2011 Conference Champions

The first ever Illinois Conference was this weekend in Rantoul. Vets of the Illinois program remember Rantoul fondly. It is commonly known that the four winds of the world converge on Rantoul. The forecast called for rain but fortunately it held out through our first round game against ISU.

The Illinois team is pretty familiar with the faces of ISU and was pumped to get their first shot at Stanley the Gnome since Whitesmoke. The Dline ripped open the game to 4-0, from there the olines traded into half. We had a nice chat about the ridiculous number of turnovers we had in the first half but really to no avail. The Dline got one more break, thanks to Dane's turkey call, on the game and the oline didn't falter, the game ended on cap at 12-6.

SIU Full Tilt was next on the schedule. A team we were a lot less familiar with. As the game started the heavens really began to open up and the rains came down... I mean sideways. Standing on the east sideline was brutal with the rain coming straight at your face. The game started despite the conditions and SIU grabbed their first o point. From here Illinois opened a 6-0 run, that was capped off with freshman Crayon scoring, and eventually settled into half with a 7-2 advantage. The second half was all dline. Mark caught a Callahan, aka an Autochevron, Sidrys caught a floater over everyone and Chevtom lived up to his name.

The final game of the day was Chicago, a team that features two Illinois alums, Coach Zubair and player Kurley. Fortunately the game was over without much difficulty. We went on a 7-0 run to take half and coasted to a 13-7 victory leaving the fields to chants of R-A... N-T-OUL.

Sunday morning we got a bye thanks to the TD reorganizing things due to the ridiculous Saturday weather. Sunday had lighter wind, sun and no rain. It felt like the best conditions all year. We opened against Northwestern who we had played at Huck Finn when they were missing some big players so this time around we expected a much different game. Colin Reid opened the game by putting the oline on his back and making a big layout grab 1-0. A nice catch by JR and some great D by Kennedy gave us a 4-0 advantage. AJ Nelson played well and helped Northwestern stay in the game as we traded into half 8-3. The second half brought our cleanest ultimate of the weekend. Sul skied people with ONE HAND!!!!! Dane had a sick pair of bookends, and DMac got the wind knocked out of him for the game winning catch.

Eastern Illinois was on the plate for the Championship. This was Eastern's second year in the series. They thought a zone would be a good idea, it wasn't. We opened a 2-0 lead, traded to 4-2 and then closed out the half 8-2. Eastern was pumped coming out of the half and tallied a 4-0 run bringing the game to 8-6. The oline cleaned it up, and the dline made it worthwhile. Eastern didn't seem to go away as they threw another one. Halvies made a great throw to Papi on the next o point, and then Gibby did some things to help the Dline get the game to 12-7. We traded with them from there, the oline had some good moments especially Halvies throwing things and Austin catching an upline as he called his shot. With the score 14-9, the Dline wanted to take the Championship point and did.

Team dinner at Dos and it was official. Illinois Ultimate wins the first Illinois Conference Championship!