Misery Loves Company

*Missouri - This ended up being a pretty appropriate name for the tournament for Illinois.

The short story is that in a relatively brief period of time, our roster for MLC dropped from 36 to about 16. This was the difference between one short-handed team and two comfortably sized teams. No need to go into that aspect here, because the heat will be directed toward the team rather than the interweb.

Anyway, the crew that did show up in Jefferson City ended up being a little less than successful. Illness played a significant part in this, with Jack Krieger being completely out and Mickey and I not feeling much better. Neal Phelps, Shabby, and Papa Bear stepped up to take over as our main longs. They, along with Smith and McKinley, shouldered the majority of the load. Mickey stands alone in this category - being sick and broken, yet still playing a high number of points both as long and cutter.

In individual games, there's nothing really to summarize. We lost to Southern Illinois, then Iowa State, then Colorado B (sigh..), then Oklahoma. The biggest problem in every single game was our poor marks. Every team we played, including Colorado B, was able to slice through our marks like we weren't even standing there. Luckily, it has already been decided that marking will be one of the main focuses for the team this year. After the initial loss to Southern, and especially after the loss to Colorado B, very few managed to keep their spirits up. I know I fell victim to this, though I attribute some of it to the hacking and wheezing I was doing on the sidelines.

Luckily for us, but not for the team wallet, the second day of the tournament was cancelled due to stormy weather.

Personal favorite moment from the weekend:
Jack Rabuck reaching waaaay over the top of one of the captains of ISUC for the sky in the endzone, prompting everyone to rush the field.

Austin

Border Brawl Recap

This is tournament recap numero uno for my blogging career, hopefully it's good.

Saturday started early because round 1 started at 8 am. This seems pretty silly considering even though we only played four games, the rounds were soft capped at 60 mins and hard capped at 70. Maybe because cultimate had that killer showcase game in round 6 between colorado and carleton that i think no one stayed for.

Iowa:

We warmed up and then played our first "A-team" game of the 2009-2010 season against Iowa. We traded scores for a while in the beginning before our d-line got it going with a few breaks in a row to put the game in our control. We kept that control for the rest of game and ended up winning 10-7. At this point the games were still to 15, so there were basically no points after halftime. Offense went the whole game without getting broken.

Bye Round (I think this is when cultimate decided games to 15 in 80 minute rounds were ridiculous and decreased it to games to 13.)

Carleton: After coming off the amazing second round bye we moved over to field one to play against the defending national champions. We went down big in the beginning of the game as our offense struggled against the more physical carleton defense. For a lot of people on the team this was probably the first real taste of the more intense and physical defense displayed by some top teams. After going down 0-5, we finally got it together and started playing some ultimate. We started trading scores and even broke them a few times coming out in the second half. After the initial second half burst, carleton again turned it on and scored another four times. The game ended 13-7. Even though the score was pretty ugly, we showed that we could play with a top team for stretches. Besides the 2 runs that Carleton went on, we played pretty much even ultimate with the defending champions. Carleton looks like they added some good young talent, including some more height that they did not have before. Carleton's offense worked mostly on quick backhand arounds and movement between their handlers, as well as breakmark throws to isolated cutters coming out of the vert stack.

Luther:

We came off the hard loss to carleton and immediately took it to the Luther team. After the first couple of points this was not much of a game. Our offense scored easily off of fluid handler movement and a surplus of hucks to ridiculously open cutters in the endzone. The defense played some long points and broke the Luther team on several occasions. Luther's offense pretty much relied on #7 Greg Shirbroun running around a lot. Austin did a really awesome job on him and we coasted to a 13-7 win. The offense again went the whole game without getting broken.

Wisconsin:

Our last game on saturday put us against an undefeated to this point Wisconsin team. After playing carleton, it seemed like Illinois was better prepared for what might be the most physical defense in the country. Wisconsin, no matter the skill of the players on the team, brings extremely high intensity defense and a ton of sideline energy to every game they play. Even wisconsin's new players know how to cheat on the mark and on cutters as wisconsin continues to advance its program on questionable calls and spirit. The game started with us on offense, and we immediately got broken to fall behind 0-1. We came out and scored twice and our defense got the break back to put us back on serve at 3-2. Then going into half we had a chance to take half 7-4 but I threw away a high backhand on the goal line which led to a wisco break. This put the score at 6-5. Wisco broke again to put it at 6-6 but then we finally converted to take half on serve at 7-6. The second half started pretty even until wisconsin had a late run to put the game to 11-10. Our defense then broke as hard cap was going off to put the game to 11-11 and send it to universe. We started on d for dgp and quickly got a turn. We almost turned it over but got the disc back after a a foul call that gave us back the disc after a long heated argument. But we turned the disc over again near our own endzone and wisco finally capitalized with the short field to take the game on universe 12-11.

This was I think the best game of the weekend for us even though we ended with a lost. We showed that even with the inexperienced and new team, we could hang with the best in the country. This game was easily the most intense and emotional game of the weekend, and the team showed that they could harness that intensity just as well as the hodags could. I am already looking forward to our next matchup with the hodags, I know it will be a good one.

We ended the day 2-2, and went back to Mark's house where Mark's parents had prepared a feast.

Sunday:

Kansas:

Our first game of sunday was again at 8 am against the HorrorZontals of Kansas. Kansas is similar to Wisconsin in that they play extremely physical defense and make their fair share of questionable calls. We got broke early in this game but rebounded with a break of our own and ended up taking half with the lead. There were some extremely long points in this game so we wouldn't get to play very long after half before the game was decided. We started the second half on offense and finally scored after a long point. Kansas came out and scored on a quick huck to axle. We were up 8-7. Kansas then broke us to put the game at 8-8 and yet another universe point as the hard cap had went on during the point before. We started this universe point on offense and turned the disc over on a huck to the endzone. We got the disc back, and then turned it over again. But yet again we got the disc back, and this time we wouldn't give the disc back. We worked the full length of the field and after a pretty heated "situation" between evil hidaka and myself, ended up scoring and taking the game 9-8. This was huge because two double game point losses in a row would have been hard. We showed that we could take a game on a big point against a relatively good kansas team. Also universe point experience is something hard to come by and having two different games go to universe in our first tournament was pretty exciting.

Bye Round...yay another second round bye

Minnesota:

We pretty much got killed in this one so I am going to keep the recap short. We came out and matched minnesota's play in the beginning but pretty much fell apart in the second half. We turned the disc over way too many times on basic throws and catches, and minnesota capitalized by playing their game of hucking early and often. The game ended 13-5..not so good.

Colorado:

Our last game of the weekend came against last year's runner up, the Colorado Mamabird. Colorado lost some key players including Mac Taylor, but they are Colorado and still have plenty of athletes and skill required to make plays and win games. Colorado would be the eventual winner of Border Brawl as they beat Minnesota in the championship 11-8. We opened up our lines in this game to give people playing time and awesome experience against a top team. I felt like this game lacked any real emotion or momentum from either team, and ended in a very anti-climatic 9-8 Colorado win.

So we ended the weekend 3-4 with wins against: Iowa, Luther, and Kansas and two one point losses to Wisco and Colorado. We lost one game on universe, and won another. The weather was awesome the whole weekend with temperatures in the 70s and almost no wind until sunday afternoon. The fields were full size, for a change, and the tournament was a lot of fun overall. Everyone who came made plays for the team, from returners to first years. Even though this was a fall tournament, everyone should realize that we can and will be a good team this year. We could be great but it is going to take a lot of work from everyone, both with the team and on your own.

So...start now and get after it.

-Sid

Day 2 Glory Days Team Z

Sorry for the wait

Every Illinois team started Sunday in the championship bracket. With pride on the line what team was going to step up and be crowned the best Illinois split squad team?


Z vs North Park (8-15)
-Team Z's first game was against North Park. We were warned by Illinois Y that we would be playing against a zone. Good Z was picking apart every zone we played the whole weekend. North Park ended up throwing a zone for a few up wind points but after moving it around the zone like it was nothing they switched to man for the rest of the game. Another thing to point out was North Park was calling very tight lines. In the first half not many rooks were on the field for them. With the wind as strong as it was and playing against mostly returners North Park took a lead into half. After half North Park began to let more people play. That is when we started our come back. Now having better match ups everywhere we started to come back. Again North Park started to call tighter lines and then they finished up the game. This was a hotly contested game. At some times tons of calls were being made by both sides, but even with this it stayed a very intense game. I am definitely looking forward to playing this team with our whole squad.


Z vs Chicago round 2 (11-10 win!)
-With every Illinois team now in the 9th place bracket after losing their first games, Z was matched up against U of Chicago again. Yes we would get to play against the most spirited man in ultimate once more. Much of the same occurred in this game as in the day before, except that there were no big leads. It was back and forth the whole time. Z came out on top in the end again. Without any spirit discs to give out Zubair was shot down again by his former team.

Illinois vs Valpo
-By the end of the day Sunday x,y, and z were all playing with injured players. We worked out a deal with Valpo to combine all 3 split squads and play one game for 9th place bracket. Valpo won the game.

Overall Glory days was a really good tournament for everyone. Every one of our split squads had a good weekend owning 3 out of 4 spots in the 9th place bracket semi finals. On another note we move indoors today, and this year the university has expanded our throwing time. Who's up for the cross fits?