Long Haired Hippy Freaks

Summer league, second Saturday out...

I finally got back to play at summer league. If you haven't noticed I've had some conflicts over the last two weeks. In that time the team had played five games. We started the day 4-3 and in fourth place in our pool. Two games today. The first was against the team currently in last place in our pool and the second was against the team one spot ahead of us. So the first game was looking like a cakewalk and the second game a real challenge.

We finished the day 2-0. We've moved up to second place in the standings. Good disc was played by all and the games did not turn out to be what we thought they would be.

We won game one 12-4 at cap. It took forever to get to halftime. Neither team played all that well, so there were lots of turnovers, and both teams played a lot of zone, so the game went slowly to begin with. I played a couple of points, actually made more blocks than goals and didn't expose myself as a liability on defense. In most ways the best play I could hope for. One of the blocks was a layout that I just barely got with the very tips of my fingers. The other block, I must have been using some old man invisibility powers because the guy basically threw it right into me. This happened over 5 hours ago and my arm still has a disc shaped red mark where I got the block.

We won game two 15-8 with quite a bit of time left before the cap. It really wasn't even that close as I believe it was 14-4 at one point before we let them run off four straight goals. Actually its not like we let them - they did it to us. I think we might have gotten a little cocky at like 11-3 when it started to look like we were really going to walk over them. I guess we did in the end get the walkover, but not without a little bit of comeuppance. This team played zone too. Why the zone is so popular in summer league is a mystery to me. One point where I was in I think every yard gained was off of one of my throws. I kept getting this flat backhand, 20-30 yards into the middle of the field from my spot on the left side. The receiver would swing to the right, that person would dump in the middle, the middle would swing to me on the left and then I would cram another flat backhand 20-30 yards into the middle. It cycled exactly like that four times. I was beginning to feel a little silly.

The point that took us to 14 was also really cool. We got a complete hack, with every player on the offense touching the disc exactly one time and ending with a goal. I'd had that happen before in practice, although each time I think it was something we were trying to do. I can't remember it ever happening that way in a competitive game. Just like you'd draw it up on the board.

At the end of the day I would evaluate my performance as good, although I really didn't play that much. We had a lot of men out today and most of them are younger and faster than I am. I've gotten in the habit of sitting until we get scored on and then going in to play offense for one point before sitting out again. That of course means that if we're playing well I don't play much because we will stay on defense. I like it though, and it encourages people who might be proud, but tired, to take a sub and makes for a nice change of pace in our play. Although, if we keep seeing so much zone I think I will try to get more PT. With the playoffs coming up though I think we'll be seeing less and less zone. Good teams win playing hard man, not zone.

So at the end of pool play we sit in second place. More importantly I did manage to play in 25% of the games so I am eligible to play in the finals tournament in a couple of weeks. And I get to play it on a good team at that.