Pres Day 2010

spring 2010, Washington University WUWU / By

When you find yourself in the thick of it, help yourself to a bit of what is all around you.
( ^^ Song lyrics. Gold star up for grabs!)

While a few inches of snow accumulated in St Louis and east coasters dug themselves out of several feet, I was flying with Tilt to San Diego, (southern California, for the geography challenged) for three days of frisbee. Outdoors.

It went sorta like this:
My group left for the airport around 2pm, and on the flight, Southwest asked if anyone needed some last minute Valentines Day cards. We jumped all over that and got a free card for Jizz, who had to stay behind at the last minute. Continuing with WUWU’s bad luck with flying, they lost Naomi’s toiletry bag, including her one-day contacts. After getting slightly lost, we made it to dinner with the crowd that had gotten in that morning. There was much oohing and aahing at the palm trees, flowers, mountains (don’t yell at me. It’s so flat where I live), and ambient temperature. The next morning, we got up to discover that we could see the ocean from our host’s back porch. (Tidal from UCSD! Thanks again for being awesome.)
It was difficult to choose frisbee over hiking and beaches but after several u-turns, we did make it to the fields. Day 1, we started off against Colorado. Cool, we thought, another team that probably hasn’t had much outdoor practice time this semester. As usual, we took our time warming up in the morning, and lost this one. Whoops. Our next game was against Washington, number 2 at nationals last year. I think the attitude going into this game was closest to what Julia and Philip had for the entire tournament. It’s ok to lose, just try weird things and make sure you learn a shit ton.
Lose: Check. Weird things: Check. Shit ton o’ learnin’: Check. Also, Callahan: Check. (Mad props to Deuce. That was pretty awesome.)
Our third game was against Sonoma State, the California team that won the qualifiers the week before. This was probably the low point of the weekend. We lost intensity and focus when we fell behind. (Imagine a balloon with a really small hole in it.) We’re capable of playing well, and we’re capable of coming back from behind, but our brains lost this game for us well before Sonoma State scored their 13th point. Our last game was against USC. Coming off of the previous loss, we didn’t play as well as we were capable of. Day one, 0-4. Wah waaaah.

We had a bye the last round, so we showered and headed off to watch the sunset on the cliffs. Amazing. After dinner, a group went out to wander downtown, met a girl riding in a giant cupcake, and talked to two guys on the street who thought the world was going to end in 2012.
Day two, we were in a smaller pool with Carlton and Arizona. We lost both of those games, and landed in the 13th place bracket, meaning that we had a chance at making seed. The first bracket game was that afternoon, but we lost Lauren Krone, Cynthia, and Danielle, who wanted to make it to their Monday classes. We were left with fewer than 14 fully functional WUWUs.

The last game that day was against UC San Diego, the host team. We were warming up after a bye, and instead of the “small army” we ran around with last spring, we were tiny. Where’s our team? Is this really everyone? Yep. Just like that. But that’s about the time we finally pulled it together and started doing well.

We went on a run for the beginning of the second half, but Psycho started coming back with a run of their own. They couldn’t make up the difference before hard cap came on, and though they won the last point, we won the game. Note: Not having to dig ourselves out of a hole is awesome. We need to do this more often.

Instead of showering right away, we went to the beach. Deuce and Naomi went right into the water, followed by me, and eventually, the rest of the team. The Pacific Ocean is really cold. It was like icing your entire body, but way more fun than having bags of actual ice taped to you. (This is probably why Monday didn’t feel any worse than Sunday.) We got out, watched the sun set (Valentines Day with WUWU), then sped off to the showers, because everyone was freezing.

Day 3, we had just two games. The first was against UC Davis, who out-numbered us significantly. (Again, this is a new thing for my rookie class.) The game was 7-6 going into half, and ended on a universe point. We were finally in the right place to get things done when we needed to. This is our point. Done. We won this game, and it was pretty great.

Our last game of the tournament was a rematch against Arizona for 13th place. We wanted this game, and it was close. We fell behind in the first half, but were not down by an impossible margin. We cheered to flip cup for the second half; WUWUs have a pretty good record coming from behind in drinking games. There was some good non-drinking talk too. This is the last half of the last game that we’re playing. At Pres Day. In California. If you’re not putting it all out there, you should probably get on that now. We played well the second half. Really well. Hard cap went on at 10-9: if we won the next two, we won the game. Arizona won that point, with a really nice trash-picking layout in the endzone. 11-9 Arizona doesn’t really convey how close the game actually was. We ended strong, and I think everyone knew it.

On the way to the car, I stopped to talk to a dad and two girls who were biking by and watching confusedly. This is ultimate frisbee. This is a tournament, not IM games. I’m here from St Louis, and these teams you’re watching, they’re some of the best college teams in the country… They actually seemed quite impressed. (Because UCSB and Oregon were looking spectacular.) It would make me happy if those girls ended up playing ultimate in high school or college.

Anyways, after stopping at In-N-Out (which I wasn’t particularly impressed by. Blasphemy, right? Edit: Yes, Theresa thinks this is blasphemy! I’m convinced we converted several WUWU’s this weekend!) we headed towards the airport in a hurry, ’cause we were running late. With some pretty sweet teamwork, we managed to return the cars, print all the boarding passes, get all the bags checked and get everyone on the plane with a few minutes to spare. Go us. This might have been the most significant accomplishment of the weekend.

Anyways, I’m giving out awards now. Without consulting anyone. If you ever decide to do a tournament write up, you get to do your own awards.

Best Sideline Talking: Elise
Most Highlight-Reel Worthy: Deuce
Good Life Choice: Naomi and Hannah
Creeper: Theresa
5 Years Old: Fookie
Made It To California?!: the owl hat

I’m not qualified to evaluate where the team is now… but if you see Tilt with a full roster and some outdoor practice time, watch out! Next stop, Throwdown! (Ok, next stop Francis Field. Tomorrow. Noon. Be there.)

– Sharkbait (with some picture adding from Theresa)