 2 in soft cap, or so they thought), we basically captains claused our way into no cap. We came ahead 14-13, then went behind 15-14, and ahead 16-15, and then received for universe point at 16-16. I played as a handler, we worked it up the field, and after an amazing catch on an ill-advised and poorly executed throw, we had a timeout just outside the endzone. The play worked, we jammed it in, and won the meaningless game 17-16, but at least we all felt good about ourselves.

When we got back we showered and went to the grill across from our hotel (great hotel and great grill), then all immediately passed out by 10:30 because were so tired. We had an 8:30 game the next morning, and we made it to the fields by 8:10 and started the game around 8:35 or 8:40, and our lack of preparation showed. We went down early, before fighting back and taking half 8-6. Q made a lot of terrible calls, in angry Frenglish, and while it distracted us, what really started to let us down were drops and forced throws. We were up 10-8 when cap went on, and promptly managed to get give up a goal on defense, then get broken three straight times to lose 12-10. It was awful, and dropped us to the D bracket. One moment in particular sticks out, down 11-10, we work it down the field, in perfect position to tie it up and force a universe point, when we hammer it out the back of the endzone on stall 2.

After moving fields - to the satellite fields about a 15 minute walk away - we were up against FUG, a Lincoln-Sudbury HS alumni team. We only had 8 players cleated up when we started, about 15 minutes late due to the last game going to cap and our long walk over. We started out with some zone and some hucks, taking half comfortably at 8-3. Then we started to give back the lead, even letting them get within one as we proceeded to forget how to play offense with a series of ill-advised hucks and forced throws. We won on cap, 13-11.

That put us in the D bracket semifinals against Tufts (Alpha Dog), and the game proceeded without defense until they broke us twice to go up 5-3. But we broke back and took half 8-7, with the first aforementioned shoving incident on that last point of the half. The second half started out the same, with more trading, until they broke again to go up 11-9. They broke us again and went up 13-10, when we called timeout and regrouped like we had against Magma. We got as close as 13-12, but with the wind as less of a factor in this game, they closed us out with another break, 15-12, and our tournament was over.