Regionals (October 1-2, 2005)
Friday
Viva! takes over SeaTac on a Friday afternoon for the second time this season to head to Davis, CA for Regionals 2k5.
Lots of ultimate players are on this flight from all four of Seattle's single gender teams, plus some women from Rough Riders.
Madness ensues with so many excited ultimate folks in a confined space,
beginning with the flight attendant calling one of our own a "monkey
boy" during the safety announcements and continuing with various puppet
shows, distribution of tinned mints and prescription drugs, and general
shenanigans. We finally arrive an hour late ("Sorry for the delay, we just have to reboot the computers. It will only take 15 minutes . . . ."). Nuge and Avery
both arrived on earlier flights and have been patiently waiting for the rest of the team at the terminal. The young'ns from Pomona arrive in the Previa shortly after as well. We all make it to the Motel 6 in Davis, where the lights have been left on for us.
Saturday
Wake up calls are at 6:30 am so we can arrive at the fields at 7:30 am, at an insane 1.5 hours before our first game starts. We're
on time after stops at the grocery store, Espresso Roma, and Fluffy
Donuts, and we find that other teams are equally senile and warming up
early too. Kim takes a quick lounge in the purple chair and then we go through our warmup and drills. But something's different. This time, we have hot Viva wristbands to match our hot steel uniforms and our hot bods.
We're seeded fourth in our pool of five, behind Fury, Acme, and Homebrood, with Tonic seeded fifth. The
day's schedule is four games in a row, starting with Tonic, followed by
Acme, then Homebrood, and ending with Fury before a last round bye.
After moving to drier fields across the street we finally start play with the Geiger cheer and take the field against Tonic. The sun is bright and it's starting to get warm with a strong breeze. Our defense is generating turnovers and we do a pretty good job of working our offense. Our play gets better as the game goes on. We take half at 8-4, and win it at 13-6. It's a good first game for us, but we know we can step it up and play even better for the next round.
Our second game is in the football stadium against Acme, a veteran team with a lot of skilled players. We have the advantage of being younger and faster, but this time it's not quite enough. Acme
throws a lot of clam, which we adjust to after a couple points, working
it up the field several times, only to turn it over close to the
endzone. We start to connect better in the second half. Meredith calls a timeout when we have the disc in the redzone, and we dump swing score. Claire comes up big with some hot grabs in the endzone as well. Though the O is starting to step it up, our defense is not as strong as it needs to be to stop their deep
looks and around breaks. Acme takes the game 6-13.
Next up is Homebrood. Homebrood is a fun team to play and we're geared up for a good game against them, hopefully coming out with an upset. However, at this point it is getting pretty hot and we are all feeling it. Our defense is better than the Acme game, but we're still having trouble stopping the around break. In the middle of the game Mer is on defense and goes to stop the around swing, spraining her ankle in the process. Boo. Everyone is upset, but we play on so we can win it for Ducky. In this spirit of intensity, Neva hauls ass to catch a huck in the back of the endzone, only to drop it
. . . after colliding into and through the metal bleachers. Everyone
gasps in horror, but she stands up right away to show everybody that
she didn't smash her head, and then sits down on the sideline
immediately after that when someone points out that her knees are
bleeding profusely. Later in the day she sports several
lined bruises on her forearm that mysteriously look like she slammed
her arm in multiple places against a metal beam. Oh wait, she did. On we play. Homebrood continues to click on offense and we don't have enough to stop them from winning with a final score of 4-13.
The final game of the day is against Fury. Mer gets her ankle wrapped by the trainer and gets a ride back to our field in the golf cart. Neva decides not to play this game since her knee has swollen to the size of a tennis ball. The wind has really picked up, but the clouds have come in so it's not as hot as before. We know it will be a hard game for us but we're still hoping to FSU in the region. It turns out that we don't FSU in the region, but, much to their dismay, we do FSU with Fury. Fury comes out playing well with a spread O, making very few turns while they rack up the score to 0-9.
For some reason they take a timeout at this point. Probably
to talk about our hot bods and awesome slack jaw dancing skills. We do
our best to force them to throw high as Kim has told us. It works, but we're still not converting any turns we get. They
throw their 4 person cup every point and we're having trouble working
it all the way down against their defense and the wind. We
go through a long, monster turn-over point in which Julia throws
innumerable no-look forehands around the cup to Liz, Nuge catches the
disc even after they get a piece of it with a layout D, and we force
turnover after turnover when they are on O. In the end, the point goes to Fury, but it is the turning point for us. On
the next point
we keep possession off the pull and work it down, finishing with a put
to Maddy who holds on despite falling backwards in the endzone. SCORE! We will not be bageled, and Fury looks a little upset. We proceed to score 4 points in a row, most of them to Maddog and now Fury is looking a lot more upset. Nuge comes up with huge grabs on offense. We
throw 1-3-3 when we can and Maddy and the front wall do a great job
containing their handlers with the wings and deep deep guarding the
back well. Nuge gets an awesome block on the goal line. Anne calls numbers, and Ava jukes for the score. In another point, Avery is trapped on the sideline
near the endzone and doesn't have any easy throws. At
a high stall count she breaks the mark and puts up a curvy forehand to
the center of the field which gets caught for our final score against
Fury. Fury eventually wins 5-13, but it's the most they will be scored on all day.
After a team cool down strut, Syd and Claire take Meredith to the hospital to take care of her ankle. The rest of Viva disperses to watch other Seattle teams or shower. We meet up later for dinner at Dos Coyotes and stops at Safeway and Coldstone. Back in Party Room 227 we hang around until eventually we all go to bed.
Sunday
Wake up time is again at 6:30 am to give everyone plenty of time to pack up and stop for caffeine. Kim has asked everyone to be at the fields ready to go by 8 am, and we’re all there by 7:45. Viva is early! We rock out to our own renditions of “Do you want to die?” during the warm up jog – oh yeah, we’re really pumped up now. We have a great warm up, intense and focused with everyone in a good mood. Ending up 4th in our pool yesterday pits us against Rough Riders for the 3-4 crossover game. Three wins in a row will earn us a bid to Florida. This will be the third time we’ve played
the Vancouver team this season, with Sectionals being a much better game than our half game against them at Solstice. Will Viva be able to improve their record against them this morning?
Neva fires everyone up by giving verbatim the speech in Miracle before the climatic U.S.A. vs. Soviet game in the 1980 Olympics. Simply put, it’s completely awesome. “ . . . This is your time!” Nuge finishes it perfectly with “Who do you play for?” Viva! Again! Viva! Again! The wind is strong and both teams throw zone. We put a killer 1-3-3 starting line out with Maddy, Berm, Nuge, Susan, Syd, Ava, and Julia. Rough Riders breaks through and takes the first point but we answer back by scoring the next one. They pull ahead to make the score 1-5, and then 2-6, but we pull ourselves together and
score 3 of the next 4 points with hot zone O and hard ass D. They take a timeout to pee in their pants while all Kim can say in our own huddle is “F***ing yeah!” The baby is happy too.
Again, Nuge is a force in the air, skying everyone around her and Berm is laying the volleyball smackdown on D. Rough Riders takes half 7-8, barely holding on to their lead. The second half is even more intense, and by this time other, non-playing teams are watching us and cheering us on. Riot is there giving us great Seattle support. Rough Riders go up a few again to make it 8-11, but we don’t let them get away that easily. Syd is putting up great hucks and Deirdre’s pulls are fantastic. Erin and Julia are working the zone O like they were born to be Frisbee players. Everyone is screaming their heart out on the sideline. Neva, Lina, and Liz have layout D bids. Wu gets a block on one of Val’s wind-up hucks which we easily convert for a score. But our team D is what really shines. At one point Neva stalls her woman who doesn’t even attempt to get rid of the disc. All she can do is drop it where she’s standing for the turnover. We bring the score back to within one at 10-11.
Rough Riders ends up scoring the next 4 points to win 10-15 and advance in the 4th place bracket. We are sad about the loss, but everyone feels great having just played the best game Viva has ever had. We take a cool down walk to the Keggies and harass them for beer. We’re told we must cheer them on and give a halftime show (“More skin, more beer”) for them to tap the keg mid-game for us. We gladly oblige. Some unused cones, discs, and Lina’s excellent cheer-writing skills earn Viva beer for the rest of the day. We split our time watching the Keggies, other women’s games, getting food, getting beer, drinking mojitos, attempting to get Riot to play a relay-drinking game with us, and watching Sockeye. Late
in the afternoon, but still with plenty of time before our 9:15 pm
flight, some of us hit up the UC-Davis rec pool for some modified
double-disc court and flutter and to clean up before the airport.
Regionals 2k5 was a blast. We played our hearts out and really came together on the field as a team. We can’t wait to show everyone how Viva will FSU in the region and nation in 2006!
Sectionals (September 18, 2005)
This tournament (three games) was not our best ultimate of the season. We first faced
Rough Riders, formally Prime, a team that was in finals of Nationals last year. They beat us soundly,
mainly due to our own mistakes. Next up was Riot, from Seattle, the number one team in the nation, undefeated
on the season. We scored the most we ever have against them, losing 13-5, and impressing them with our
improvement from last season. Given Riot's dominance, there won't be many teams at Nationals scoring even five,
so we felt good about our performance. Last up was Hussy, the second team out of Vancouver and a rival we
felt we could beat. But for some reason, we came out very flat and quickly went down 8-1 at half. We fired
up after half and started playing like we meant it, and we won the second half; if only we had come out strong
at the beginning of the game, we could have come away with the win. Still, flashes of brillance made us excited for
Regionals and the potential to upset some good teams.
Chicago Heavyweights (September 10-11, 2005)
We can't say we weren't warned. Kim and Avery both said Chicago is a hard tournament to play,
due to travelling all day Friday and arriving jet-lagged and sleep-deprived. It was even worse than
they imagined, as our flight was delayed and we got to Elin's super late. We miscalculated the time
it would take to get up, get ready, and get to the fields, and we arrived about 20 minutes before our
first game. D'oh. Even with many turnovers and drops, we still managed to only lose by 2 to Wicked.
But the next game, Nemesis capitalized on our mistakes and we were crushed. The third game of the day was
against a very young, spirited team from Rochester; we won with no problem. Finally, we played Zanzara,
another fun team out of Texas. Though we were in it and competing the whole time, several of us couldn't
play due to exhaustion (mental and physical) and we simply folded.
Luckily, the format was forgiving, and on Sunday morning we faced Cujo, another team from Texas, in the
prequarters. We beat them easily, playing some very good ultimate and gearing up for the quarters.
In the quarters we saw Bnogo from DC, a team that some of us had played for in previous years and another
bunch of young, fiery players. We came out strong and pressed them hard, going up 2-0; they tied it at fours,
but then we went up 6-4 and took half 7-5. The first point after half was a downwinder for Bnogo, and then brought
it to 7-6. Then the next point, we turned it over on a long pass and our zone was not successful. Bnogo scored the
upwinder. The cap was on at this point and it was game to 8. Our best offensive line went out and worked it up twice
to the red zone. Both times we turned it over. Bnogo kept giving it back to us though, and we had possession of the
disc at least twice more (for a total of four times). But four turnovers on double game point gave the game away; Bnogo
won 8-7 (and spiked the disc, a very poor display of sportsmanship in an otherwise intense but spirited game).
Chico (August 13-14, 2005)
The 14 of us had a great time, the weather was hot but the schedule was
so bizarre that we actually didn’t end up in that much sun on Saturday.
The tournament was essentially a co-ed tournament in the morning and a
men/women’s tournament in the afternoon. So we didn’t play until 2pm on
Saturday. We had breakfast, sat around in the air conditioned rooms and
waited anxiously for Neva to let us go to the fields. Around 12:30pm we
rolled out, and warmed up for our first opponent, the 5 seed in our
pool, some Wild West something or another team. We won pretty easily
13-2. Then we had a bye. Yup a bye. Our next game was at 5pm. It was
still a little warm but the sun was going down and there was a good
breeze so it wasn’t too bad.
The second game was against the 4 seed, the Pie Queens and friends,
which was another 13-2 victory. Our 1-3-3 was too much for them. The
third game was a cross-over with the two seed from the other pool, the
team is called Cujo (formally Buttercup from Texas). We did really well
in our first challenge, lots of 1-3-3 and zone and just plain old hard
running. We won 12-7 (I think). Now comes the showcase game, dun dun
dunnnnn. Drumroll, please.
We matched up against blAZe from Arizona. Like Cujo, Blaze has a
male coach that calls lines. Haha, we laugh. Wu and Neva are kicking
butt at calling brutal O and D lines. We trade offensive points until
3-3. We turn it over they work it down the field and WA-BAM. Handblock
by Deirdre. Viva scores to take a break. We went on to take many
breaks. This was a great game and I think many people are now addicted
to playing under the lights. Avery and Julia found invisible stairs all
over the field and proceeded to effortlessly sky their opponents. Berm
got a huge point block in the cup. We finished the game out at 11-7.
Some of you folks may have noticed by now that we never played the three seed in our pool.
The TD thought it’d be a good idea to have an engineering buddy do the schedule (why, we don’t really know)
and because the 1s and 3s never played in either pool, there were reportedly four teams that went 4-0 on Saturday.
We were robbed of dinner because we were playing, and it turns out leaving a box of hamburgers out in the open is
not an effective way of “saving” them. Eventually, and many many phone calls to the TD later, we find out that we
stayed ahead in point diff and have a bye into the semis. They dropped the bottom 4 teams and then had the 3-6
teams play a pre-semis. So...we slept in, had some breakfast. The usual. We played the winners of Fusion (LA team)
and the Sex Pandas (???). They had a close game and Fusion was pretty fired up at the start of our game. We did okay,
and were leading 5-2. Then we slowed down. Turns out it was actually pretty hot at 1:30pm, something we hadn’t
experienced the day before. That sucked. They took half 8-7. (Interestingly, games became to 15, though the 1:25
minute hard cap round stayed, meaning, there was no way we would get to 15). We sat under the shade for a few
moments and had a little “get-our-heads-out-our-butts” chat. It worked. We rolled out of half and went on a run
of chilly throws and hard ass D to win the game 11-8.
We switched fields, to a field that had been destroyed by men’s teams all day, replaced a bunch of chunks of
missing grass and got our game with Skyline (aka old Heroine) under way. Excited to mess up regional seedings
(Skyline beat Schwa last weekend at Colorado Cup), we took the first two points on D. Oh shit, thought Skyline.
They tied it up. We traded some points, they got a couple more on us when our D faltered. But we didn’t let them
have their bread and butter I-O flick and we played pretty well against their horizontal, Wu putting tremendous
pressure as the mark, getting multiple stalls up to 9. We had agreed on an abbreviated game to 13, and though
we scored on their first game point, they finished it up in the end and we lost 8-13. A much much finer showing
than Solstice and everyone walked away hungry for more.
Solstice (June 18-19, 2005)
Now that we'd had a chance to practice together a couple of times, we were excited to drive down to Eugene and
see some regional competition. After another reasonably close loss to Schwa, we beat Sol Sistas (New Mexico), lost
to Rough Riders (mostly former Prime) in a lightening-shortened game and beat All Jane (Eugene) to win a spot in the
prequarters Sunday morning. Facing Skyline (Bay Area, formerly Heroine), we started out hot but ended not and lost badly.
With another chance to win the B bracket, we moved to the bad fields and beat Tonic (Eugene) in the B-quarters. Half
the team took off their cleats after this game, thinking we were done for the day; instead, we had to endure a painful
loss to Box Lunch (Denver) in which we appeared to be sleep-walking. Still, there was plenty of beer to be had as we
watched Seattle's Riot and Sockeye win their respective divisions back on the good fields. WOTS report to come.
Flower Bowl (June 11-12, 2005)
Our roster was barely set when we drove up to Canada for the first taste of women's ultimate this season.
We played close games with Schwa and a number of Canadian teams, but despite our best efforts, we lost all
our games on Saturday. On Sunday, we played Chopper (the older half of Prime) in the prequarters and lost;
we then dropped into the B bracket and won our next two games, earning the title of "Women's division champion"
with a 2-5 record. Anne and Wu promise a WOTS report soon.
