What’s done is done.
Sunday we were fighting for the title of Division II champs, or 17th overall. All of the schools in our region that we’ve been keeping an eye on throughout the season were also in the same bracket. I made a few assumptions with that information that may or may not be correct. We’ll find out soon enough.
My theory. If the top teams in our region are all in DII, then the team in our region that finishes the highest is, theoretically, the best in the region. Sectionals will probably not change much (I know its not “sectionals” anymore but I’m going to call it that because everyone still knows what I’m talking about.) so this is our last chance.
I realized the importance of the games during warm up and made a point to let my team know that from that point on, we couldn’t lose a single game if we wanted to make it to nationals. Sunday of Centex through regionals we needed to be undefeated. It’s a daunting task if you think about it that way but very doable. Just one game at a time.
UCSC – Sol
UCSC moved up from DIII. I’d never even heard of them. They had only 5 people for the majority of warm up. I think another 3 or 4 showed up just before game time. One girl may have been injured because she played pretty well but only a few points. Since we’d had some close games against good teams the day before obviously it was in the bag. There was a decent wind and it was more likely to be an upwind/downwind game but we have good handlers. I wasn’t worried.
It’s so easy to make assumptions and walk into games with a pompous attitude.
But the game wasn’t easy. We started out slow as usual, and they were even better than I expected. Usually moving up a division usually means that right? They played a poachy defense and were smart about switches. Our team struggled against it. We have athleticism and speed but tend to rely too much on that and aren’t great at taking advantage of poaches. They had some good throwers and deep players with height on our defenders and did a good job of taking advantage of that, scoring easily on several downwind points. They also did a good job working the disc down the field. We’d get a break. They’d get a break. It was the closest game of the day and I’m glad we realized early on that we had to work hard for every game.
On another note, this is one of those games that makes me excited about the growth of women’s ultimate. When I first started playing even the last seeds at nationals were generally easy games. Melee is as good as if not better than ever and we are now fighting for 17th at Centex with teams seeded 20 below us giving us a run for our money. I love it.
9-5 Texas.
Wisconsin Eau Claire – Sol
I expect to play A&M the second round. I haven’t heard great things about Eau Claire this season and honestly I just wanted to play A&M. We haven’t seen them all year and they are our biggest sectional rival. Melee’s coach from the past two years moved to College Station for her post-doc and is now coaching Stacked. That is completely unrelated to this game.
We started on O downwind. They pulled. Janel picked it up. Threw a huck for a score. The next point we pulled. One of their players picked up. Threw a huck for a score. Two points with a total of two throws. I actually laughed. I’ve never seen that happen before. We got an upwind break. They got an upwind break. We tied at threes. And then melee did something we don’t do often. We went on a run early in the game. Two upwind breaks and a total of 5 points in a row we took half 8-3. We worked the disc almost entirely up the break side. You could tell they were getting frustrated, which often results in more mistakes giving us even more chances to score. 4 more points before cap for a total of 9 in a row.
12-3 Texas.
Pitt
This was our third rematch from Easterns. In the round before they killed Colorado 10-2. The Colorado captain told me they’d thrown a pretty loose three man cup and I was prepared for that. In our game I don’t think they threw zone once. I’m really proud of our zone offense this year, especially compared to our zone defense, so I was a bit disappointed. It’s also less running which I’m a huge fan of.
Their top handler (I think her name is Kayla? I read about her in a write up recently and realized that was “the girl in the yellow hat” that I like to guard.) was on the sidelines with the clipboard and tennis shoes. I’m assuming an injury of some sort since she was playing two weeks ago at Easterns. It definitely changed the game. Maybe just for me since I’m generally more aware of handlers. They just didn’t have as much of a deep threat as I’m used to.
They seemed tired. Most teams did Sunday. We were tired as well. We have a bigger roster than many of the teams we played which works to our advantage often in the last games of the weekend. Looking at the game after ours, it seemed like Pitt exhausted themselves against Colorado and couldn’t keep up anymore.
I enjoyed the game. I always do. There’s something about Pitt that makes me throw things I never throw. I love the inside flick huck. I hate it most of the time, but I always find myself throwing it against them. Its probably because they have great up line defense and often shut down my easy dump options, so I end up putting it deep more often. I like the aggression in the game. We both got upwind breaks. There was a point with a few fouls that were really close and there was definitely a lot of contact on both sides. I remember my girl calling a foul on a good D. It was an up line cut, we were just a few feet from the endzone line and they were going upwind. She told me what she thought happened and I just couldn’t figure it out. I wanted to say “I don’t know so I contest.” When I’m observing if I don’t know, it gets sent back. I hate not knowing but I hate making the wrong call even more. I stared at the ground replaying it in my head for probably 10 seconds before realizing I’d fouled her. No contest. She got the disc and threw an easy pass for a score.
The game felt closer than the score reflects. A large percentage of the scores in the game were upwind. I often have no concept of the score and assume we are doing worse than we are. I had no idea we were up by that much in the Eau Claire game, and was convince we were tied most of the time against UCSC.
I think this was the game that I attempted a backhand huck and the girl clearly fouled me. The disc bladed through the air, hit the ground, and as it rolled around I thought, “oh that was a foul” but it was too late to call it. I hate when people call a foul long after they throw so I just got back on D and continued to feel dumb about the whole thing. I need to remember to call things.
We won in cap. 12-5 Texas
Note: On the field next to us UNC was playing Colorado College in the other DII semi’s game. I wish I’d known earlier since I’ve never seen Colorado College play. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to wait until regionals.
UNC (again)
Remember how I mentioned angry birds at the beginning of day one? Well I beat that level last night. Fitting? Maybe.
I was really excited about the game against UNC. We had picked up the pace and were starting to play at a higher level throughout the day. With a tendency to play down, I was glad that we finally started playing at our potential. That became apparent especially during the Eau Claire game.
We found out that the majority of UNC had flights they had to catch and didn’t know that rounds would start as late as 3pm. Historically DII games have always started later in the afternoon but 1) it wasn’t published at the time they bought their flights 2) last time we played the DII championship it was in the same round as DI games and 3) who expected UNC to get knocked out of the championship bracket? I know we can beat them, but I also knew we would have to fight to stay in DI but didn’t even consider them dropping.
Part of me was disappointed that we wouldn’t get to play a “real” game against them. Part of me felt bad because not only were they going to have 8-9 players, rumor had it they would be down to 6 about 2/3 of the way through the game. But the problem is this. Rankings. We need to be ranked higher. The new system means every game is important. Beating UNC Sunday was our only chance to improve our own rankings and increase region strength. We had to play the game. We couldn’t have a double forfeit like they suggested. We needed to play.
UNC came out fired up. I loved watching the way they cheered and were so excited to get on the line. All 9 of them were ready to play. Leila was gone as well as a few other players that we consistently put strong defenders on, but the game was by no means easy. I noticed two other strong handlers in particular, #51 and #22 (I think), that hadn’t made as much of an impact the last few times we’ve played them. As far as winning the game, everyone knew UNC was at a big disadvantage, but they fought harder than I expected. Their strategy was obvious. Score fast. Downwind points they would put up a huck almost immediately, and scored several points with just a few throws.
I remember twice while going upwind one of the players on the field yelled “DO IT!” to the girl with the disc and a hammer went up. A last ditch effort, you could tell they were having a grand old time. My girl was on the dump, and the hammer went up, over the stack, came back, and she ran up about 5 yards to catch it. What defender is ready for that? I couldn’t help but smile. They were having fun.
One of our younger players had one of the best layout catches of the season, coming from out of nowhere and somehow staying in bounds before sliding several feet out. I didn’t know if she was in but as she got up the defender gave her a congratulatory pat on the back. Sometimes I can’t help but admit that someone from another team made a great play and I enjoy when other teams do the same. That’s one of the things I love about ultimate. At the end of the day, regardless of who it is, we appreciate good ultimate and play for the love of the game.
The game was closer than I expected with the numbers. They scored quick on down wind points and if they turned they set a zone that, although not impossible to beat, forced a ton of throws which eventually results in turnovers. They did a great job of baiting passes through the cup (wall? I think it changed) and getting D’s.Patience is key. Sometimes its just so frustrating to not get anywhere in ten passes but patience is key.
Weagreed to a three minute half since they were on a tight schedule and also agreed to shortened game so they could field a full line the entire time. The goal wasn’t to run down the clock so they would have just 6 players. That just felt wrong.
At 8-6 we had the disc going upwind. We changed possession a few times before calling a time out. Our coach told us to take our time. Caps were on or almost on. (I don’t remember exactly) We talked for another 30 seconds and were ready to go within the regulation 70 seconds. Stalling by extending timeouts or taking too long on the line I don’t agree with, but playing smart in the field and swinging the disc forever is perfectly acceptable. It’s called strategy. We took advantage of the easy resets in their zone although they were often backwards. I remember at one point two of our handlers standing a few feet from each other, not moving at all, passing the disc back and forth at least ten times. We worked the disc up the field inches at a time it seemed. 7 minutes later we scored without a single turn. Hard cap had gone on during the point and the game was over. 9-6.
I think things would have gone very differently if it wasn’t for the fact that every game in the regular season counts so much, especially when we are fighting for that last region strength bid. I’m not very confident we will get it but every win helps. I would have been fine with a double forfeit any other year.
Pleiades showed more heart in that game than any team I’ve played this season. I’m glad they were willing to play and I’m glad they made us work for it. They didn’t hand us the game by any means. Their team is much deeper than I expected. I can’t count it as a win in my book because we didn’t play UNC, we played what was left. But I can’t count it as a loss because they played well and we had to work really hard. Not once did I think “this is in the bag” and we fought for every point. I definitely haven’t given them enough credit in the past. When Leila is on the field you can tell she controls the game but when she’s not they are still just as capable. I’m hoping we both make it to nationals and have yet another rematch. Most people don’t want to play them again but I’d love just one more shot.
Conclusion
I respect my competition but always think we can do better. All of our games this weekend were very spirited and even if there were moments where it didn’t feel like it, we handled it well and/or tried to make amends. Calls were made and even when the players didn’t agree they were resolved quickly. One of our girls warped a disc on spike after scoring (I’m not a fan of spiking discs), so I made sure the team got a replacement from us. Not once Sunday did UNC seem upset about us making them play, I respect them for that.
For now we’re just waiting for rankings to come out. I’m pretty confident that this weeks rankings will be the best predictor of regional bids and doubt anything will change afterwards. I think rest of the tournaments will just affect rankings going into regionals. I’ve looked at scores and can honestly say I think Texas should be #1 going into regionals. There aren’t many head to head scores so I don’t know how we would actually do against most of our regionals teams. We beat Colorado by one. Colorado beat Wash U. Colorado College made it to semis in DII losing to a team we’ve lost to twice already. But from the scores, point diffs, and results this weekend (finishing higher than any other team in our region) we should be first. As we learned in 2009, that makes a huge difference. I hope I’m right. We’ll find out tomorrow!