ultimate

Regionals, day 1

Blog Posted by kitt at 23:17 on 6 October 2007

Today was strange.

I slept like crap last night, to be greeted with an overcast morning, no breakfast items I could really eat as most were bread or wheat-based (oh, waffles, how do I miss thee? Let me count the ways!).

Guy was there to help with the camera work, so I handed him the video cameras, showed him where the tapes were, and sent him off. A few minutes later, I was handing him my hat and my rain jacket, as the weather was crappy. Yay, Regionals in Burlington, Washington, where even the locals ask, "Why again aren't we having Regionals in California?"

We knew we had to be on this weekend, so we had a long warmup before the first game. Based on how the schedule was, and what we knew about the teams, I planned on playing the first two games, maybe the third game, then stand on the sidelines the rest of the tournament.

Our first game was against Shadrach, the second against Sleepover. Both teams were ranked fairly low in the tournament, both managed a few points on us, I played in both, while Guy used the games to practice videoing and Gillian practiced taking stats.

The third game was against Golden Spike, which gave us a game at Labor Day this year, and beat Brass Monkey at the same tournament. I didn't play in the game against them. We lost 13-15. The game was close the whole time, with our biggest lead at 9-6, and their biggest lead 10-13. Yeah, a 1-7 run for them. We faltered. We faltered, and the game was ugly. Almost every goal was called back on a foul, or travel, or pick, or other call. The wind picked up, and the game was ugly, and we lost.

By the time the fourth game started, I had already taken off my cleats. However, instead of playing Brass Monkey as we expected to play, we played Bozos, from Bosemon, Montana, originally seated 10th. The game wasn't really close. We were disheartened, yes, but they had lost before they even began. Crystal suggested I put my cleats back on, and play a few points, so in I went. I caught one throw just outside the endzone on a swing pass from Shirley, but didn't have the confidence to release the low release throw to Warren who had the perfect continue for me for the score. I had another score called back on a pick call that I mostly disagreed with, having seen my defender on my left as I was starting my cut, when I heard the pick call on my right. However, she said she was picked, so I lost my other goal. Sigh.

The bad thing about the last game was the headache that started in the middle of a point. Instead of my usual both sides migraine, this one was the right-side only headache that sent bolts of pain around the side of my head with every minor effort, such as standing up, running, lifting my bag. Two advil, a meal, and two more advil didn't do much to help it, I'm afraid.

So, we we'll go into Sunday without a first round bye. I think this'll work better for us. We're not always a first day team, and having a good game early on will fire us up.

Sectionals 2007, day 1

Blog Posted by kitt at 22:36 on 15 September 2007

We start the journey again. The fall series starts today, beginning with the Ultimate Players Association's Northern California Sectionals. We finished the day at the top of our pool and the winner of our quarter final game.

More importantly, we danced the best.

Infinite levels of crapola

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 20:22 on 26 August 2007

Three weeks before Sectionals, so part of me should be infinitely careful woth my physical well being. Three (two?) sectionals in a row with injuries, and you'd think I'd be more cautious with my muscles and joints.

But no.

Second drill, having felt very good through the warmups, and the first drill, second run, where we were practicing the give and go, the going on the mark after a throw, which I athink I'm actually good at, and *zing* pulled right quad.

At least it wasn't the left leg, as every other injury aeems to be. It's still an injury, though.

I'm frustrated. I cried.

I'm tired of sucking at this game. I'm tired of working my ass off and being injured. I'm tired of every telling me everything I'm doing wrong. I'm tired of not being quick, or skilled, or useful.

I'm tired of playing an entire game without once touching the disc.

I should have retired two years ago when the sport broke my heart. I wish I'd had the strength and wisdom then to leave, instead of torturing myself with self-doubt and self-frustration.

At least now Kris agrees this will be our last year at elite. I wonder if we'll keep playing at some other level.

Figures

Blog kitt decided around 20:25 on 21 June 2007 to publish this:

Well, bound to happen.

Better sooner than later.

As I reached with a double fisted claw catch for a disc thrown by Will, the wind jerked he disc just over my outstretched hands, and pushed it down after passing over my arms.

CRACK!

I stood still for a moment before I realized the sound I had just heard was about to be followed by the sound of my wailing. The disc had landed squarely on the bridge of my nose, and it hurt. A LOT.

I sat down, as Will rushed over. "Are you okay? Are you okay? Did that just hit you in the face?" he asked.

"I don't know. Let's see," I responded, clearly still in surprise. I took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully out my nose, my hands blocking my face.

The handful of blood immeduately showed me that, no, I was not okay.

I sat out during the first drill and waited until the blood stopped running from my nose. I was able to run a little bit, but not much, which was probably good, as my legs ached a bit from yesterday's workout.

I'm thinking now, sure, I should have pancaked that catch. It was windy, and I was standing directly in the path of the disc (a habit I've been trying to develop, actually). But this isn't the first time a disc has hit me in the face, where other people can go an entire career without any discs in the face.

I guess if I'm going to have injuries this season, better to get them out of the way early in the season, rather than late in the season.

Practice, not so bad

Blog Posted by kitt at 21:57 on 17 June 2007

I wasn't sure I was going to go to practice today. I was worrying about my knees from yesterday, as they were both hurting so badly in the last round that I could barely walk on the field. I wasn't sure if less than 24 hours would be enough for them to recover, or if practice would make them worse.

I went, though I showed up a ittle late (boo).

The first part of practice was very rough for me. I felt I was always a half step behind my woman on defense, and clueless on where to go on offense. I know that I haven't really played seriously for a long time, and that all of the training at velocity sports is supposed to help me, but my mental game is shot, and I wasn't having any fun.

About an hour into practice, after a particularly frustrating point, I walked to the sideline, allowing another player to sub in on my team. As I walked off, Doyle commented, "That was good defense on Steffi over there." I was surprised, as I was thinking I had done nothing but completely screw-up. His words were just enough to check my downward spiral.

The next set of drills concentrated on the horizontal stack. I lined up against a teammate who would be playing pretty much the same position as I do, so that I could listen to how the offense moves. The first time the ho-stack was run, I was a half step behind my player and she scored easily. Just after she scored, she called out, "Wow, I love ultimate!" She commented to her teammates about how easy the ho-stack was, which annoyed me.

Never one to miss a chance to learn, I adjust my defense and, on the next run, the offense attempted the same play. I stopped my opponent's out cut, forcing her back under to the disc, and marked very hard. She was unable to throw downfield, and eventually turned the disc over on a dump pass. Her teammates started talking to her about how she had to make that throw, she had to throw downfield in this offense.

No comment was made on how perhaps, just perhaps, my defense had been strong enough to stop that throw.

So, offense starts up again. I shut down her downfield cut. She received the disc back under and tried to throw downfield again. Once again, I marked hard, moving back and forth to prevent her throwing, trying to stay lightly on my toes. Her throw is downfield, but short and out of bounds.

Once again, her teammates (my teammates, too, but not at this practice) again start telling her what she needs to do. Once again, no comment is made about my defense.

Just as I thought it was going unnoticed, however, Paul walked by with a huge grin on his face and a little fist pumping. Okay, someone had noticed.

The next point, the woman I'm defending (same player) runs to the endzone. As the huck goes up, I key in on it, successfully position myself well, and knocked it away.

On the next point, the same flow happens, and the disc goes up long for my opponent. I run just as hard to that disc as I had previously, and successfully defended the next huck, receiving a clobber on my right arm which bruised spectacularly later.

At this point, practice doesn't seem so bad. Sure, I'm tired and sore, but I can still play this game. I need to work harder than some people, but, hey, that's the fun part.

I wonder if I can get Doyle to join Kris as the small voice in my head.

Second day of Poultry Days

Blog Instead of being asleep at 23:18 on 10 June 2007, kitt created this:

I slept much better last night than I had the previous night. I'm not sure if the fundamental reason was physical exhaustion, or dehyrdation from the sun and the wind, or increased comfort levels of sleeping relatively exposed in the back of a mini-van, or just finally adjusting to the timezone changes, but I was able to sleep.

Since we didn't make the A bracket, we had to drive to the next fields to play up through the B bracket. The games were supposed to start at 9. We left the main fields at 8:55 am, never mind about actually getting there on time. I warned the team that I may not be able to play today, depending on how I reacted to the aspartame I accidently drank the night before, but I'd play until I couldn't. Which, fortunately, meant all day.

We won our first game, capped at 11, against Huevos J-Bird, which was a team based mostly out the Bay Area. I was surprised we won the game, until someone pointed out our opponents were playing with just 9 people. Yeah, that would definitely have an effect on the game. During one point, Alex was working over Shasta (local Bay Area Open player, played for Vahalla years back, possibly Kaos, dating J-Bird now). We were able to tease Shasta during a point that Alex was only 12, which made everyone, including Shasta laugh, then get worked over a bit more.

The next game we also won, something closer like 11-9, having gone up big at the beginning, and letting the other team come back to make the game close. Now, how familiar does that sound?

The next game was against a Michigan team, on which were several players who knew many players on my team, Breast and Thighs. I think they're all in the Central Region, so play local(ish?) tournaments against each other a lot, so knew each other. There was some good comraderie amongst the players, which made the game both interesting and frustrating. After half time, which we took, it was clear that the team was getting tired. A couple players commented that, although they didn't really want to play another game after this game, they didn't really want to lose to this team, either. Losing would give the other team bragging rights for the whole next year, something that no one who knew the other players could bear.

So we won.

And won the right to play in the B bracket finals.

Whoo.

When we moved back to the original fields to play the finals, with everyone going over (a surprise for me, as the only injury was Dylan's chronic calf pull, an unmitigated success in my book considering how uneven some of the fields we played on were), most everyone was delayed by a parade of vintage and retro collector cars whose path just happened to cross ours on our way back to the fields. I guess it was part of the Poultry Days celebration, this car parade.

When we arrived at the finals fields, everyone's asses were dragging. I talked our opponents down from a game to 13 to a game to 9. We also found out that not only was one of the A bracket finals teams the only team to beat us this weekend, the other team in the A bracket finals was the only team to beat our B bracket finals opponents.

Greaaaaaat.

From the start of the game, it was very clear the other team REALLY wanted to win. Since we REALLY wanted to be done, the score reflected our mutual desires, and we lost 4-9, having been down 2-8 a few minutes before. Our loss in the B bracket finals did, however, secure the team a top spot in schedule for next year, and an easier road to the A bracket. I was told that, in the end, if we couldn't win it all, that was still a good achievement. Yay, John, Noz, Patrick, Dana, Karen, Alex, Truesdale (who is 25, not 29 like I thought), Amy, Dylan and everyone else. Yay, us!

The drive home to Valparaiso was quite pleasant. I'm actually surprised at how fast four hours of farm land can fly-by. I was definitely happy to be back home at the end of the day at Dad's place, and just as happy to head out with him for ice cream. Small moments like ice cream with Dad are parts of the big reason I came on the trip in the first place: to spend time with Dad. I'm glad we had many on this trip.