UPA Championships

I thought I'd better write about the UPA Championships while it's still fresh in my mind.

I actually feared this delay in posting may occur considering the ensuing lack of interest in ultimate that invariably follows the end of the season. Having realized my fear, I took the precaution of recording my stats in a planner after each game. Problem was, that planner belongs to a girl whom I'm no longer dating. She was, I believe, one of about 3 non-ultimate playing, non-familial spectators at the UPA Championships. Why is that? I have lots of ideas, but that's for another entry, scheduled to be written in October.

Of 2009.

Anyway, so I don't know what my stats were, but I remember going into the last game having fewer turns and more Ds than games played. I also scored a lot. The last game I had a lot of turnovers, though. The entire team did. The game was frontloaded with double digit turnover points. I wasn't on the field for any of them, thankfully. That visit to turnover town, though, caused the time cap to go on just before half time (I believe). Three of my turns in the game were all intended for the same handler, one of which was a downright comical 3 yard dump that probably floated in the air for 5 seconds and was at a catchable height during the entire flight, but was not caught. Ugh. I also had one other overthrow and several punts (something we did too little of, considering the turnfest that it was). Overall, I was very satisfied with my play. I had a lot of touches, I got some clever Ds, I got scored on once, I allowed 2 thrown goals, and I small amount of turns relative to how often I touched the disc and compared to the rest of the team.

For the team, Thursday obviously sucked. We lost all 3 games.

Brass Monkey is the only team we played all year that we could not beat. No way, no how. They overmatched us in just about every way and came to play, in addition to an overwhelming sense of nervousness on our team. It felt like everyone had jitters except for me and Mike.

In our game against Briefcase, we actually led 9-4, and ended up losing 15-12. They went on an 11 to 3 run on us, complements of our O line, who just could not seem to convert. There was a turn on just about every point and a lot of fatigue. And we just seemed to stick with them break after break after break.

It sucked, but I had to miss the Deliverance game. The landlords for our lodging were threatening to kick us out if I didn't pay that day. I left immediately after our Briefcase loss, but with the long trip, the traffic, and the construction, I didn't return until we had already been virtually eliminated. We had to win by more than 3 to avoid needing some serious luck to make the play in game. Deliverance already had 12 points by the time I had my cleats back on. I played my first point of the game when we trailed 14-12 and a huck to my guy was caught over me for a score. In retrospect, I should have told our landlord to shove it. They already had my credit card and we were paying around $3k to be there. The customer is always right. Especially when that customer is me.

Our next 4 games did not feel like Nationals at all. We were at the Thanksgiving dinner kids' table equivalent for fields; the intensity was low; and there was hardly anything at stake (although, I think our victory over the Flycoons did take away a wildcard from the Northwest). For me, my memorable moment was when I made an inspirational timeout speech about how I would not get broken, only to be broken moments later by the classic falling-over backhand. I will say in my defense, however, that the receiver was left completely open on the break side. The intent of my speech wasn't to give permission to leave the receiver wide open.

All in all, I had a good time. A quick highlight summary:

• We stayed in a 5000 square foot penthouse on the beach (pictured above)
  
• We left Nationals with a 4 game win streak
• One night, we cooked mini pizzas from scratch
• The open finals game was phenomenal to watch (Chase layout, that Jimmy Chu D (almost), the accidental catch, and a greatest)
• Playing well, scoring a lot
• Purchase of a 5 ultimate hat
• Learning to love the jacket that I bought even though I didn't like it but I wanted to buy some tourney merchandise
• Taking 2nd in spirit (I had a feeling we might be up there)

Lowlights:

• Spending (basically) an elimination game in traffic in a van
• Moving our best O line handler to D, when our O was already not performing well and our D was already awesome
• Losing Sam to burn out
• Losing to Briefcase
  
• Losing at Scrabble anagrams
• Losing at liar's dice, the game I taught everyone
  
• Picking up a Becky so drunk he could not dial his own phone
• Dyeing my hair blond, only to remember 5 days later that I was to be in 2 weddings in the following 8 weeks
• Jenni's drunk boyfriend pissing on the carpet in the middle of my room in the middle of the night for about 5 minutes