The artist and player formerly known as The Baron already wrote a masterful summary of the Van Buren Boys experience at MUDI. I know all of you are dying for more, so here we go.First, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how I wish this tournament's name hadn't changed to MUDI. Every time I say or hear it, I think of the "I say tomato" song: "I say Muddy. You say Moody." I know it can't be Aquatennial anymore, but I just wish Greggae would have found some loophole and named it something like Aqua Ten Event Loophole (a.k.a. Aqua Ten E.L.).
My fingers can hardly keep up with all my thoughts of the good things about this weekend. Again, just a solid, all around, fun-having weekend.
Friday night, Amesians and Kansians arrived at my house for dinner. I never use canned sauces for my pasta anymore and I think it surprised a lot of people to see me making a homemade sauce. That pleased me. As did hearing that people liked it. I immensely enjoy cooking for people. Making the mini pizzas at Nationals was one of the coolest parts of the trip for me last year. Anyway, we ate, then others showed up and we took a walk down the street for pool, darts, NBA Jam, Buck Hunter, Karaoke, and Gibbler's strip tease.
We met our expectations of Saturday victories, going 4 for 4. We had the perfect game, no goals scored on us, 0 turns. TBA and Ding Wop both gave us a little more than we thought they had. And then the St. Cloud young team scored one on us ... er, okay okay, scored one on me.
On the day, I had 4 D's, though Becknasty kindly pointed out that one of them kind of came right to me. I got scored on once, the only goal in our 13-1 win. I threw 5 goals and caught 1. Zero turnovers.
Saturday night, I saw Rosco's place for the first time. What a cool house! For a while, we sat in front of a campfire listening to fireworks (note: not as cool as watching them). I regaled teammates with stories of the Tranny Patrol, my old magic days, and shared an exact figure of how much I lost on those two hands of poker while we counted out chip stacks. Kevin killed me at poker with his notably disciplined hand selection. Wimer then buried our team early in a game of spades with some extravagant bidding so Kevin got to win .... again.
Sunday morning, my man crush and I drove out to the fields on our way to face Goose Egg. I said to him, "we better be careful with them, they can beat us if we don't take it seriously." Sure enough, they go up on us 5-2, then 6-3. We fight our way back to 11-11 and Kev calls some big lines to lead us to the win. I had 0 D's in this game, a few shut downs on the dump, and allowed one thrown goal by J-Rod. Again, 0 turns.
And now for the get-to-know-ya portion of my blog:
- If you weren't there for it at Rosco's, I revealed to everyone that in high school, I performed magic for cub scouts, third grade classes, and the like. When challenged about the authenticity of my story, I proceeded to fail at a few flourishes with a plastic deck. Once I got my hands on a Bicycle deck, however, I was truly, extraordinarily, amazingly impressive with my 4 types of one handed cuts and 0 magic tricks demonstrated.
And then, the long-awaited Sub Zero game. I'd never played in front of such a large crowd before. Ding Wop played Sub Zero in the sectional final in 05, but the crowd size was not as large or as interested. I think players in the region had been anticipating this game as much as we had. One, they wanted to see if Van Buren is for real, and two, they apparently wanted to see Sub Zero lose, quite reminiscent of Come Inside Where It's Warm.
We pull. Two throws later, Jimmy's huge block of Todd Owen's huck attempt can be heard from fields away and is echoed with a thunderous roar from the crowd. We pick up, and a few throws later, we're in the endzone with an upwind break on the first point. Again, the crowd is roaring.
We pull. Same line for us, but this time, Zero methodically works it up the field and scores on an upline cut. The crowd is deafeningly silent. Even though we had talked about it in the huddle about how there were a lot of people wanting to see us win, it wasn't until Sub Zero scored that it became obvious just how lopsidedly the support favored VBB.
Up 7-6 and receiving with the wind at our backs, fatigue had set in. Sub breaks us twice to take half and to return to serve. And the remainder of the game was much of the same. They go on an 8-2 run to win 13-9. Their depth dominated us. As it probably should have; they had a larger roster and have had just a few more practices than us.
Some highlights from the game:
- Jimmy's block of Todd Owens
- Charlie's eruption of "it's down it's down it's down!" followed immediately by a calm "oh, okay" with a what-did-I-do look on his face when told that it was up in an equally eruptive manner
- Ben's hand block of Todd
- Karsten catching everything
- Todd's gratuitous air spike following a play in which he was not even remotely involved
- Ross faking the air spike, in mockery of Todd, followed by a 90 second ovation by the crowd
On the weekend, I had just 2 turns, 0 drops, 2 received goals allowed, 1 thrown goal allowed, 4 D's, 6 goals, and a bunch of "nice try's." The layout I had underneath while I was guarding Truesdale was probably my best in 2 years, only I missed the D. Regardless of the outcome, it felt amazing. In general, my body is doing great. No soreness, a little fatigue (especially since Fridays are my hardest workout day right now), but 10% of my skin is decomposing somewhere on the field with all the horse manure. After being denied a cortisone shot from the Doc last Tuesday, he gave me a different NSAID to replace the 1600 mg of ibuprofin I normally take on tournament days and my knees feel brand new. No doubt, my ability to play at a higher level than I have a long time was a result of the pain-free running. I left the fields wanting to play MORE because I hadn't driven home from ultimate in about 2 years without a throbbing right knee.
If this post bored you, replace "right knee" with the body part of your choice and comment with "nice try."
10 comments:
While VBB may have been missing Jon, BJ, Joe, Austin, Gary, and Steve, Zero was missing their 2 best deeps (Shane and Drew), Will Lokke, and Callahan winner Dan Heijman. While on paper this seems to be a wash, I'll give a slight edge to the Zero absentees.
Coming up with layout grabs and macked catches to save turnovers kept VBB from being blown out by a Zero team that hadn't practiced together in 4 weeks. I'm looking forward to the rematch once Zero has been to Colorado Cup, ECC, and has 5 weeks of practice under their belts.
Be careful! Just because you aren't feeling the pain doesn't mean your body isn't whining!
Why can't it be called Aquatennial anymore? I like your new name for it, though.
Reggie:
Is this your real name? Where are you from, bud? You seem to know a lot about both teams, but we don't know much about you.
Your post seems less like an even-handed recountation of last weekend's events and more like an attempt to assuage your own self-doubt.
I'll agree with you on two counts: MUDI finals don't necessarily indicate how things will turn out at regionals, and you (as a Zero player or sympathizer) have every reason to be nervous.
I also look forward to the rematch.
Sincerely,
Brendan
BC- relax a minute there. Sure it's not great that you don't know who Reggie is, but he seems to make some valid points. Maybe he is a newcomer to the team that has read the several pro-VBB accounts of the tourney/game and maybe he got a little angry. Or maybe he was the only ONE person there rooting for Zero.
You (being a former member of SZ) should know best that this tourney is a time for the team to reconvene and start focusing on the task at hand, frisbee in Florida in late October. We had several close first halfs with teams in the past at this invite. A Winnipeg game some time, Kansas in 03, Illinois young-ins in 04, etc. Heck, we even loss to Ethanol in 04 (or maybe 03?).
Do you know what happened to all those teams? They did not make it to the 2nd day of regionals. So now the burden of proof is on the VBB. This tourney is the perfect opportunity to upset an established team like SZ, rustiness, looking past a team that has not done much in the past, general arrogance about the season, maybe chips on some of your teammates' shoulder from cuts, etc... But you made your shot and they answered, pretty substantially, I would say.
Basically, what are you guys going to do now? It is only July and really you have not beaten anyone of significance. Not Zero, Truck, nor Machine. Maybe you will get your chance at Motown to establish some street cred on the field, rather then on RSD. Or maybe you will be like Ethanol, Kansas, etc.?
That is up to you guys, no one else.
There is definitely some good experience on your team, but you + Berkseth (I believe) are the only ones who have gone to any sort of open nationals.
The open club game is the highest that frisbee is played right now and you guys have a lot to learn as a team. I would not be concerned with the attitude of Zero, etc. I would be concerned about getting better as a team to achieve whatever your goals may be.
I hope you guys keep getting better b/c it will be great for the region to have another strong team (and great for Zero to have another team so close in distance). And that these games turn into a rivalry, not just an arrogant team vs. the little team that could. It would be great for this to turn into a rivalry.
I hear ya on the skin donation party this weekend. When I was arguing an "in/out-of-the-endzone" call with a Madison dude, he pointed to a 1/2 inch divot on the concrete/dirt and said "here's where your knee hit!" I kind of sickeningly acknowleged that if that was indeed true, my knee would have attained the consistency of raw hamburger. I looked down, and found visual confirmation of such fact (well, raw hamburger coated in dirt). Happy trails, knee skin - you served me well whenever I needed a good shoe-tie.
Reggie, thanks for providing all the motivation VBB needs to make up for a few less practices than our competitors. Keep it comin!
Shim
Tim:
First, we both know that Reggie is not a fan sitting on the sidelines. As always, it was fun playing against him last Sunday, even though he was less rowdy than he usually is.
Second, nothing that I wrote belies what you have written. In fact, I agree with most of your points, although I think that you have overextended the VBB reaction to MUDI.
We played a tight game with Zero for the first half, and we are excited about the positive moments we can take away from that experience. We certainly aren't satisfied with a 13-9 loss and we're eager to play them again. That's pretty much it.
Reggie responded very defensively to Lou's post, so I was just goading him for doing that. But you're right--the only way we'll know whether his nervousness is well founded is if we prove it on the field.
Well then BC, I guess you do not know who Reggie is.
You must admit though, there is a little too much slapping on the backs for a team that lost by 4.
Good luck this year, Tim
Sub Zero lost to Ethanol in 04 in DET. Sub Zero has had what 8 or 9 close first halves with Furious and still lost in the last 5 yrs. It happens a lot when you play a better team.
Next practice, work on our macks and layouts. Seems to be Sub Zero's biggest weakness.
As I am to this point a blogging virgin I may ramble a bit here but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.
Reggie makes a very good point; the players that Zero was missing seem to at least cancel the players that VBB were missing. Any claims about what missing players would have contributed is trivial. Players are always missing and the mark of a good team is that they play at a consistent level with whatever fraction of their roster is available for a given tournament.
As for the layouts and macks I am not quite so sure. Just as there were bobbled/macked catches that worked out in VBB favor there we also a number of unintended plays that benefited the Zero cause. I would venture to say that it was a wash on that front. That being said, the more rigorous practice schedule and more disciplined nature of the Zero system would theoretically shift that balance in Zero's favor in the future. The VBBs while not a traditional practicing team is filled with veteran players who will continue to play better with their new teammates as the season progesses. We'll see how it all comes out in the grass-stained wash.
As the tall skinny kid mentioned, hopefully the VBBs can prove themselves in the arena of open ultimate and strengthen the notoriously soft central region. As for stacking up against decent competition we'll see how we do with Machine and others at Cooler.
Good luck at ECC Zero. Good luck at Cooler VBB. Central region: take some names and leave it all on the field.
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