Take the wheel and steer

Wildwood was a blast. An amazing weekend overall but for me the best part was seeing the future of New Paltz ultimate. There were moments where we played, as a team, fantastic, confident ultimate, showcasing the skills of a team that is versitile, confident, creative and deadly. Those brief snapshots sketch out the future of the team if we can take our current crop of talent and our drive to get better and run with it, well, to the endzone.

This weekend should can and should be further proof. We are going to be really, really good if we can come together and push each other. That's basically all.
Let's do it.

Lost at summer league today. Played badly, as a team and individually. We can do better. Throws were good. Defense was not. At. All.
Oof.

Have a good one.

chocolate rain

B Team came out on top of the highly anticipated rematch with chocolate, going up large in the first half and then playing a subdued second half, allowing chocolate a few points of catchup but not enough. Game, B Team, 14 - 11. I feel really good about my offensive positioning, taking more time to see the field and time my cuts for the right setup. It payed off today, 6 goals caught and one thrown. Boom.

Got beat on defense a few times and missed three or four big play opportunities on d. Played worse in the second half, not running hard enough due to 10% long work day, 15% daytime tequila and 75% not being in good enough shape.

Things to do, in short: on offense, continue to work on setting up in the right place, close enough to the disc, and timing cuts based on who has the disc and the spaces that open up instead of just running and running and running and hoping.

On defense, set up a yard or two out from a man in the endzone so they cannot get the drop step. Don't get beat deep, and get in shape to be able to run harder.

Pulls were pretty damn decent.

So enough about me.
Stuff to get done for the Gunx before the season starts:
Be ready to
order discs
order uniforms
have a practice schedule
advertise the team
boom

Above the clouds

"If you don't know how to play cup, don't play it!" the old white player angrily yelled at his younger rec league teammate.

Getting in shape: so far so good, still doing stupid things like staying up late and drinking mad beer, but I am feeling confident and running hard. Ups need a lot of work.

League this week:
Wednesday the B team faced the strong orange squad. We had seven players and had to run 4 - 2 against 7 due to gender ratio rules. Playing down is a great challenge. We had some great moments. I caught a bunch of goals but missed two due to bad jumping and blew a great cutting opportunity.

Pros: Met Ken Dobyns.
Cons: We lost, 15 - 12 after trading ahead and then getting broken two times in the last crucial minutes.

Thursday:
Forest fire vs white.
I was running on fumes and somehow managed to hit the perfect amount of overtired to not care and just run and run. We won by a lot.
Pros: Great flow, great team game.
Cons: The Stiggles - Herbst matchup in the blue red game just did not live up to the hype my brain manufactured.

Isaac played tremendously. We were going to do a workout on the way home from league, both being sleep deprived and hungover and hyped up on endorphins, but I was a badoof and did not have sneakers.

Club soon.
I will be ready. Planks, lunges, squats, pushups, it is on.

Plans (lolololololololol)

So let's get to the bare bones.
Next weekend is the last before four weekends of club/league tournaments in row or somesuch.

It is time to make the most of it.
Things to do:
Design a workout
workout
workout
workout
Drink water
DRINK WATER
DRINK MORE WATER
That's about it.

At the same time, making plans for the upcoming school year:
Binder containing
-scorekeeping device
-roster
-relevant team paperwork (travel forms, etc)
-whatever else

That is what I have been thinking about today. How about you?

BONUS POST LOLOLOL

At draft league I focused very hard on not getting broken and it payed off. Need to learn when to block the dump at a high stall count, and also to step in front of the thrower after they release the disc.

Marking is a big issue for rec league, we got broken a lot in the zone and that just kills. Against a stronger team it would have been a real issue. Paul thinks forcing middle at rec is better becase it contains more. I think he is wrong and that we can learn a force sideline defense and profit from it.

Bleh.

Anyway, been thinking about the fundamental concepts we need to focus on with new players, early, often and in a simple, concise way.

On defense:
marking
forcing
last back

What else?

Our powers combined, we form FULL BEARD

#777.

So.
What to say about the past few days in ultimateland? I've realized a few things and been given some solid advice, and am working on improving my physical game. Jumping off my toes, body on defense, dictating, agression...pretty much everything. Started to pay of in wednesday's game against red, I played arguably the best defensive game of my life, dicating physically and more points than not stopping my man from getting the disc completely. I got scored on twice and missed a few d opportunities, but I got three D's and shut down quite a few cutters, including some very solid players. Several players on my team and the other team complimented my game, which was nice.

Also played more confident offense, and whether that was the cause or the effect, I was much more vocal and a bigger presence on the team. Definately played more confidently than I ever have in draft league and that will pay dividends. Also coming from camp and being amped to play instead of tired was AWESOME. Also, Chichester was there <3.

But we lost. And I could have done more to stop that from happening.
Work work work!

Won handily at rec league, played blue who we already beat handily and today many of their veterans were not there. E Herbst picked up the slack, playing some of the most confident ultimate I've seen from him so far, and a good omen for the coming year. However his valiant effort was not enough and we rolled them handily.

Unsatisfying. On some level winning in a blowout is less fulfilling than losing a close game. That highly depends on context of course, but winning by 12 in rec league just does not get me jazzed up. However, I had a few throws that I would not have been able to make last week, and am feeling very confident again.

Boom.