Regionals Pt. 2

Well by now it has been a few days, the RSD chatter has died down and vacation plans are underway. Soon, we'll find out what we are seeded (is it going to be 15th or 16th!).

I'd like to point out a few more players contributions that I seemed to gloss over or forget last time. First, Ross Cram needs a lot of credit. When our offense was bad on Saturday, Ross Cram came in and made it right (okay, there were a few others). When the defense needed to score late Saturday, Ross Cram made sure it happened. When The Van Buren Boys needed a break to finish out halftime against Madcow, Ross Cram let loose a backhand right up the line for Joe Nickels. Oh, and he had a layout D, I believe his only one of the season.

Joe Nickels needs some more talk, too. I don't think I mentioned him in the last blog. Joe played like a warrior. I started calling him Mr. Regionals sometime during the weekend. I remember the pictures of 2007 South College Regionals and the talk about Joe Nickels on RSD, then I saw what he did at 2007 Central Open Regionals. He came up with some big plays, always guarded some baller from the other team, and nearly died on game-point in the Madcow game, then didn't even take the injury sub.

Jake worked wonders on Saturday and Sunday. It's tough to have to call lines, especially in tight games, but Jake handled it very well. Together, we worked out some strategies and came up with some new ideas. Some worked and we went with them. Others didn't, so we went back to the old ways. Without some creativity, some willingness to change, and the stones to take charge, we may have crumbled. There is a fine line in knowing when to stick with players who are underperforming and knowing when to sit guys who aren't getting it done. You don't want to destroy your players' confidence, yet you don't want to keep digging a hole you can't get out of, either.

Without the turnaround of Mike and Barrett, Sunday would not have been possible. If they read this, I don't think it is a surprise to say that they underperformed on Saturday. With Barrett, it seemed to be physical motiviation. With Mike, it seemed to be psychological stress. No matter what it was, they came back big on Sunday when we needed them most. Barrett caught everything underneath in the rain, even the one-handed off-center grabs, and his forehand hucks were always on target. He caught a number of scores, too, seemingly taking part in over half the scores, whether throwing or catching. I'm not sure if Mike was more conservative on Sunday, but he seemed to pick his spots very well and didn't force anything that wasn't there.

I was so happy for a number of players on our team that get to go to nationals. I know it means a lot to Jimmy, Becky, Lou, and Rob. A number of guys on the team have been cut by other perennial nationals teams, so it was great to get some validation. I'm not saying other teams were wrong in not taking them, they know what they need, but it was nice to see everyone who has been cut by other teams be able to have played on a nationals level team, and not only ride the coattails of other players, but play a significant role in getting that team to nationals. I was also excited for BJ, he's been in games-to-go to nationals in three separate years and his fourth will be his first trip to nationals. When CLX abdicated our nationals bid last year, Stu, BJ, and JoeB were all denied their first trip to club nationals. I'm glad Drew and Karl joined the team. I'm glad Ben Lyons get to go to nationals, he has worked so hard this year and improved so much.

I think I have a new top-10 ultimate game, not sure where it would rank up there, nor do I want to go back and find those posts, I think they are over a year old. It's not the Madcow game, but the BAT game. My reasons for including it in the top-10? It was the first time all season that The Van Buren Boys beat a team it wasn't supposed to, and not only that, but in convincing fashion. 15-10 leaves no question as to who the better team was. The team atmosphere was incredible, and the rain just made the game so much more memorable. I felt I played my best game of the season, even though I gave up more breaks than I would like, I tried to pressure Ricky on every throw, to never give him anything easy, to make him work for everything. I did my best to get the offense running during defensive transitions and we picked up some cheap scores that way. So, it had all the makings of a top-10 game: I played well, the team wasn't supposed to win but did, we won convincingly, and it was an important and memorable game.

So, the Madcow game. Not a top-10 game. By the second half rolled around, I was a little out of it. I was a little jaded by all of the calls and had dissociated from the game a little. That and I was fairly ineffective on defense, using most of my energy in the previous game. After playing a point in the second half, my arms and fingers were tingling, as was my toes and scalp. Couple that with lightheadedness and I felt it probably wasn't a good thing for me to go back into the game. I became a spectator as I mentioned before, having to watch each excruciating offensive turnover and the resulting defensive drama and eventually offensive scores.

There were also too many calls in that game, too much arguing for it to have been an enjoyable game, thus a top-10 game. Before observers, I believe Madcow's main argument with us were two close up/down calls that we retained possession on. They did have two marking foul calls that retained possession for them that we argued. Beyond that, there was the ongoing drama of JoeB v. Kevin Ryan (Willis). Willis gets injured, observers come in, score is 5-5. It seems as if calls were the reason we were winning the game, that from this point, we should be outscored. We weren't. We outscored them 10-8 from this point. Well, I wrote some other stuff, but erased it, it seems like beating a dead horse at this point.

Finally, making nationals meant a lot to me, too. This has been a tough season for me on many fronts, obsessively worrying about the team, trying to call earlier season lines, taking care of administrative duties, all why trying to stay in playing form with a body that is past its' prime. Oh, and I didn't put myself on the O team, and I love offense. Jake helped a lot by agreeing to take over line calling.

This season reminded me of a jigsaw puzzle. Just as with an old puzzle, finding all of the pieces is the first goal, you can't start arranging them until you have them all there. Recruitment wasn't too tough, but we were adding and subtracting guys until CHCs. Then you have to start fitting pieces together, a lot by trial and error and slowly at first. These were our early season tournaments. As the picture comes together, the puzzle moves along faster, and some pieces you thought fit in one area actually go in the opposite corner. By the end, you just throw the final pieces in and admire the picture. That's what I'm doing now, I guess.

Seriously, though, it was tough. The team wanted me to tell them what to do on offense and defense. What can I tell you? How can we design an offense when only half the guys come to any given weekend practice, and we only hold four or five weekend practices? That and tournament attendence is never high enough to work on things there, either. I tried to develop an offensive system that would start with certain given variables, then rely on free-flow and creativity until either a score or turnover happened. It is by no means revolutionary, but it got everybody on the same page and could easily be described to players who weren't there at practices. It was difficult to use zone defenses during the year because every player learned it slightly differently in different areas on different teams. Early in the season I tried to get the defense to run off of a turnover instead of waiting to set up an offense, but some early season mishaps had them thinking the slow set-up is the way to go. So, at regionals, I became a handler and decided that when the situation called for it, I just ran to the disc and immediately put it into play, whether the cutters were ready or not. It made for some quick scores and it made for some confused offensive possessions, too.

Anyway, it was a tough, tough, year. I thought I had wasted a lot of players' time and money putting this team together. I felt a little guilt, a little dissappointment, some feelings of failure, but those all started to melt away as we that deficit against Illinois melted away. It was a wild ride this season, but the end result has been worth it. But hey, it isn't over yet... not yet.