Practice and the possession game

Part I

Playing ultimate for four hours is a decent representation of one day of tournament play. Today I am sore. Yesterday was practice, lifting, our first outdoor game, and then a trip to Marist with Bridget to see what those fellows are up to. Their practice format is hectic and fairly exhilarating.

Like us, they are devoting all of their limited gym time to game mechanics and just straight up ultimate. Make it take it, that sort of thing. Unlike us, they play six on six with tiny endzones. It is nearly impossible to score, and that leads to long exhausting points. Both teams tend to end up hanging around the disc, leading to clusters of people and wide open space downfield. Their players are either going to have a stilted perception of how to cut to space, or be so good at finding tiny spaces that their cuts will be precision and deadly.

My money is on the latter. Marist has improved immensely as a team. Their throws are getting sharp and they are certainly not getting any slower. Not to mention their numbers - last night they had around 30 people, enough for four teams of six with subs.

Playing with them was fun and also motivation to get in shape. Covering Dave was ridiculous. That kid is amazingly fast and can sky a player six inches taller than him with relative ease. I can get by on defensive positioning and experience, but in a straight-line sprint it's over.
Needless to say playing with those guys was a good time and I am looking forward to scrimmaging them this semester.

Part II

As for our practice, it is going well but we have a long way to go. People are improving their individual skills, but there are a lot of turnovers and that, I think is the major problem. Our younger players just do not understand the importance of possession of the disc, not having played or watched much real ultimate. Never having been one to emphasize the possession game, I have neglected to stress it's importance to the team at large and that has been a mistake. It seems I am going to have to tone down my huck happy ways and teach people how to play real ultimate.

Sigh.

At least I know what my next few chalk talks will be about. Possession.
Possession.
Possession.
Yes.

Playing outside was a nice wake up call. Being a typically windy New Paltz day, our throws, confined indoors for so long, looked a little floaty. I got to the turf later than most, having stayed at the gym to lift after practice. After I got there we played a game to three, and only one point was scored against the wind. The sooner we can start playing outside again the better. Despite the lack of competence at throwing in the wind, it is clear that the people who have been putting in the time have improved their throws. Tom was hucking the disc and even Eli was making strong throws. However, learning to play against the wind is going to be key.

We got the bid for Hofstra. The field is mostly made up of teams from our section.
Quality.