Weekend Result(s)

While the rest of the ultimate world was focused on Trouble in Vegas as well as Queen City Tune Up, our team decided to make the drive up to Portland to take on the local schools in the area sans Lewis & Clark who traveled to the desert. I couldn't make it up on Saturday for the preliminary games against Pacific and University of Portland but got the gist of what went down. Essentially we played ok against Pacific and won since they perennially struggle with numbers but are a great team and always up to play. Then we turned around and lost to U of P, 11-9 or something similar but without some of our key players which I'm sure was a factor. Not to take anything from U of P, they are a young team and are showing a lot of progression. Details are shady about Saturday night, but God and Reed threw some beer in the mix and let things happen. Boat racing lines are yet to be announced.

So this brings us to Sunday's main event versus Reed College. Since I've played for U of O-B, we've never beaten Reed, and its possible we've never beaten Reed, but now, the players on God actually have the mindset that we can take on any team and beat them and that is great for mental preparations before game play. I rolled up Sunday morning with what seems like half of our O line (me, Ted, Jimmy, and Nate) and we got to the field as both teams were warming up. My roommate was also nice enough to travel with us to film the game and he's committed to filming our tournaments as well so props to him. The first few points for either team went like the stuff of elite level teams. The offense works in down, stays calm and punches it in for the score which gets the game underway at 2-2. Then, as with any team, a miscue such as a drop, or cutter miscommunication, causes some frustration with the team and the steady play can easily change into a huckfest. Well our hucks aren't exactly our strength and the completed downfield throws are far and few between. We do manage to keep it even keel with Reed taking half up a break 9-8. We do our best to keep our heads in the game but with Berserk taking the pull and scoring at half and us getting it back to make it 10-9, the red and black go on a mini run, taking advantage of our mistakes to make the game 13-10. Guys like Ted and Taurin are playing O and D at this point trying to make something happen in a point which lasts for about 20 turnovers, with God finally getting the point to make it 13-11. Ginger gets a huge bookend score after this to pull us back within 1, and then we're back to point trading despite both teams turning it over. Neither team can pull away. At 15-15 there is some descretion about the score (Shane incorrectly thought we were ahead 16-15) but both teams are digging at this point. We've settled into our normal routine of finding open cutters running in, or operating a dominator amongst the three handlers which usually leads a cutter open downfield. Reed is also digging in and playing their best game as well. With us pulling to them, they take the disc and march their way down to the end zone and score. We answer back with a score, and they return the favor. 17-16 Reed at this point, win by 2. We need to score to stay in the game and unfortunately yours truly drops a floaty dump pass on our own goal line and Berserk takes it and punches it in for the win 18-16.

It was a great spirited friendly match and our offense started to click in this game after having been dominated by D in practice the past few weeks. With only 3 weeks to go now before Stanford, we're starting to look like a solid team but we still have a long way to go to cause a stir in our biggest tournament of the year.

In other news, Vegas proved that you're never down and out till all the chips are gone. While the pre-hyped Goliaths like Colorado, Florida, and Oregon all fell to David's in the pre-quarters, teams like Harvard and Arizona, despite being in either a hard pool or lower starting tier, rose to the occasion showing off all of their hard off season work. My hat's off to them. The implications of the weekend, is that most likely these teams were not originally going to be invited to Stanford or Centex, but given the current results, it seems plausible since both earned points for the NCUS. The series would really have a mess on their hands if these teams didn't get invited (especially Arizona given the proximity to both tournaments) because it would prove that the system was biased towards the big powerhouse teams in the first place, given only them the shot to win the championship and collect the big check. Only time will tell at this point.