Post-Bard

Beautiful weather.

First game against East Strousberg. Came out flat. We need to end this first game problem we have before people make it a mentally acceptable behavior. "Oh no problem, we lost but it was the first game of the day, no wonder". Forget that. Not much to say about this game. They outran us and hucked it a lot.

Second game vs Hamilton. First time we have seen them since Danse, and they were far less intimidating without their Celtic warrior garb and woad paint. Even so, they started strong and took half 7 - 4. Second half we got fired up, but did not hit our stride in time and lost 12 - 9 despite some fiery performances.

Third match vs Bard Renegades, who we thought was Bard's b team. As it turns out they are actually another team at Bard, but they do not practice competitively or something like that. Some sort of rivalry I would guess, between the "serious" players and they people who just want to play for fun but still have a team. Eh. In any case we were tired and they were lucky that was the case. We kept it close but were never able to take the lead, losing 13 - 10.

By that point we were down to nine players, so everyone was understandably tired. We were short staffed all day which was frustrating at times but it also allowed for a few people to really step up, including Eleazer who dropped a lot of passes but always got open. His biggest problem as I see it is confidence and when he becomes confident in his catching ability, he will make the catches he is missing. Captain Dave played savage, which added up to a total of 61 points if my mental addition is solid. For my part I subbed out for four points and was more tired than I usually am after a day of play, which makes sense because I was mostly cutting instead of handling. We had nice flow going on the handle with sweet upline passes and huge hucks alike. I'd say I had about a 50/50 huck completion rate, which is alright. Forehand form definitely getting there. Shoulder jerk is getting powerful. Stepping helps so much. Doober claims I played a better defensive game than offense, which might be a first. Regardless I gave people a hard time on the mark, and snagged a few D's.

Final analysis: Nice job Bard, well run tournament with plenty of legit amenities. We had roughly half of our roster, and we had two close games with teams that would have beaten our entire roster soundly last semester. We're getting better.

Baby steps.