I will post after nationals this year to give a recap, but needless to say I am pretty excited about getting back to nationals. it is fun to be an underdog again.
I haven't been in a tougher pool since my twisted metal days, and honestly, those pools make thursday really, really exciting. if I was awesome and wasn't pulling together a report right now (the joys of the downtime of huge web queries and macros), i would find the clip of metal upsetting the condors on dgp the thursday of my first nationals.
ring had some great practices after the egg we laid at regionals (aside: if you think you can make it to a sunday of a tourney by taking a redeye across the country the night before to get there as the game starts, don't. you just can't function. your legs are lead, your mind is asleep, and your D will suck.)
We spent the last couple of practices refocusing on our fundamentals (sideline talk, marking, Defense, Defense, Defense). after all, nationals is about who can execute and play a team game the best, especially quarters onward. I think thursday and friday are about who can remain the freshest and still get a favourable quarters matchup.
the teams that stick to their fundamentals and their strategy (patterns) and executes their game plan will beat the other team that has flown off the radar with the game plan and has just become lone wolves out on the field.
it should be no surprise that the majority of teams run the same "plays" as other teams, only under a different name. the better teams just execute them better and recognize the patterns on Defense as well to make it harder for other teams to run their plays.
the older i get the more i realize that the line between a winning team and a losing team is about confidence and trust. you have to have the confidence in yourself to play at your fullest, confidence in your system so you use it and rely on it, and trust in your teammates to do the same.
three car loads of ring is taking the road shortly. the older guys are flying. we are all very excited, and looking forward to having a slugfest of a thursday.
I have no crystal ball and have no clue how thursday will go for us, but if we bring the energy and focus we had at the last couple of practices we can run with anyone.
-josh
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Chesapeake
So, Chesapeake came and went and it wasn't blazingly hot or humid this year. I didn't even put ice in my cooler (note: I have started to take an ice water cooler with me to practices down here). If teams don't do that for nationals, they should. Putting an ice water towel on your neck and head is awesome in the florida heat.
anyway, so this was the first year playing chesapeake that i haven't stayed 5 minutes from the fields with danny clark's awesome parents' house. instead I stayed with the team at the sheraton in the sprawl that is outside of the dc beltway. the 30 minute drive to the fields just meant that we would have a looooong day ahead of us before we could get back to sleep.
Ring's saturday had a grueling format of game, bye, game, game, mini bye, game. The first game was against NYC's replicants. They hucked it a lot and tried to force the disc to the center cutters in the ho. we countered this with poaching off the sideline handlers and making sure we didn't get beat deep. they still completed a good amount of hucks on us. although, that is what they do and they seemed to do that on everyone all weekend long.
We won with a good margin, and then we had a bye where we hydrated, ate food, got out of the sun, and tried to get prepared for a long day.
The second game was against Tanasi and they have some talented handlers and cutters. they break the mark well, give-n-go well, and huck well, but they had some execution errors and forced a couple deep looks to covered men that ring capitalized on. We win in a good hard running game. they are a team that no team should overlook at regionals. especially early since they don't have a very large team.
the third game was important because if truckstop and ring win their sections, the winner of this game would have the #1 seed at regionals. we had the same record at ecc, so i was kind of curious how this game would play out.
there were a couple things to keep in mind: 1.) brian stout was injured and was not playing. he was injured by a revolver player at ecc and will be out until regionals. 2.) i think Ryan Todd has gone to about 2 practices with truck, so he wasn't what you would call seemlessly integrated into their O yet.
Anyway, we start out on D and go up 2 breaks on them. We take the half with momentum and maybe one more break. we are making sure all our players are fresh and keeping their legs in the game because it is hot, and there is a lot of tourney left. anyway, we are in firm control of the game until late in the second half when truck breaks us twice to make it 11-10. We then punch it in on O to win.
Truckstop seems to be running spread a lot on O this year. there are a lot of teams that seem to be moving away from ho and moving towards different looks on O. it will be interesting to see how stout affects the cutting patterns of the other players if he is playing O this year. on metal he definitely ate up a lot of the deep cutting space by the way he "cuts" (read cherry picks), but man, you can toss up some meatballs to him and he will bring 95% down or more.
We then have a mini-bye to play in the showcase game against chain. it looks like chain lost tall joel wooten, jay hammond, rob barrett, cricket, and one or two more. of course they replaced them all with very competent players.
anyway, we start out on D. i get down on the pull and mark PV. he proceeds to launch an 80 yard backhand to zip. yep. it isn't like i used to see that one before.... man, PV is ON this game. the rest of the handlers are missing their mark. we give up two breaks early in the game, and then claw our way back into the game with some gritty D. I think they take half either up 1 break or we are even. We are close to on serve at 8s or 9s and then they pull away right at the end.
i left that game thinking that chain didn't look as "on" as they did at this time last year. They looked more like the chain of two years ago that could be forced to give the disc up if you put enough pressure on them.
On sunday, we were supposed to play the winner of goat/machine. when we get to the fields and are warming up, goat and machine are in a heated game. the last couple of points take a long time and have a few turns by each team. goat ends up winning by one.
we start to play goat. I don't recognize any of their normal O handlers. the russian handler tolly? and their european handler joel aren't there and in their place are significantly younger players. The cutting core is their usual crew of andy, hassel, inian, keanu look alike, and #20 who is a blazingly fast goal scorer.
i forgot what it was like to play goat when it gets ticky-tack. it was physical on both sides and the calls were contested a lot. we go down early and try to claw our way back in the game.
it seemed like every break we got the offense would then go out and promptly get broken. this would have crushed some teams, but ring's D line just kept going out and doing work. we eventually go out on double game point on D and manage to get a coverage D ending with tuba stalling out hassel near their own goal. It was awesome.
a great win for Ring. every tight game that we have and we can pull out a victory is well worth it. good teams play in tight games and lose; great teams find a way to win.
We are coming off of a big victory, feeling good, and the ring guys from last year want a shot at ironside. they seem to hold a special place in their hearts for boston as they (we) ended Ring's season for the past 3 years.
It was a little weird playing against everyone. i guard jeff a few points and i pretty much could have just stuck a pylon out there and done just about as well.
it was hard watching boston get up so many breaks in the first half. too many. 7-2 or 3 is crushing. we trade out point for point in the second half.
So, Ring finishes our regular season with only 3 losses. We have had some good victories, and in our losses I would say a large percent of the reasons for those loses begin and end with confidence and not realizing we can hang with any team if we just go out and play our game. out of the 3 teams we lost to, we by far have the most room for growth, the most area for rapid improvement, and the best potential for player development before nationals. we have A LOT of work to do before now and then if we want to have a chance of beating these and similar tiered teams at nationals.
ironside looked really good. their O was very clean. goldstein tore his right thumb ligament or something in the finals and that will hurt them, but man, it is kind of a blow to the ego that they could be so good after losing 10 players. They were by far the strongest team we played this season. I would equate them to how much head and shoulders chain was above everyone last year at this time.
i'm tired. that's all i got for right now. i am going to spend the next couple posts on confidence, progressive marks, and why the death of the vert stack means no one can score near the endzone anymore.
-josh
anyway, so this was the first year playing chesapeake that i haven't stayed 5 minutes from the fields with danny clark's awesome parents' house. instead I stayed with the team at the sheraton in the sprawl that is outside of the dc beltway. the 30 minute drive to the fields just meant that we would have a looooong day ahead of us before we could get back to sleep.
Ring's saturday had a grueling format of game, bye, game, game, mini bye, game. The first game was against NYC's replicants. They hucked it a lot and tried to force the disc to the center cutters in the ho. we countered this with poaching off the sideline handlers and making sure we didn't get beat deep. they still completed a good amount of hucks on us. although, that is what they do and they seemed to do that on everyone all weekend long.
We won with a good margin, and then we had a bye where we hydrated, ate food, got out of the sun, and tried to get prepared for a long day.
The second game was against Tanasi and they have some talented handlers and cutters. they break the mark well, give-n-go well, and huck well, but they had some execution errors and forced a couple deep looks to covered men that ring capitalized on. We win in a good hard running game. they are a team that no team should overlook at regionals. especially early since they don't have a very large team.
the third game was important because if truckstop and ring win their sections, the winner of this game would have the #1 seed at regionals. we had the same record at ecc, so i was kind of curious how this game would play out.
there were a couple things to keep in mind: 1.) brian stout was injured and was not playing. he was injured by a revolver player at ecc and will be out until regionals. 2.) i think Ryan Todd has gone to about 2 practices with truck, so he wasn't what you would call seemlessly integrated into their O yet.
Anyway, we start out on D and go up 2 breaks on them. We take the half with momentum and maybe one more break. we are making sure all our players are fresh and keeping their legs in the game because it is hot, and there is a lot of tourney left. anyway, we are in firm control of the game until late in the second half when truck breaks us twice to make it 11-10. We then punch it in on O to win.
Truckstop seems to be running spread a lot on O this year. there are a lot of teams that seem to be moving away from ho and moving towards different looks on O. it will be interesting to see how stout affects the cutting patterns of the other players if he is playing O this year. on metal he definitely ate up a lot of the deep cutting space by the way he "cuts" (read cherry picks), but man, you can toss up some meatballs to him and he will bring 95% down or more.
We then have a mini-bye to play in the showcase game against chain. it looks like chain lost tall joel wooten, jay hammond, rob barrett, cricket, and one or two more. of course they replaced them all with very competent players.
anyway, we start out on D. i get down on the pull and mark PV. he proceeds to launch an 80 yard backhand to zip. yep. it isn't like i used to see that one before.... man, PV is ON this game. the rest of the handlers are missing their mark. we give up two breaks early in the game, and then claw our way back into the game with some gritty D. I think they take half either up 1 break or we are even. We are close to on serve at 8s or 9s and then they pull away right at the end.
i left that game thinking that chain didn't look as "on" as they did at this time last year. They looked more like the chain of two years ago that could be forced to give the disc up if you put enough pressure on them.
On sunday, we were supposed to play the winner of goat/machine. when we get to the fields and are warming up, goat and machine are in a heated game. the last couple of points take a long time and have a few turns by each team. goat ends up winning by one.
we start to play goat. I don't recognize any of their normal O handlers. the russian handler tolly? and their european handler joel aren't there and in their place are significantly younger players. The cutting core is their usual crew of andy, hassel, inian, keanu look alike, and #20 who is a blazingly fast goal scorer.
i forgot what it was like to play goat when it gets ticky-tack. it was physical on both sides and the calls were contested a lot. we go down early and try to claw our way back in the game.
it seemed like every break we got the offense would then go out and promptly get broken. this would have crushed some teams, but ring's D line just kept going out and doing work. we eventually go out on double game point on D and manage to get a coverage D ending with tuba stalling out hassel near their own goal. It was awesome.
a great win for Ring. every tight game that we have and we can pull out a victory is well worth it. good teams play in tight games and lose; great teams find a way to win.
We are coming off of a big victory, feeling good, and the ring guys from last year want a shot at ironside. they seem to hold a special place in their hearts for boston as they (we) ended Ring's season for the past 3 years.
It was a little weird playing against everyone. i guard jeff a few points and i pretty much could have just stuck a pylon out there and done just about as well.
it was hard watching boston get up so many breaks in the first half. too many. 7-2 or 3 is crushing. we trade out point for point in the second half.
So, Ring finishes our regular season with only 3 losses. We have had some good victories, and in our losses I would say a large percent of the reasons for those loses begin and end with confidence and not realizing we can hang with any team if we just go out and play our game. out of the 3 teams we lost to, we by far have the most room for growth, the most area for rapid improvement, and the best potential for player development before nationals. we have A LOT of work to do before now and then if we want to have a chance of beating these and similar tiered teams at nationals.
ironside looked really good. their O was very clean. goldstein tore his right thumb ligament or something in the finals and that will hurt them, but man, it is kind of a blow to the ego that they could be so good after losing 10 players. They were by far the strongest team we played this season. I would equate them to how much head and shoulders chain was above everyone last year at this time.
i'm tired. that's all i got for right now. i am going to spend the next couple posts on confidence, progressive marks, and why the death of the vert stack means no one can score near the endzone anymore.
-josh
Monday, August 16, 2010
ECC Wrap-Up
I guess I need to get a new name for this blog. Crap.
Anyway, I went to ECC with Ring this past weekend. Going into the tourney I was a bit curious to see where I stood on a fitness front compared to last year, how our team was going to handle expectations, and how our team was going to stack up against other teams having only played in two split squad tourneys and minimal scrimmaging because we have been covering a lot of old and new Ring concepts and strategies at practices.
We get to the fields and are cleated up by around 8 and the first game of the day is at 9. We do our plyos, active warm-ups, throwing, and our ring warm-up. The ring warm-up is a pretty cool little warm-up that works on all your throws (dumps, short in passes, throws to slashing horizontal-ish ho cuts, and hucks).
One thing that I am getting used to this year is that Ring doesn't scrimmage before the game. I liked that ironside would do that because I felt it got the blood flowing, the mind seeing D and O patterns, and got you throwing real game throws so you are already a few points into a game by the time the real game starts.
Before we started against Wolf, a team with some of the younger players from last years Jam team on it and other hard running college kids, the captains told us that for this game we were going to run 3 equal lines of 7 players the entire game. We split off into those groups for 2 mintues and discussed who would do what and to go over D sets.
Wolf never got out of the gates unfortunately. They had a bunch of nervous drops, turfs, and throw aways, and we were very stingy with the disc after the turn. When they did score, it was normally off of Tommy Hendrickson pulling some crazy throws out of his sleeve.
I think after half, Wolf got a few breaks back, and we may have traded out until the very end to finish up 15-10 or so. Our D legs never got up to speed because they were producing the turns themselves. I think that hurt us a bit for the next game.
We play Revolver next. For this game, we tried having 2 O lines, and about 10 D only players (that's me!). The O players were supposed to hop on a D line 2 or 3 times a game to keep the D lines legs fresh.
I remember it being if O1 and O2 got broken, the D line would come in and play O. I came in at least two times that game for O, so that should be an indicator to how clean our O was working, especially in the first half when I think we got broken twice to start.
Unfortunately, our D wasn't any better. There was no sign of life in our team, and we were just quietly conceding to Revolver which made me a little upset. After half, we got a little bit of life back into our legs and got a few turns and a break or two, but we never recovered from the four point run we let them get on us somewhere near the start of the first half. We lose 15-11. Our first true test of the season, we got punched in the face, and we didn't even hit back until we were in the second half.
Revolver was missing Cahill and maybe 1 or 2 more players for them, or maybe some of their typical O guys played D this weekend. We didn't give them much of a challenge, so I don't know if I saw what they are going to be like this year.
Aside: the only thing that might be worth mentioning about that game for Ring is that KP had one of the filthiest over chest high layout grabs I have ever seen in my life. I think he did it right in front of cameras, so that will probably be a clip of the day soon.
We then play ECU. We heard they beat sockeye in the showcase game the night before so we didn't know what to expect.
They apparently are comprised of retired sockeye guys and just out of college carleton players. Their team is based around a really cool concept of hosting free clinics for kids and just seeming to be a great team to play on and enjoy your teammates.
Unfortunately for them, in our game they just seemed tired or disinterested in winning. They have a couple of miscommunication turns, and we win 14-11, but it felt not as close for some reason.
I view ECU as the bracket busters for NW regionals. They might not have the legs to win out to go to nationals, but they can spoil some contenders' season in the process. I would not want them first round on Sunday.
We then have sockeye for the fourth and final game of the day. Sockeye is not having the day they wanted to have: they lost to Truckstop after receiving on double game point, they lost to boston (or did they play and beat streetgang? ahhh cultimate, i hate you), beat Pony on DGP, and now were playing us.
It looked like they were missing at least their tall handler that played with them last year, one volume cutter (ray), and one goal scorer (mc). They also look and are much, much smaller size-wise than previous years and we had enough little squirrels to cover their squirrels effectively.
Ring is pretty young, and so far we hadn't gotten fired up about D or winning, so I took it upon myself this game to lead the charge and be the emotional backbone of the D line. It was a bit exhausting. After they took half 8-7, we went on a D run that was pretty awesome. In my excitement of leading the D line, I played waaaaaaaaaay too many D points that game. I think I played close to all of them. It was the first time I got to see Ring dig in and see what they were made of, and it was awesome to behold. We stayed positive, we got each other's backs, and we fed off of each other's want of more and more blocks and scores. We win 14-11, when i released the game winning throw, i had such great feeling of looking forward to the season and what a an awesome force our D line could become on both D and D's O.
My only regret about the first day is that I wish we would have played revolver after we got the sockeye win. I would have loved to have given them a better game, and I think we would have been more confident and would have been playing tighter D after the sockeye game.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday: holy crap I wake up sore. I played too much in the sockeye game for my own good, and I have to put on tights to get my legs loose. It is also uncharacteristically dry and sunny out, which makes it super easy to dehydrate quickly. I felt thirstier out there than I do down south.
On Sunday we would have Furious, Streetgang, and either whoever we hadn't played in the west coast bracket or in the finals if ironside loses horribly to someone.
We make sure to run Ds that will take furious out of their first, second, and third options (deep, deep, and deep again). It seems to work and we get a fairly easy win 15-9. Our D plays very well, and the D plays well after the turn. They are missing at least oscar and maybe a few more players.
We have streetgang next and never really get up for it. They crushed boston last year at nationals by having their bigger lefty guy jack great throws to their excellent deep receivers even when they were covered. Their lefty guy was a big factor this game as well. If he wasn't hucking it, he was either stepping into the lefty backhand drawing the foul and getting an i/o off, or he would step back and throw bendy hucks and breaks. Tuba has a couple big blocks this game as well as Brett, but I think we take that as a reason to continue to be up a break instead of wanting more and more and more.
We eventually eek out a win, but you don't want to keep a team like that (who catches waaay more than their share of 50/50 balls) around near the end of the second half. The 15-13 win leaves us tied with Truckstop for the team with the 2nd best record. Sockeye apparently crushed Revolver and proved that teams shouldn't just write them off for the season just yet.
We find out that only records within the pool counts, so we are playing Rhino. We change back to 3 equal strength lines, and we never get in a groove.
We trade the lead several times. We even get up by a lot after being down at half. I think it was 14-11 or so, and then they break us a lot to make it 15 all, us receiving. We call a real O line for this point, and we promptly have a drop close to our brick. Rhino picks up, moves it very well laterally across the field. They get up near an endzone corner and instead of hitting the wide open goal cuts, they send a bladey flick over the stack towards the back center of the endzone which thomas ward makes a great deep D on. We get the disc back, bang it around a few times, and then one of our handlers gets a break away deep run and makes a great catch for the win.
All in all a satisfying weekend.
Oh, I almost forgot about the rules:
Contact: this is pretty much awesome. Disc space was so awkward to say while you have a million things to do on the field at the same time, and it seemed very arbitrary to call and even to prove or disprove since it deals with planes of moving appendages. Contact simply is, if someone touches you while marking, you say contact, and they go down to 0. It is everything disc space wasn't.
20 yard endzones: This isn't really a big deal because it normally only is at tourneys that you have a truly regulation sized field. I wish though that they would have made the playing field proper be 80 yards instead of just chopping off 10 to the endzones and keeping it 70.
Travel, Up-Down, In-Out: Awesome. No ticky-tack bullshit travel calls, no disputes and stupid reenactments of where people perceive their feet to be at the time of a catch. It almost felt like a real sport out there. The games with observers go so much faster than without.
I will write more, but I am super tired.
-josh
Anyway, I went to ECC with Ring this past weekend. Going into the tourney I was a bit curious to see where I stood on a fitness front compared to last year, how our team was going to handle expectations, and how our team was going to stack up against other teams having only played in two split squad tourneys and minimal scrimmaging because we have been covering a lot of old and new Ring concepts and strategies at practices.
We get to the fields and are cleated up by around 8 and the first game of the day is at 9. We do our plyos, active warm-ups, throwing, and our ring warm-up. The ring warm-up is a pretty cool little warm-up that works on all your throws (dumps, short in passes, throws to slashing horizontal-ish ho cuts, and hucks).
One thing that I am getting used to this year is that Ring doesn't scrimmage before the game. I liked that ironside would do that because I felt it got the blood flowing, the mind seeing D and O patterns, and got you throwing real game throws so you are already a few points into a game by the time the real game starts.
Before we started against Wolf, a team with some of the younger players from last years Jam team on it and other hard running college kids, the captains told us that for this game we were going to run 3 equal lines of 7 players the entire game. We split off into those groups for 2 mintues and discussed who would do what and to go over D sets.
Wolf never got out of the gates unfortunately. They had a bunch of nervous drops, turfs, and throw aways, and we were very stingy with the disc after the turn. When they did score, it was normally off of Tommy Hendrickson pulling some crazy throws out of his sleeve.
I think after half, Wolf got a few breaks back, and we may have traded out until the very end to finish up 15-10 or so. Our D legs never got up to speed because they were producing the turns themselves. I think that hurt us a bit for the next game.
We play Revolver next. For this game, we tried having 2 O lines, and about 10 D only players (that's me!). The O players were supposed to hop on a D line 2 or 3 times a game to keep the D lines legs fresh.
I remember it being if O1 and O2 got broken, the D line would come in and play O. I came in at least two times that game for O, so that should be an indicator to how clean our O was working, especially in the first half when I think we got broken twice to start.
Unfortunately, our D wasn't any better. There was no sign of life in our team, and we were just quietly conceding to Revolver which made me a little upset. After half, we got a little bit of life back into our legs and got a few turns and a break or two, but we never recovered from the four point run we let them get on us somewhere near the start of the first half. We lose 15-11. Our first true test of the season, we got punched in the face, and we didn't even hit back until we were in the second half.
Revolver was missing Cahill and maybe 1 or 2 more players for them, or maybe some of their typical O guys played D this weekend. We didn't give them much of a challenge, so I don't know if I saw what they are going to be like this year.
Aside: the only thing that might be worth mentioning about that game for Ring is that KP had one of the filthiest over chest high layout grabs I have ever seen in my life. I think he did it right in front of cameras, so that will probably be a clip of the day soon.
We then play ECU. We heard they beat sockeye in the showcase game the night before so we didn't know what to expect.
They apparently are comprised of retired sockeye guys and just out of college carleton players. Their team is based around a really cool concept of hosting free clinics for kids and just seeming to be a great team to play on and enjoy your teammates.
Unfortunately for them, in our game they just seemed tired or disinterested in winning. They have a couple of miscommunication turns, and we win 14-11, but it felt not as close for some reason.
I view ECU as the bracket busters for NW regionals. They might not have the legs to win out to go to nationals, but they can spoil some contenders' season in the process. I would not want them first round on Sunday.
We then have sockeye for the fourth and final game of the day. Sockeye is not having the day they wanted to have: they lost to Truckstop after receiving on double game point, they lost to boston (or did they play and beat streetgang? ahhh cultimate, i hate you), beat Pony on DGP, and now were playing us.
It looked like they were missing at least their tall handler that played with them last year, one volume cutter (ray), and one goal scorer (mc). They also look and are much, much smaller size-wise than previous years and we had enough little squirrels to cover their squirrels effectively.
Ring is pretty young, and so far we hadn't gotten fired up about D or winning, so I took it upon myself this game to lead the charge and be the emotional backbone of the D line. It was a bit exhausting. After they took half 8-7, we went on a D run that was pretty awesome. In my excitement of leading the D line, I played waaaaaaaaaay too many D points that game. I think I played close to all of them. It was the first time I got to see Ring dig in and see what they were made of, and it was awesome to behold. We stayed positive, we got each other's backs, and we fed off of each other's want of more and more blocks and scores. We win 14-11, when i released the game winning throw, i had such great feeling of looking forward to the season and what a an awesome force our D line could become on both D and D's O.
My only regret about the first day is that I wish we would have played revolver after we got the sockeye win. I would have loved to have given them a better game, and I think we would have been more confident and would have been playing tighter D after the sockeye game.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday: holy crap I wake up sore. I played too much in the sockeye game for my own good, and I have to put on tights to get my legs loose. It is also uncharacteristically dry and sunny out, which makes it super easy to dehydrate quickly. I felt thirstier out there than I do down south.
On Sunday we would have Furious, Streetgang, and either whoever we hadn't played in the west coast bracket or in the finals if ironside loses horribly to someone.
We make sure to run Ds that will take furious out of their first, second, and third options (deep, deep, and deep again). It seems to work and we get a fairly easy win 15-9. Our D plays very well, and the D plays well after the turn. They are missing at least oscar and maybe a few more players.
We have streetgang next and never really get up for it. They crushed boston last year at nationals by having their bigger lefty guy jack great throws to their excellent deep receivers even when they were covered. Their lefty guy was a big factor this game as well. If he wasn't hucking it, he was either stepping into the lefty backhand drawing the foul and getting an i/o off, or he would step back and throw bendy hucks and breaks. Tuba has a couple big blocks this game as well as Brett, but I think we take that as a reason to continue to be up a break instead of wanting more and more and more.
We eventually eek out a win, but you don't want to keep a team like that (who catches waaay more than their share of 50/50 balls) around near the end of the second half. The 15-13 win leaves us tied with Truckstop for the team with the 2nd best record. Sockeye apparently crushed Revolver and proved that teams shouldn't just write them off for the season just yet.
We find out that only records within the pool counts, so we are playing Rhino. We change back to 3 equal strength lines, and we never get in a groove.
We trade the lead several times. We even get up by a lot after being down at half. I think it was 14-11 or so, and then they break us a lot to make it 15 all, us receiving. We call a real O line for this point, and we promptly have a drop close to our brick. Rhino picks up, moves it very well laterally across the field. They get up near an endzone corner and instead of hitting the wide open goal cuts, they send a bladey flick over the stack towards the back center of the endzone which thomas ward makes a great deep D on. We get the disc back, bang it around a few times, and then one of our handlers gets a break away deep run and makes a great catch for the win.
All in all a satisfying weekend.
Oh, I almost forgot about the rules:
Contact: this is pretty much awesome. Disc space was so awkward to say while you have a million things to do on the field at the same time, and it seemed very arbitrary to call and even to prove or disprove since it deals with planes of moving appendages. Contact simply is, if someone touches you while marking, you say contact, and they go down to 0. It is everything disc space wasn't.
20 yard endzones: This isn't really a big deal because it normally only is at tourneys that you have a truly regulation sized field. I wish though that they would have made the playing field proper be 80 yards instead of just chopping off 10 to the endzones and keeping it 70.
Travel, Up-Down, In-Out: Awesome. No ticky-tack bullshit travel calls, no disputes and stupid reenactments of where people perceive their feet to be at the time of a catch. It almost felt like a real sport out there. The games with observers go so much faster than without.
I will write more, but I am super tired.
-josh
Monday, July 12, 2010
I'm Back...
Wow,
Haven't posted since November. A college season without me coaching has gone by, a club season begins with me being a 30 year old rookie on Ring with new strategies, new teammates, and a new identity to learn and embrace. I am having a blast so far.
Some post topics I want to write about:
1.) Confidence
2.) Acclimating to heat
3.) Differences between top club team practices (without getting into the nitty gritty proprietary stuff)
-josh
Haven't posted since November. A college season without me coaching has gone by, a club season begins with me being a 30 year old rookie on Ring with new strategies, new teammates, and a new identity to learn and embrace. I am having a blast so far.
Some post topics I want to write about:
1.) Confidence
2.) Acclimating to heat
3.) Differences between top club team practices (without getting into the nitty gritty proprietary stuff)
-josh
Monday, November 2, 2009
Nationals...
Nationals was pretty bittersweet. I felt this was the year.
The core of ironside is made up of 2003 college graduates which means a lot of the team was 28 (jeff and i are the old two of that group at 29). There was also a feeling that for a lot of us, this might be our last year playing for boston due to age, job/family commitments, mileage on bodies that can no longer stay healthy, and moving away.
Practices were special.
Last season there was a sense of urgency that fortch, doug, and mccarthy wore all season. Winning the sprints at the end of practice (well, once fortch worked off his winter belly by chopping chords of wood), taking that extra second to look a teammate in the eye, working hard on every cut all season. Those 3 really brought up the level of those practices.
This season, it was even more prevalent as more and more players saw this as their last, best hope for a title with boston (me, faust, etc). I moved away and couldn't organize the tuesday night mini practices, but, our track workouts were more intense than anything we ever did to date, we had more teammates doing them as a group than before, and practices were intense and heated at times.
However....
We also had a pretty up and down season in terms of results. We started the season sort of late by having extended tryouts with sons of liberty trying to create two boston teams. This meant tryouts for ironside really started mid-june, and the roster wasn't finalized until after june right after a poor boston invite appearance where we simply played bad.
after that, we beat a lot of teams at ecc by playing b- ultimate. i left seattle being disappointed at our play, but felt good that we could beat a lot of teams not playing our best. I was also left underwhelmed by revolver who everyone was heaping praise on.
at chesapeake we played pretty uninspired ultimate at times, but we were experimenting with lines, Ds, Os, and other things. On sunday, we were demolished by chain. We looked flat-footed and slow and they looked awesome.
We came back and worked and worked and worked and by the time regionals rolled around, we crushed teams. I felt really good going into nationals after absolutely crushing one of the strongest (on paper) goat team to date.
one of the biggest adjustments of the season was the hole that fortch left both in the offense and the defense (zones), as well as his confidence and leadership in the huddle. that guy could probably convince me to do pretty much anything.
anyway, wednesday morning i arrive at the tampa airport to be welcomed by stiffiling heat and humidity. I wait for my teammates to arrive. Our last couple practice weekends had been somewhere in the 30s to mid 40s, and i wondered how the team would be able to handle the temperature differential. The answer became better than most northern teams.
Thursday, we arrive at the fields at 8 a.m. to start to warm-up for our game at 9:30 a.m. We talked about some strategic things, and some changes that had to be made due to injuries.
Ben Faust who is a dynamic cutter and thrower for our offense had been battling injuries all season, and his quad injury was so extensive that he couldn't get up to speed meant that we needed to bring george stubbs and chicken over to the O sometimes to fill in his void.
This would mean our Ds O would sometimes not have the same fire power, but offensive fire-power is not something our D's O lacked. Matt Holzer and Paul Batten also had been riding the injury bus all season and were going to see slightly limited PT to see how their bodies could handle the injuries/heat (if you get injured, nationals is a very hard tourney to play due to not being able to get in good enough shape).
Anyway, about 30 minutes before our game with bodhi, when every team was warming up, Goat rolls up to start to warm-up for their game with pike. Ted Munter looks over at them, and then says to me, "goat just lost to truckstop, they are not ready to play today". His prediction was absolutely correct a few games later.
Back to our game with Bodhi. I think Bodhi was affected by the heat more than us. They are much younger than us, and I am not sure what was happening to them, but they looked like they were melting into the ground as we played them. There were several times that they turfed either the first or second pass and didn't even get our of their own endzone. The game was completely out of hand within the first 5 points, and the score could have been a lot worse as our D's O turned it over a few times near their goal line leading to easy scores.
We then got in shade, ate some salt, ate some tums, put ice towels on our heads, and tried not to let the heat affect us too much. We watched some other games after we cooled down some, and could not believe how slow people were running. The heat was just taking all the power out of people's legs. Ring was in a close game with chain i believe and was tied at 10s before they just seemed unable to convert scores due to lack of people cutting. They worked the disc up to the endzone on D in several occasions and then just stopped cutting and wound up throwing a high risk / low reward pass that would get d'ed.
Our next game was against san diego streetgang. we had watched them play doublewide and knew what to expect. what we did not expect was that they were going to play near perfect. i think they started on D and got maybe 2 breaks in a row on us by hucking quickly off of a turn. when our D line got onto the field, their two handlers, a lefty and a righty were dropping bombs all over us. it didn't matter the stall, if we were backing them, or if their was a good or bad matchup, if someone was going deep, they were sending it. and it worked, 90% of the time. I think they took half 8-5. and we were unable to get the turns needed to win the game. it was a little rattling because of how slow our Os D looked after the turn and it was unnerving to see us unable to stop a team confidently hucking on us.
By this time, several players were starting to feel the heat. We were doing everything possible to stay hydrated. For the doublewide game, we came out swinging. they had kurt on the D line, and he was out of shape for kurt's standard, but his job was to bomb it after the turn. they broke us a couple times, but our D line kept the game close. I think doublewide took half on us. out of halftime, the sun had sapped a lot of players energy. Everyone still had the desire to battle, but the game was being played at 3/4 speed. I really think that we would have lost this game if we weren't so deep. the D line just chipped away and wore them down until we went on a 5-0 run to close them out 15-10.
I felt good while playing but awful after. I ate a burrito, drank fluids, pounded salt, and in general tried to stay hydrated throughout the night. I was hoping tomorrow was going to be cooler.
On Friday, we had only 2 games. the first game would be against truckstop, and the second game would be against revolver. we had a team meeting to talk about the two teams and what they like to do and what we should watch out for. For truckstop, we wanted to pressure the dumps, take away their i/o breaks that they live and die by, and concentrate on team D. The O line was going to be aware of where stout was on D and make sure he couldn't just hangout deep like he likes to. Off of a turn, we were going to play stout tight and force him under as he doesn't like to work to go deep if you shove him under.
For revolver, we were going to poach off of the handlers to force it to a sideline because they like to run their offense through the middle. we were going to make them break us with arounds. On Offense we were going to play stubbs more and more on O and play chicken some o points as well to add athleticism to the O line.
A lot of our strategy against them would be based on taking away their pull play and on forcing certain players out and others under. This was a little bit of a change since we normally just force everyone under to contest the under throw.
Anyway, we start out by playing truckstop, and i think we get a couple breaks early, and our O looks much better than it did yesterday. Then, our O starts crowding the force side and we stop looking deep, and i think truck takes half on a few breaks.
out of half, our D takes over, getting several blocks and also forcing several stall 9 throw aways. those are always something to be really proud of (especially as a dump defender). truckstop seemed to be lacking a cutter thrower this season, and when the cutters would get the disc, the offense would stagnate. We wind up winning 15-12 after our defense goes on a few runs in the second half.
We then get ready for revolver. i thought this would be an excellent chance to steal the 1 seed for the tourney. i thought going into the tourney that chain was the team to beat and by winning this game, we could be sure to play them at our freshest.
We start out on D. We run down on the pull, and i am off my handler to force it to a sideline, they throw it to him and he launches a break huck when i am just putting on the mark to no one. kind of surprising and uncharacteristic for them. we work it down and score. on the next D point, we get a turn, and then cough it up and they work it down and score. we trade for a few points, and then we get a turn with our bozo zone, and convert on a crazy hammer from crockford into the sun to seigs (this might have been in the ring game though, everything is blurry). all of a sudden they break us to take half 8-7.
they proceed to break us twice more out of half. by the time our d line gets on the field, we are running out of chances to close it. we have been stupidly hucking off of a stagnant disc against them when we get turns. We got enough turns to even the score up in the second half, but converted only 1 or 2. I think we were at 12-11 when they closed us out. Our O line forced a few deep balls that we didn't have to, and we were having trouble scoring near the endzone.
I felt very good about that loss even though we lost an opportunity to take the 1 seed. I was pretty confident that we could make adjustments to win the next game, and that we would put some stacked D lines in sometimes as we had pretty much just played our 2 D lines alternating the way we do in most games.
I also thought they were going to run out of gas. The first thing I noticed was that they only played about 15 guys where we had played everyone who was healthy, and they only got a break on our team when they stacked their D line with O players.
I actually thought sockeye would beat revolver the next day due to revolver's short rotation and apparent lack of depth (it also could be that their players all look the same.... for instance, they seem to have 2 near identical lanky red-headed handlers who throw bombs).
aside: I only got to see glimpses of sockeye's play and they seemed to be making it very hard for themselves by playing long and sloppy points and close games against all the teams they were playing. they normally would not pull away from a team until late in the second half, and their games seemed to take the longest to finish.
We go home, and I feel pretty good. I felt bad in the revolver game though. The heat was making me weak and winded at times as I was having problems breathing in it. We have 6 D handlers and I am probably playing just under 1/2 to just over 1/3 the D points which is a lot less than last year where I was playing 2/3 of the D points and felt like crap by Saturday.
At the end of the day, I feel I am finally ahead of my hydration and looking forward to Saturday.
Saturday comes. Ring first round of the elimination games for the 3rd year in a row. I don't feel we are ever not in control of the game. I do have an unfortunate turn to a wide open crockford trying to lead him to the sideline. I always think he is running to the sideline and he never does because I am an idiot. I can't tell you how many times this season that exact same situation happened.
Ring forced jeff under which made him become a thrower and lead him to get comfortable being an extra handler around the disc. This would turn up to bite us the next game because for our offense to work effectively, you have to have the best cutter in the game cutting instead of handling. we win 15-11.
I then go over to watch quiet coyote beat amp. redshirt and a redshirt clone, matt packard, are taking the game over with their athletic grabs, and misha horowitz is representing the metro east with his hucks. amp seems to be playing really tight and no one is actually making in cuts.
on defense, ben kleaveland is smothering misha on the dump, but they are not playing good dump defense on jay adams who is just getting every other throw upline by circle cutting the defender.
on offense for amp everyone just seems to be standing and watching their main receiver cut deep, which leads to a layout dump d block on a poorly thrown dump. QC picks it up and scores for the win and the opportunity to go to worlds.... I would assume that QC will pick up brian stout for worlds. I think they are going to turn some heads considering arguably their best receiver didn't come to nationals due to food poisoning.
We go to the grocery store to sit in AC for our game vs. chain. i hate the late semi's as a player. you have so much time before your first and second game.
Anyway, we start out and chain breaks twice to start. Our D line does a good job of getting it back to even, but then we get broken 2 more times to take half. we are having some pretty uncharacteristic turns from handler to handler, and we aren't doing a good job of creating space.
I played some piss poor dump D one of the points I was in and wish i could take it back, but I was also instrumental in some big yardage throws to get our second break in the half (twice since the first time the camera was on the field... i am not really known for big yardage throws or throwing upfield....). Ironically that was the point that I wound up on Dylan. I remember being in a gym with dylan when he could hang on the rim from a standstill and I could barely touch rim with only one hand from a run.... I was hoping he didn't remember that as he started to run deep.
For the second half it was more upwind down wind and i am not high on the upwind D handler depth chart so I knew my PT that half would be limited until we got a break. that break didn't come until late in the half and then they scored upwind to make it 13-11. They then proceed to break us 2 more times to end our season. We also had enough chances to get all the break backs with turns and we simply did not convert.
I was in tears at the end not because we lost which was pretty frustrating, but because I wouldn't get to play with my teammates one last time on Sunday. I had played with 2 of them in college, and at least 6 of them were my metal teammates, a few of them were metal tryouts with me 5 years ago.
So, why didn't we win nationals if the team we had this year was arguably better and deeper than last year? To be honest, I don't really know.
Our Os D looked a little slow at times this year, but that wasn't our downfall. At times our endzone O looked very sloppy for both the O and D line. Our offense is to score at the cone from the back of the stack, but we rarely did it. We also never really swung the disc well all season. i would say that was the greatest change from last year, we didn't move the disc from side to side as well.
If I had to make adjustments as a coach next year, I think I would slow down the endzone drills so players can absorb the mistakes and adjustments that they need to make. I would also play a lot more double score, and I would practice dumping more. I would also do a more zoney cobra D and add in a bozo transition and get rid of the normal zone transition.
but, what i realized last year was by the time you reach the semi's anyone can beat anyone, it is just a matter of who is on. last year, we were on (in the semi's.... jam was on fire in the finals). this year, chain was on.
Overall, looking back on my 2 years with metal and 3 years with boston, I grew a whole lot more as a player with boston than I did with metal, and I attribute a lot of that to having a great coach. Ted is really the unsung hero of what makes ironside work. He has a knack of getting the best out of each and every player. If you ever have a choice between playing for a team with a coach, and one without, you should play with a coach*. *that statement is true if said coach isn't an assclown.
I watched fury play brute in the finals. fury's d just looked much more sophisticated than brute. they seemed to run a clam or a poach off the 2nd or 3rd in the stack to the openside to slow down kathy dobson, and then they took away brute's around break and brute's offense stagnated. off of the turn, they had athletes on the handlers and just ruthlessly ran them deep. brute looked unwilling to handler crash the 4 man cup, and unwilling to throw a little blade over the top. i am very proud that brute never gave up and kept swinging until the end.
I then watched chain beat revolver. revolver played an even shorter rotation than against us, and chain used pretty much their whole 27 man roster. i think if fatigue wasn't a factor though, revolver still wouldn't have won. It was chain's year.
So what is next? I really don't know. I signed up for winter league in NC. I think I am going to try out for ring next season, and I hope to have a lot of fun with them. I would like to see them get over the quarters struggle.
I am also going to try to lift weights in the offseason. something that I have really never done. I am getting older, and I think I need to if I want to extend my career.
It has been a good season. I got to be a part of one of the best D lines that I have ever played on, and that was a truly awesome experience. I really hope we go to worlds.
-josh
The core of ironside is made up of 2003 college graduates which means a lot of the team was 28 (jeff and i are the old two of that group at 29). There was also a feeling that for a lot of us, this might be our last year playing for boston due to age, job/family commitments, mileage on bodies that can no longer stay healthy, and moving away.
Practices were special.
Last season there was a sense of urgency that fortch, doug, and mccarthy wore all season. Winning the sprints at the end of practice (well, once fortch worked off his winter belly by chopping chords of wood), taking that extra second to look a teammate in the eye, working hard on every cut all season. Those 3 really brought up the level of those practices.
This season, it was even more prevalent as more and more players saw this as their last, best hope for a title with boston (me, faust, etc). I moved away and couldn't organize the tuesday night mini practices, but, our track workouts were more intense than anything we ever did to date, we had more teammates doing them as a group than before, and practices were intense and heated at times.
However....
We also had a pretty up and down season in terms of results. We started the season sort of late by having extended tryouts with sons of liberty trying to create two boston teams. This meant tryouts for ironside really started mid-june, and the roster wasn't finalized until after june right after a poor boston invite appearance where we simply played bad.
after that, we beat a lot of teams at ecc by playing b- ultimate. i left seattle being disappointed at our play, but felt good that we could beat a lot of teams not playing our best. I was also left underwhelmed by revolver who everyone was heaping praise on.
at chesapeake we played pretty uninspired ultimate at times, but we were experimenting with lines, Ds, Os, and other things. On sunday, we were demolished by chain. We looked flat-footed and slow and they looked awesome.
We came back and worked and worked and worked and by the time regionals rolled around, we crushed teams. I felt really good going into nationals after absolutely crushing one of the strongest (on paper) goat team to date.
one of the biggest adjustments of the season was the hole that fortch left both in the offense and the defense (zones), as well as his confidence and leadership in the huddle. that guy could probably convince me to do pretty much anything.
anyway, wednesday morning i arrive at the tampa airport to be welcomed by stiffiling heat and humidity. I wait for my teammates to arrive. Our last couple practice weekends had been somewhere in the 30s to mid 40s, and i wondered how the team would be able to handle the temperature differential. The answer became better than most northern teams.
Thursday, we arrive at the fields at 8 a.m. to start to warm-up for our game at 9:30 a.m. We talked about some strategic things, and some changes that had to be made due to injuries.
Ben Faust who is a dynamic cutter and thrower for our offense had been battling injuries all season, and his quad injury was so extensive that he couldn't get up to speed meant that we needed to bring george stubbs and chicken over to the O sometimes to fill in his void.
This would mean our Ds O would sometimes not have the same fire power, but offensive fire-power is not something our D's O lacked. Matt Holzer and Paul Batten also had been riding the injury bus all season and were going to see slightly limited PT to see how their bodies could handle the injuries/heat (if you get injured, nationals is a very hard tourney to play due to not being able to get in good enough shape).
Anyway, about 30 minutes before our game with bodhi, when every team was warming up, Goat rolls up to start to warm-up for their game with pike. Ted Munter looks over at them, and then says to me, "goat just lost to truckstop, they are not ready to play today". His prediction was absolutely correct a few games later.
Back to our game with Bodhi. I think Bodhi was affected by the heat more than us. They are much younger than us, and I am not sure what was happening to them, but they looked like they were melting into the ground as we played them. There were several times that they turfed either the first or second pass and didn't even get our of their own endzone. The game was completely out of hand within the first 5 points, and the score could have been a lot worse as our D's O turned it over a few times near their goal line leading to easy scores.
We then got in shade, ate some salt, ate some tums, put ice towels on our heads, and tried not to let the heat affect us too much. We watched some other games after we cooled down some, and could not believe how slow people were running. The heat was just taking all the power out of people's legs. Ring was in a close game with chain i believe and was tied at 10s before they just seemed unable to convert scores due to lack of people cutting. They worked the disc up to the endzone on D in several occasions and then just stopped cutting and wound up throwing a high risk / low reward pass that would get d'ed.
Our next game was against san diego streetgang. we had watched them play doublewide and knew what to expect. what we did not expect was that they were going to play near perfect. i think they started on D and got maybe 2 breaks in a row on us by hucking quickly off of a turn. when our D line got onto the field, their two handlers, a lefty and a righty were dropping bombs all over us. it didn't matter the stall, if we were backing them, or if their was a good or bad matchup, if someone was going deep, they were sending it. and it worked, 90% of the time. I think they took half 8-5. and we were unable to get the turns needed to win the game. it was a little rattling because of how slow our Os D looked after the turn and it was unnerving to see us unable to stop a team confidently hucking on us.
By this time, several players were starting to feel the heat. We were doing everything possible to stay hydrated. For the doublewide game, we came out swinging. they had kurt on the D line, and he was out of shape for kurt's standard, but his job was to bomb it after the turn. they broke us a couple times, but our D line kept the game close. I think doublewide took half on us. out of halftime, the sun had sapped a lot of players energy. Everyone still had the desire to battle, but the game was being played at 3/4 speed. I really think that we would have lost this game if we weren't so deep. the D line just chipped away and wore them down until we went on a 5-0 run to close them out 15-10.
I felt good while playing but awful after. I ate a burrito, drank fluids, pounded salt, and in general tried to stay hydrated throughout the night. I was hoping tomorrow was going to be cooler.
On Friday, we had only 2 games. the first game would be against truckstop, and the second game would be against revolver. we had a team meeting to talk about the two teams and what they like to do and what we should watch out for. For truckstop, we wanted to pressure the dumps, take away their i/o breaks that they live and die by, and concentrate on team D. The O line was going to be aware of where stout was on D and make sure he couldn't just hangout deep like he likes to. Off of a turn, we were going to play stout tight and force him under as he doesn't like to work to go deep if you shove him under.
For revolver, we were going to poach off of the handlers to force it to a sideline because they like to run their offense through the middle. we were going to make them break us with arounds. On Offense we were going to play stubbs more and more on O and play chicken some o points as well to add athleticism to the O line.
A lot of our strategy against them would be based on taking away their pull play and on forcing certain players out and others under. This was a little bit of a change since we normally just force everyone under to contest the under throw.
Anyway, we start out by playing truckstop, and i think we get a couple breaks early, and our O looks much better than it did yesterday. Then, our O starts crowding the force side and we stop looking deep, and i think truck takes half on a few breaks.
out of half, our D takes over, getting several blocks and also forcing several stall 9 throw aways. those are always something to be really proud of (especially as a dump defender). truckstop seemed to be lacking a cutter thrower this season, and when the cutters would get the disc, the offense would stagnate. We wind up winning 15-12 after our defense goes on a few runs in the second half.
We then get ready for revolver. i thought this would be an excellent chance to steal the 1 seed for the tourney. i thought going into the tourney that chain was the team to beat and by winning this game, we could be sure to play them at our freshest.
We start out on D. We run down on the pull, and i am off my handler to force it to a sideline, they throw it to him and he launches a break huck when i am just putting on the mark to no one. kind of surprising and uncharacteristic for them. we work it down and score. on the next D point, we get a turn, and then cough it up and they work it down and score. we trade for a few points, and then we get a turn with our bozo zone, and convert on a crazy hammer from crockford into the sun to seigs (this might have been in the ring game though, everything is blurry). all of a sudden they break us to take half 8-7.
they proceed to break us twice more out of half. by the time our d line gets on the field, we are running out of chances to close it. we have been stupidly hucking off of a stagnant disc against them when we get turns. We got enough turns to even the score up in the second half, but converted only 1 or 2. I think we were at 12-11 when they closed us out. Our O line forced a few deep balls that we didn't have to, and we were having trouble scoring near the endzone.
I felt very good about that loss even though we lost an opportunity to take the 1 seed. I was pretty confident that we could make adjustments to win the next game, and that we would put some stacked D lines in sometimes as we had pretty much just played our 2 D lines alternating the way we do in most games.
I also thought they were going to run out of gas. The first thing I noticed was that they only played about 15 guys where we had played everyone who was healthy, and they only got a break on our team when they stacked their D line with O players.
I actually thought sockeye would beat revolver the next day due to revolver's short rotation and apparent lack of depth (it also could be that their players all look the same.... for instance, they seem to have 2 near identical lanky red-headed handlers who throw bombs).
aside: I only got to see glimpses of sockeye's play and they seemed to be making it very hard for themselves by playing long and sloppy points and close games against all the teams they were playing. they normally would not pull away from a team until late in the second half, and their games seemed to take the longest to finish.
We go home, and I feel pretty good. I felt bad in the revolver game though. The heat was making me weak and winded at times as I was having problems breathing in it. We have 6 D handlers and I am probably playing just under 1/2 to just over 1/3 the D points which is a lot less than last year where I was playing 2/3 of the D points and felt like crap by Saturday.
At the end of the day, I feel I am finally ahead of my hydration and looking forward to Saturday.
Saturday comes. Ring first round of the elimination games for the 3rd year in a row. I don't feel we are ever not in control of the game. I do have an unfortunate turn to a wide open crockford trying to lead him to the sideline. I always think he is running to the sideline and he never does because I am an idiot. I can't tell you how many times this season that exact same situation happened.
Ring forced jeff under which made him become a thrower and lead him to get comfortable being an extra handler around the disc. This would turn up to bite us the next game because for our offense to work effectively, you have to have the best cutter in the game cutting instead of handling. we win 15-11.
I then go over to watch quiet coyote beat amp. redshirt and a redshirt clone, matt packard, are taking the game over with their athletic grabs, and misha horowitz is representing the metro east with his hucks. amp seems to be playing really tight and no one is actually making in cuts.
on defense, ben kleaveland is smothering misha on the dump, but they are not playing good dump defense on jay adams who is just getting every other throw upline by circle cutting the defender.
on offense for amp everyone just seems to be standing and watching their main receiver cut deep, which leads to a layout dump d block on a poorly thrown dump. QC picks it up and scores for the win and the opportunity to go to worlds.... I would assume that QC will pick up brian stout for worlds. I think they are going to turn some heads considering arguably their best receiver didn't come to nationals due to food poisoning.
We go to the grocery store to sit in AC for our game vs. chain. i hate the late semi's as a player. you have so much time before your first and second game.
Anyway, we start out and chain breaks twice to start. Our D line does a good job of getting it back to even, but then we get broken 2 more times to take half. we are having some pretty uncharacteristic turns from handler to handler, and we aren't doing a good job of creating space.
I played some piss poor dump D one of the points I was in and wish i could take it back, but I was also instrumental in some big yardage throws to get our second break in the half (twice since the first time the camera was on the field... i am not really known for big yardage throws or throwing upfield....). Ironically that was the point that I wound up on Dylan. I remember being in a gym with dylan when he could hang on the rim from a standstill and I could barely touch rim with only one hand from a run.... I was hoping he didn't remember that as he started to run deep.
For the second half it was more upwind down wind and i am not high on the upwind D handler depth chart so I knew my PT that half would be limited until we got a break. that break didn't come until late in the half and then they scored upwind to make it 13-11. They then proceed to break us 2 more times to end our season. We also had enough chances to get all the break backs with turns and we simply did not convert.
I was in tears at the end not because we lost which was pretty frustrating, but because I wouldn't get to play with my teammates one last time on Sunday. I had played with 2 of them in college, and at least 6 of them were my metal teammates, a few of them were metal tryouts with me 5 years ago.
So, why didn't we win nationals if the team we had this year was arguably better and deeper than last year? To be honest, I don't really know.
Our Os D looked a little slow at times this year, but that wasn't our downfall. At times our endzone O looked very sloppy for both the O and D line. Our offense is to score at the cone from the back of the stack, but we rarely did it. We also never really swung the disc well all season. i would say that was the greatest change from last year, we didn't move the disc from side to side as well.
If I had to make adjustments as a coach next year, I think I would slow down the endzone drills so players can absorb the mistakes and adjustments that they need to make. I would also play a lot more double score, and I would practice dumping more. I would also do a more zoney cobra D and add in a bozo transition and get rid of the normal zone transition.
but, what i realized last year was by the time you reach the semi's anyone can beat anyone, it is just a matter of who is on. last year, we were on (in the semi's.... jam was on fire in the finals). this year, chain was on.
Overall, looking back on my 2 years with metal and 3 years with boston, I grew a whole lot more as a player with boston than I did with metal, and I attribute a lot of that to having a great coach. Ted is really the unsung hero of what makes ironside work. He has a knack of getting the best out of each and every player. If you ever have a choice between playing for a team with a coach, and one without, you should play with a coach*. *that statement is true if said coach isn't an assclown.
I watched fury play brute in the finals. fury's d just looked much more sophisticated than brute. they seemed to run a clam or a poach off the 2nd or 3rd in the stack to the openside to slow down kathy dobson, and then they took away brute's around break and brute's offense stagnated. off of the turn, they had athletes on the handlers and just ruthlessly ran them deep. brute looked unwilling to handler crash the 4 man cup, and unwilling to throw a little blade over the top. i am very proud that brute never gave up and kept swinging until the end.
I then watched chain beat revolver. revolver played an even shorter rotation than against us, and chain used pretty much their whole 27 man roster. i think if fatigue wasn't a factor though, revolver still wouldn't have won. It was chain's year.
So what is next? I really don't know. I signed up for winter league in NC. I think I am going to try out for ring next season, and I hope to have a lot of fun with them. I would like to see them get over the quarters struggle.
I am also going to try to lift weights in the offseason. something that I have really never done. I am getting older, and I think I need to if I want to extend my career.
It has been a good season. I got to be a part of one of the best D lines that I have ever played on, and that was a truly awesome experience. I really hope we go to worlds.
-josh
Monday, October 12, 2009
Northeast Regionals
15 teams, and the dreaded pool play. The conditions on Saturday were very windy at times (25 mph slightly diagonal upwind/downwind) and cold. The conditions on Sunday were a little less windy until late in the day and also pretty cold. there was frost on the grass during warmups on Sunday. Brrr.
Anyway, my goal for this weekend was to play every game like the finals. To make sure I warm-up to 100%, play every point my hardest, and make sure I and the team respects our opponents by playing as best as we can. My legs felt like lead all weekend because last week was my first week back from unemployment due to relocation. Working in the field for 12 hours a day on your feet is a surefire way to make your legs tired.
The first game of the day, we had Colt .45 for the first game of the day. We gave them different D looks, played very hard D, and were efficient after the turn. It should be noted that it wasn't windy yet. We won 15-2.
We then played Red Circus from Halifax. They drove something like 12 hours to get here. They had a fairly small roster, but played hard. We won 15-6. I think it was starting to get a little windier. On a strategy note: we found out that some of the D setups we have been experimenting with this season worked against teams that didn't know what it was. Always frustrating at practice when the O line knows exactly what you are doing, what the Ds weakness is and what its strengths are.
Replicants from NYC was next. They are a pretty talented team, and by this time it was a strong wind. They have around 3 handlers who play a lot of points, and a bunch of young athletic cutters. Strong enough that pulling upwind became difficult to make it further than a little bit over half field at times. I think we traded the first 4 points and they were very good to start by moving the disc well and hitting open receivers. They blinked first and our stingy D line scored and I think secured the downwinder. then the wheels fell off for them and they began trying crazy high-risk hucks and throws when I really think a simple throw would have been completed. We win 15-5.
Bye Round. Everyone just tries to stay warm, eat some food (because of the wind, there seemed to be little downtime to get real food in between games).
We then play bodhi. I think they are really fired up to play us, and we are really excited to play a team that will push us. We start out, and I think we trade a few points before bodhi gets 2 breaks on us. Their twisted metal-esque 1-3-3 was aggressively tight, and the wind was making it difficult to go over the top well. We had to make adjustments for the wind and swing the disc more than we normally do.
Bodhi was pretty fired up and was playing hard, physical ultimate and it was fun. They have a pretty talented team. After consistent, hard defensive pressure point after point, they start missing on their hucks and dump resets and we start getting the breaks back to take half 8-6 I believe. The wind is slowing down some which makes breaking the mark and hucking to space a lot easier. After half, we come out and I think break a few more times and bodhi's wheels start to fall off with drops and throw aways. I think we win out 15-8.
To wrap-up Saturday: Our O-line was broken 3 times (once by red circus and 2 times by bodhi), and our D line was efficient at scoring considering the wind and some marathon points played when the wind was really, really blowing hard.
From a me perspective: I thought I played well, although my legs were tired coming in from working in the field for the first time since august. That was a rude awakening back from funemployment. I had some nice breaks, some nice scores, good handler D, but I felt slow when people took me downfield. I can run faster, but my sore hips and hamstrings were not letting me turn over quickly. Pretty frustrating experience.
On Sunday: We played light and dark which is Amherst High + plus alumni friends. There were around 4 players on that team that I would have loved to tryout for us, bodhi, or sons. They have a really good zone D which, admittedly, helped them a lot on saturday. but, what i was most impressed with is that they all throw so amazingly well. They might have gotten either one or two breaks on us, one coming from a 90 yard i/o upwind flick bomb if i remember correctly. These kids were a real treat to play.
We then play Pony. Every year Pony gets more and more good players, and every year I think that this is their year to compete with ironside, goat, and bodhi, but they always seem to come up short at regionals. I have no idea if it is a mental hurdle or what. The wind is very strong at this point and the upwind pulls are getting a little half mid-field, and I think we trade a few points, but we are getting at least a turn every time they are on O. We are having some difficulty scoring upwind, and if we turn it over with our Ds O, it normally leads to an easier downwind goal with the shortened field. One of the first chances to break, I make their job really easy by doinking a disc off my thumbs to start a play right in the endzone they are attacking. Trying to do too many things at once instead of making sure.... Nice gift josh.
The wind has made it difficult to run transitions zones and other things because we are working on so short of a field when pulling upwind. After the turn, we try to fast break as much as possible in order to get some crisp throws off to start. This leads to a bunch of handlers cutting downfield, which must look pretty enjoyable from the sidelines, watching a bunch of squirrels making 5 yard jukes from the back of the stack.
It might be either right before or right after half that they drop a pull. After that, they had their heads down and there was no question who was going to win that game. We close out 15-9.
Next up is our regional rival goat. I really like playing them. Their handlers are pretty incredible and fun to cover. Although DJ is playing with the masters team this year, they bolstered their O handler power by adding a super fast swede guy (joel?) and derek alexander. With those 2 and Tolly, their Russian handler, behind the disc, you have to watch out for getting taken to the house. By this point, my legs were trash and knew that this was going to be a challenge. Luckily, I got all my standing on ladders, crawling through ductwork, and squatting for 12 hours a day out of the way from now until nationals, so that shouldn't happen to me again.
Aside: Goat might have too many talented O handlers and should move some to their D line. There is no need for 5 of them, especially if hassel is sometimes behind the disc. I think if they would put tolly or some other O handler with good D on the D line, that would lead to easier d goals for them.
Anyway, we start out and I think we go up 4-1 on them as they can't seem to figure out how to throw backhands in the wind. The normal textbook bombs that they throw are just landing 1 field over. I have never played a game like this where I am on the team that is absolutely just dominated a really good team like that before. (I have been on the opposite side though, and it sucks.... I think Metal got curb stomped 15-3 or something at chesapeake one year by viscious cycle). We wind up closing it out 15-6.
Another interesting thing I found out this weekend is that Goat doesn't normally have weekend practices, but rather they practice on the weekdays. Mindblowing. I think it would be really interesting to figure out a lot of the teams practice schedules.
Anyway, then I watched Quiet Coyote stop beating themselves and earn a trip to nationals. And I watched PoNY have nothing go their way and have no energy against Bodhi. Bodhi is the deeper team than PoNY, and there is no question that Bodhi has bigger huckers in the wind, but I at least thought the game was going to be a slugfest.
That is about it. I think both Goat and Bodhi are going to upset teams in pool play. I think depending on conditions and if they can get handlers clicking with their receivers, Goat could win their pool.
-josh
Anyway, my goal for this weekend was to play every game like the finals. To make sure I warm-up to 100%, play every point my hardest, and make sure I and the team respects our opponents by playing as best as we can. My legs felt like lead all weekend because last week was my first week back from unemployment due to relocation. Working in the field for 12 hours a day on your feet is a surefire way to make your legs tired.
The first game of the day, we had Colt .45 for the first game of the day. We gave them different D looks, played very hard D, and were efficient after the turn. It should be noted that it wasn't windy yet. We won 15-2.
We then played Red Circus from Halifax. They drove something like 12 hours to get here. They had a fairly small roster, but played hard. We won 15-6. I think it was starting to get a little windier. On a strategy note: we found out that some of the D setups we have been experimenting with this season worked against teams that didn't know what it was. Always frustrating at practice when the O line knows exactly what you are doing, what the Ds weakness is and what its strengths are.
Replicants from NYC was next. They are a pretty talented team, and by this time it was a strong wind. They have around 3 handlers who play a lot of points, and a bunch of young athletic cutters. Strong enough that pulling upwind became difficult to make it further than a little bit over half field at times. I think we traded the first 4 points and they were very good to start by moving the disc well and hitting open receivers. They blinked first and our stingy D line scored and I think secured the downwinder. then the wheels fell off for them and they began trying crazy high-risk hucks and throws when I really think a simple throw would have been completed. We win 15-5.
Bye Round. Everyone just tries to stay warm, eat some food (because of the wind, there seemed to be little downtime to get real food in between games).
We then play bodhi. I think they are really fired up to play us, and we are really excited to play a team that will push us. We start out, and I think we trade a few points before bodhi gets 2 breaks on us. Their twisted metal-esque 1-3-3 was aggressively tight, and the wind was making it difficult to go over the top well. We had to make adjustments for the wind and swing the disc more than we normally do.
Bodhi was pretty fired up and was playing hard, physical ultimate and it was fun. They have a pretty talented team. After consistent, hard defensive pressure point after point, they start missing on their hucks and dump resets and we start getting the breaks back to take half 8-6 I believe. The wind is slowing down some which makes breaking the mark and hucking to space a lot easier. After half, we come out and I think break a few more times and bodhi's wheels start to fall off with drops and throw aways. I think we win out 15-8.
To wrap-up Saturday: Our O-line was broken 3 times (once by red circus and 2 times by bodhi), and our D line was efficient at scoring considering the wind and some marathon points played when the wind was really, really blowing hard.
From a me perspective: I thought I played well, although my legs were tired coming in from working in the field for the first time since august. That was a rude awakening back from funemployment. I had some nice breaks, some nice scores, good handler D, but I felt slow when people took me downfield. I can run faster, but my sore hips and hamstrings were not letting me turn over quickly. Pretty frustrating experience.
On Sunday: We played light and dark which is Amherst High + plus alumni friends. There were around 4 players on that team that I would have loved to tryout for us, bodhi, or sons. They have a really good zone D which, admittedly, helped them a lot on saturday. but, what i was most impressed with is that they all throw so amazingly well. They might have gotten either one or two breaks on us, one coming from a 90 yard i/o upwind flick bomb if i remember correctly. These kids were a real treat to play.
We then play Pony. Every year Pony gets more and more good players, and every year I think that this is their year to compete with ironside, goat, and bodhi, but they always seem to come up short at regionals. I have no idea if it is a mental hurdle or what. The wind is very strong at this point and the upwind pulls are getting a little half mid-field, and I think we trade a few points, but we are getting at least a turn every time they are on O. We are having some difficulty scoring upwind, and if we turn it over with our Ds O, it normally leads to an easier downwind goal with the shortened field. One of the first chances to break, I make their job really easy by doinking a disc off my thumbs to start a play right in the endzone they are attacking. Trying to do too many things at once instead of making sure.... Nice gift josh.
The wind has made it difficult to run transitions zones and other things because we are working on so short of a field when pulling upwind. After the turn, we try to fast break as much as possible in order to get some crisp throws off to start. This leads to a bunch of handlers cutting downfield, which must look pretty enjoyable from the sidelines, watching a bunch of squirrels making 5 yard jukes from the back of the stack.
It might be either right before or right after half that they drop a pull. After that, they had their heads down and there was no question who was going to win that game. We close out 15-9.
Next up is our regional rival goat. I really like playing them. Their handlers are pretty incredible and fun to cover. Although DJ is playing with the masters team this year, they bolstered their O handler power by adding a super fast swede guy (joel?) and derek alexander. With those 2 and Tolly, their Russian handler, behind the disc, you have to watch out for getting taken to the house. By this point, my legs were trash and knew that this was going to be a challenge. Luckily, I got all my standing on ladders, crawling through ductwork, and squatting for 12 hours a day out of the way from now until nationals, so that shouldn't happen to me again.
Aside: Goat might have too many talented O handlers and should move some to their D line. There is no need for 5 of them, especially if hassel is sometimes behind the disc. I think if they would put tolly or some other O handler with good D on the D line, that would lead to easier d goals for them.
Anyway, we start out and I think we go up 4-1 on them as they can't seem to figure out how to throw backhands in the wind. The normal textbook bombs that they throw are just landing 1 field over. I have never played a game like this where I am on the team that is absolutely just dominated a really good team like that before. (I have been on the opposite side though, and it sucks.... I think Metal got curb stomped 15-3 or something at chesapeake one year by viscious cycle). We wind up closing it out 15-6.
Another interesting thing I found out this weekend is that Goat doesn't normally have weekend practices, but rather they practice on the weekdays. Mindblowing. I think it would be really interesting to figure out a lot of the teams practice schedules.
Anyway, then I watched Quiet Coyote stop beating themselves and earn a trip to nationals. And I watched PoNY have nothing go their way and have no energy against Bodhi. Bodhi is the deeper team than PoNY, and there is no question that Bodhi has bigger huckers in the wind, but I at least thought the game was going to be a slugfest.
That is about it. I think both Goat and Bodhi are going to upset teams in pool play. I think depending on conditions and if they can get handlers clicking with their receivers, Goat could win their pool.
-josh
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Loose Ends, General Thoughts, and the Fireball of the South
The fall series is starting, college teams are forming up, club teams are ramping up for regionals, and everyone is filled with hopes.
MIT is going to have some pretty big transitions this year. For the first time in a long time, they are going to have a new coach(es), have to play without a kevin albert / andrew ji type athlete, and have to develop pretty much all new handlers.
I saw on a website that there is a small chance that college nationals could wind up in philadelphia or at my old stomping ground, lehigh. I feel 12 nice fields at lehigh might be hard unless they were allowed to use the football stadium, the soccer stadium, and the field hockey turf. but if they are allowed to do that, that would be pretty sweet. nice weather in the spring, moderately windy, beautiful campus.
speaking of beautiful fields, i got to use my "out of towner" pass this last weekend for NE sectionals and instead watched NC mixed sectionals at the Eurosport soccer complex. those fields were AWESOME. as far as my thoughts about mixed sectionals were:
1.) only having 5 women on a team is a terrible idea. after 2 games the women are lucky if they can still move.
2.) only tau dumped swang well.
3.) don't complain about a team calling a timeout in a time cap situation. you had the whole game to beat them.
4.) STEP OFF THE MARK. a good mark isn't a stationary straddle. vary your depth. there was a player on clean plate club, strasser (udel guy from way back), that just would work it up the field by reaching around the mark who was leaning into him... repeatedly, like every other pass, and the mark refused to do something different.
I have no idea what this post is talking about. i don't mean it in a bad way, i just can't grasp what it is referring to. maybe because i am not really a thrower. I guess it is saying that it is good to be able to decouple your legs from your top half so you can break. Or maybe it is saying that a lot of the throws int he elite game are released at shoulder height? There was a video link on the site that tried to show the two different breaks. It just looked like normal breaks to me. Most of the time, short breaks are released high and soft, and long breaks are released low and fast. I don't know if that is what it was referring too. I think it is more of a situational thing. i don't know if he was talking about the hucks or the breaks either.
Being 700 miles away from your team means track workouts alone. Track workouts by yourself suck. especially this year because we are doing more field specific workouts (change of direction, cleats, etc) than just running 400s and 200s this year. we did have some 200s last week and it was a joy because you can't lie to the watch.
some examples of the stuff we are doing are:
what we call the team usa box drill, i guess they did this at team usa tryouts, or something.... it is the devil.
This week, among various other shuttle runs, we have 3 sets of 2 reps of this. 1:30 of rest in between reps, 4 mintues between sets. the key is to do it as hard as humanly possible. your legs will be plenty tired towards the end. I think this would be a good college relay drill.
This, and the simulated D points are the two hardest things for me. They just ravage my legs. Simulated D points though might be a bit overkill for a college team that practices 3+ times a week since you can actually just play good D instead of having to pretend you are playing. ahhhh college.
we bumped up to one "track" workout and one speed workout a week now. I am also trying to get some riding in on the nice country roads out here. my wednesday night pickup has stopped since the team i was picking up with didn't qualify for regionals, so i am going to have to find another throwing outlet fast.
I am also having a hard time coming to grips with the fireball in the southern sky. it is no joke. it is so much more intense than up north. if you are outside around noon, you feel it could just melt you into the ground. I just did this weeks cardio workout around then and it was awful.
speaking of nonsequiturs, sorry, my brain is mush right now. another drill that we did some this year is a variation on the break mark drill. you know the two line drill where you mark, throw, and then cut for the breakmark? well, this one you have 1 mark for 5-10 throws, one thrower for those throws, and a line of cutters. after the thrower throws they do a shuttle run (maybe 5-10 yards back) and then the mark hands then another disc, taps it in, and the cut from the back of the "stack" happens. i like it because 1.) you get a lot of throws in to make immediate adjustments in you throws, 2.) as a marker, you can learn to make adjustments on the fly. 3.) it does a better job of throwing tired than the breakmark drill. if you ever want to change up the breakmark drill, you can try this drill if you have space.
wow, this post is one of the most jarbled posts ever. mental note: don't post after workouts.
-josh
MIT is going to have some pretty big transitions this year. For the first time in a long time, they are going to have a new coach(es), have to play without a kevin albert / andrew ji type athlete, and have to develop pretty much all new handlers.
I saw on a website that there is a small chance that college nationals could wind up in philadelphia or at my old stomping ground, lehigh. I feel 12 nice fields at lehigh might be hard unless they were allowed to use the football stadium, the soccer stadium, and the field hockey turf. but if they are allowed to do that, that would be pretty sweet. nice weather in the spring, moderately windy, beautiful campus.
speaking of beautiful fields, i got to use my "out of towner" pass this last weekend for NE sectionals and instead watched NC mixed sectionals at the Eurosport soccer complex. those fields were AWESOME. as far as my thoughts about mixed sectionals were:
1.) only having 5 women on a team is a terrible idea. after 2 games the women are lucky if they can still move.
2.) only tau dumped swang well.
3.) don't complain about a team calling a timeout in a time cap situation. you had the whole game to beat them.
4.) STEP OFF THE MARK. a good mark isn't a stationary straddle. vary your depth. there was a player on clean plate club, strasser (udel guy from way back), that just would work it up the field by reaching around the mark who was leaning into him... repeatedly, like every other pass, and the mark refused to do something different.
I have no idea what this post is talking about. i don't mean it in a bad way, i just can't grasp what it is referring to. maybe because i am not really a thrower. I guess it is saying that it is good to be able to decouple your legs from your top half so you can break. Or maybe it is saying that a lot of the throws int he elite game are released at shoulder height? There was a video link on the site that tried to show the two different breaks. It just looked like normal breaks to me. Most of the time, short breaks are released high and soft, and long breaks are released low and fast. I don't know if that is what it was referring too. I think it is more of a situational thing. i don't know if he was talking about the hucks or the breaks either.
Being 700 miles away from your team means track workouts alone. Track workouts by yourself suck. especially this year because we are doing more field specific workouts (change of direction, cleats, etc) than just running 400s and 200s this year. we did have some 200s last week and it was a joy because you can't lie to the watch.
some examples of the stuff we are doing are:
what we call the team usa box drill, i guess they did this at team usa tryouts, or something.... it is the devil.
This week, among various other shuttle runs, we have 3 sets of 2 reps of this. 1:30 of rest in between reps, 4 mintues between sets. the key is to do it as hard as humanly possible. your legs will be plenty tired towards the end. I think this would be a good college relay drill.
This, and the simulated D points are the two hardest things for me. They just ravage my legs. Simulated D points though might be a bit overkill for a college team that practices 3+ times a week since you can actually just play good D instead of having to pretend you are playing. ahhhh college.
we bumped up to one "track" workout and one speed workout a week now. I am also trying to get some riding in on the nice country roads out here. my wednesday night pickup has stopped since the team i was picking up with didn't qualify for regionals, so i am going to have to find another throwing outlet fast.
I am also having a hard time coming to grips with the fireball in the southern sky. it is no joke. it is so much more intense than up north. if you are outside around noon, you feel it could just melt you into the ground. I just did this weeks cardio workout around then and it was awful.
speaking of nonsequiturs, sorry, my brain is mush right now. another drill that we did some this year is a variation on the break mark drill. you know the two line drill where you mark, throw, and then cut for the breakmark? well, this one you have 1 mark for 5-10 throws, one thrower for those throws, and a line of cutters. after the thrower throws they do a shuttle run (maybe 5-10 yards back) and then the mark hands then another disc, taps it in, and the cut from the back of the "stack" happens. i like it because 1.) you get a lot of throws in to make immediate adjustments in you throws, 2.) as a marker, you can learn to make adjustments on the fly. 3.) it does a better job of throwing tired than the breakmark drill. if you ever want to change up the breakmark drill, you can try this drill if you have space.
wow, this post is one of the most jarbled posts ever. mental note: don't post after workouts.
-josh
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