Scranton by game

Scranton was a legit way to end the season, surely.

With a little help from our friends we got set up with an ill place to stay and party, and raged long into the night.

Nice.

Woke up ready to play. Not sure how that happened. Nice.

One thing that is worth noting is that noone used the "I could not play well because I was hungover" excuse. This is a marked contrast to say, Vasser last semester when at the end of the day many people, myself included, grumbled that we would have done so much better if we had not partied.

I think that means we've leveled up at partying and ultimate. Cool.

The first game against Scranton X went pretty well. It was close, as both teams had a few players that created big matchup problems for the other which led to a lot of quick exciting goals. We won at soft cap 13 - 12, Scranton ruled soft cap was win by two and broke us twice to win. This thread (http://www.rsdnospam.com/index.php?t=msg&goto=58352&) seems to indicate they got the soft cap rule wrong. In short, depending on who you ask, we won or they won. Whatever. It was a well fought game.

Second game was against the Scranton alumni, and we played a weak game to be sure. It was akin to our loss to Bard at Sectionals. Not that crushing but symptomatic of the same problem. We brought about one tenth of the fire we had in the previous game. It was pathetic, and they beat us 12 - 9 or something like that. Score is irrelevant. We played mentally and physically weak. To a certain extent that falls on the leaders on the team. I can't say I played any harder than anyone else, or tried as hard as I could have to be inspiring. It was a failure of a game across the board.

We need to break our habit of playing down to the level of our opponents, and slacking off after an intense game. Scranton alums were running savage and were not in anywhere near as good shape as Scranton X. If we had balled we would have buried them. Overcoming that mental weakness will be key for next year.

An aside, we seem to have overcome our previous glaring weakness, always playing terrible our first game. Our past three tournaments seem to indicate that we show up ready to ball.

Nice.

We played even lazier and worse against our next opponent, King's college. However, it did not matter as we shut them out in the second half. Even so, another mentally weak game. Fun though. They were pretty hilarious and had probably the best halftime cheer I've ever heard. Ironically, they were the first team we ever played at a tournament, and also our first win.

They ran a pretty creative version of the air raid. We poached deep. Oops.

Anyway.

Fortunately we found our fire and legs for our final game against Scranton Y. We came out strong, stayed strong, and finished strong. Not our best game ever but in my opinion our most consistent. Ever. We did not let up, and played strong from first to last. I think we won by a pretty decent margin.

Maybe it was Slip's monster layout d on the sideline, maybe it was full field high release backhands, the long drive home or Doober's yellow shorts but Oneonta did not stick around to play us. Personally I'd like to believe that after watching us Shellac Scranton Y they got scared and quit. I suppose we'll never know for sure. Gunx end the tournament 2 - 2, 3 - 1, 4 - 1 or something. The jury is still out.

Closing thoughts: although short staffed, we balled in general and had a great weekend. Having Slip and Henry was nice. Slip was a inspiration. His ability to pull the trigger and layout for D's at will is something to strive for. He is a man.

Ending the season on a high note.
Nice.