Monday, April 27, 2009

Frisbee?

Today I showed my commitment to the team by skipping practice to go hiking, my work ethic by not getting any homework done, and my decision making by making a shirtless full extension layout into a juniper bush.
Leadership. Its what I do.

We might have a coach or coaches next year. Amped.
Speaking of next year, I am planning on delegating certain tasks to other memebers of the team so we get more stuff done. Cool.

How ya'll doin?

Thursday, April 23, 2009

End of season blues

Crab arm blues
noone showing up to practice blues
schoolwork blues
random injuries at pickup blues
no practice the week before club tryouts blues
no conviction or motivation or fire for club tryouts blues
no money for club tournaments blues
not even wanting to play frisbee blues
whining on my blog blues


PS Ska shows are fun. That said, Casanova Frankenstien > Real Big Fish. Nothing against the fish. Casanova did work is all.
<3

Saturday, April 18, 2009

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.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Bard preview

Hype.

PS: Eleazer is going to be a complete baller. You heard it here first. Look for him to dominate everybody all over the place next year. I mean he burned me deep three times at pickup today and I am practically an olympic sprinter. That's not the point though. He is and is going to be so good.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Oh hey

Elders pickup outside today. Hooray. Amazing. It was really good to play. I did some serious work for the first bit, earning a dollar for bookends from Doober. Towards the end I slowed down due to not eating all day. However, Eleazer manned up all over the place and caught about ten points and threw a lot of good throws. It was pretty sweet to see. The freshmen on the team are really stepping up and that's the best.

Had a breakthrough with my forehand today and I feel that I am on the cusp of really huge forehands. Quickening the throwing motion helped a lot.

Motivation to go to practice: critically low. Not from me. I'm there. But the team seems to be entering that end of semester burnout phase. Ugh. So much potential that will have to be channeled into next year. Eh.

I need to get agressive and start jumping again, and get back to the gym.
And make plays,
and layout for Ds.
Hey.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Sectionals redux

Focus -- it took us two games, as a team, to focus. Not proper.
Throw forehands IO, low release, proper form, hips, shoulder jerk -- check. flicks were pretty good with the exception of the games where it was so windy that upfield throws became ridiculously bad. Had one or two massive flicks for goals.
Backhands, grip it and rip it -- Check.
Play defense with every fiber of yourself wanting regionals -- 60%
Get the team fired up -- I tried. I don't know how sucessful I was but I will do better.
Be a team player -- I think I did pretty well with this.
Be positive -- heck yes.
Play out of your fucking mind -- 70%
Win every game. Four bids. Four bids! 1 and 3
End the day happy -- mostly yes.

It was a good weekend.
A building block,
you might say.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I believe

in the Hodag three-peat.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Ah spring, when a young man's fancy....

This is my 50th post on this blog. I will have a cookie to celebrate.

So anyway, today was sectionals. The format was changed last minute from pool play to bracket play. I'm not entirely sure why but it was interesting. We needed to come out strong against SUNY Buffalo and unfortunately we did not manage that. We played very tentatively and did not display our usual aptitude for zone offense. Buffalo won by a decent amount and I am hoping they qualify for regionals.

Our second game was against Geneseo Snail. Eh. I did not play very well offensively but I shut my guy down on defense most of the time. Jacked a full field flick to BJC and got a handblock. Me me me. Right, anyway, maybe I'll refelct on this game at a later date when I remeber the details.

Since we lost our first two games we got to move fields for our third game. The second field site was right on the lake and incredibly windy. The wind forced us to really focus on fundamental zone offense which is definately a good thing. Third game was against SUNY Potsdam, sans my Magic Roll crew sadly. We had a very close game. They were up in the first half initially, but we took the lead and took half 8 - 5. Second half they caught up, although I think we got the score wrong but since noone wrote it down (my fault) we'll never know. The game got hardcapped at 12 - 11 us, and eventually we won 13 - 12 in a very tight game.

After playing incredibly hard in our third game against Perfect Storm, our sideline and many of our subs dispersed and hid in their cars to avoid the wind. We started out against Ithaca with two subs and little enough energy. They took half by a large margin, maybe 8 to 2. Eventually we found some flow and energy and made it a closer game, with a final score of 15 - 10 Ithaca. They were a cool team despite one terrible call (although I doubt the player in question would agree with my assesment of the situation).

A lot of our players really stepped up this weekend, freshmen in particular. Eli and Steve both had plenty of D's each. Our zone offense got a lot better over the weekend, as well as our zone d. We will need to work on both at practice. 2x4 got really got at stopping cup crashes, frustrating Potsdam and Ithaca's poppers all day and all night.

So sectionals, for us, is over, after one epic day. I am hoping that the weekend will motivate our players to work hard and commit the neccesary time to the team so that we can keep improving and work towards the goal of winning our section and qualifying for regionals.

This weekend is certainly food for thought. Further posts forthcoming.
Campus disc golf pays off. I threw arguably my best ever in game huck and also one of my best ever pullls.
But I still need to figure out how to hole in one the sculpture.

Anyway yeah.
Happy Easter.
Peace.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Mental Game

Focus.
Throw forehands IO, low release, proper form, hips, shoulder jerk.
Backhands, grip it and rip it.
Play defense with every fiber of yourself wanting regionals.
Get the team fired up.
Be a team player.
Be positive.
Play out of your fucking mind.
Win every game. Four bids. Four bids!
End the day happy.
SPORTS.

See you at sectionals.
<3 GUNX