LI Classic Day 1

We arrived at the Hofstra fields just in time for the captain's meeting, truly a fortunate turn of events. Beggining our first game it turned out that Kerry mananged to get us all our games on one field for the entire day, which was pretty darn cool.
First game was against Ramapo, and we came out a little flat. D was fairly intense but our offense just did not click. There were a lot of dropped passes, which could be attributed to our lack of outdoor practices up until this point. We lost by six. Fun game. We need to work on being ready to play our first game. Starting slow does not help us. I am confident that we can beat Ramapo if we play as well as we can. No excuses.

Ramapo tried to huck it to Benjy five times in one point. Nah. That dude is like a brick house.

Our second match was against Hofstra B, and they were enthusiastic and inexperienced. Our defense was out of control and we stopped what seemed like every other throw they made. Our offense started to click but the stack was setting up too far away from the handlers and people were not clearing quite fast enough. Hofstra B set up their stacks even farther out, and often had to cut thirty yards under to catch a pass from a handler forty yards away from the back of their stack, and against an offense like that our hungry defense could not help but make plays all day.
We won by a lot. If you are interested in seeing the scores from any of our games they are already up on the UPA teams list.

After Hofstra B was the Merchant Marine Academy (at Steven's Point I think but don't quote me on that). They were, not suprisingly, very fast. If they got a d they would immediately start cutting, hard. I made an error in judgement as defensive coordinator by not setting zone at all in the first half. They had very few really solid throwers but they were very fast. One of their players said it is their first year, and after a year or so when they have all learned to throw they will be a team to watch out for.

In the meantime they were a good team for us to play, driving home the lesson that you have to go to the disc every throw. If any of our cutters slowed down even a tiny bit, they would d the throw. Second half we brought out a sick o line, scored our first point and then ran zone for the next three points, scoring them all before finally being broken to make the game 6 - 4 in their favor. Alas, that was as close as we got, and the Marines took the game back. We need to become more conistant. Running zone all game would have helped, but after our four point run we did not make much noise. But let me tell you those four points were sick nasty.

Fourth game against Adelphi, we started strong on d and did not relent. Not much to say. We beat them with our legs, mostly. They could not handle our defensive pressure that started the first point and continued all the way through. I think we played mini tanks after. Quality.

Our final match of the day was with SUNY Purchase, in the much anticipated battle of the artsy SUNY schools. We came out strong and frustrated their defense, taking half 6 to 2. They have some solid players but by the end of the day some of their studs seemed a little tired, and our players were not playing tired at all. Our offense really started to click and our vert stack looked reall tasty, probably the best it has ever been. As a team our fundamentals have come a very long way in the past two years. We obviously have a lot to improve on, but we are really starting to play like a TEAM and that is great. Purchase was a really fun team and the players on our respective squads really hit it off. Instant chemistry you might say. I'd love to play them again.

All in all it was a great day for the GUNX. Our defense was out of control and our offense is really starting to click. Unfortunately we did not get to play any teams from our section today (except possibly the Marinese?). Tomorrow we face Buffalo in pre-quarters, Stony Brook in quarters and in all likelihood Hofstra in semis, should we play like ferocious tigers and make it that far. Here's to hoping.