Results from the double header:

Round 1

Black over Forest — 11-10
Orange over Red — 11-5
White over Gold — 11-6
Maroon over Silver — 10-9
Royal over Navy — 11-7

Round 2

Royal over Black –11-9
Navy over Forest — 11-6
Gold over Maroon — 11-5
Red over Silver — 11-8
Orange over White — 10-9

Epic Pale v. Know Expectations

I was very confident coming into this week until Friday morning: I received an email that Eric! would be unavailable and then received word a few hours later that Meg had tweaked her back.  No Meg meant that I was in a world of hurt, since we’ve relied on her all season long to make things happen.  Anyway, the prospect of going 0-2 crossed my mind, and I was concerned.  On the plus side, I did have Adam back, as well as my usual greats.  To the game: After winning the flip, I chose offense, because I figured the games would be short, and I’d be forced to play down, so drawing first blood was crucial.  Gold pulled to us, and we scored, nice and simple.  We then went on to control the first half, making it 6-1 at the break.  White was feeling good, but Pilgrim wasn’t done.  James, Pilgrim and Joel all played great and turned it on, and capitalized on Pale mistakes, going on a 4-1 run.  After that, though, we were able to stop the bleeding, and ended the game.  The final was 11-6 (Kyle: please check my math and confirm).

Epic Pale v. Tang

I knew this was going to be a good game, and it was.  Because of my lack of women, I immediately angered Orange by choosing to play offense and by going 7-0.  I understand their anger, but as a captain, it was my only choice.  Unfortunately for Epic, they were fired up and it was like walking into a shot gun blast.  In almost no time, we were flat on our back and down 2-0.  After that though, as I’ve come to expect from my fine team, we picked ourselves up and went to work.  At 2-0, it looked like it’d be a blowout.  At 4-2, it looked like we’d lose respectably, and at 5-5, it was a dogfight.  Make no mistake: Kevin’s team is fantastic, and I’m really somewhat amazed that we were able to come back even as Orange made us play down a player when we were on defense.  Plus, on offense, they were great.  Erica (still one of my favorite players) was critical in shredding our zone, Brenden and Smock was both speedy and smart, Roshan was fantastic, and Travis (of course) shut down huge portions of the field.  At 9-9, as it got dark, my six players tried to get one last stop with the wind in our face, and we just couldn’t do it.  It was a hell of a game and unfortunately, a bit chippy.  Still it was well played, and as I said before, Orange is fantastic and a legitimate contender.

-Mike

Royal (Whiskey Disc) vs. Navy (Navy Jones’ Locker)

After the flip, we did our best to negotiate with an injured Dan Barrow to not make us play down a player.  Dan however said that wasn’t in his game plan so right off the bat we’re forced to play down a person.  Luckily, we are well experienced in this department thanks to Forest making us play down a few weeks ago.  So we were able to rally off a couple of breaks in the beginning which lead to a 6-3 half score in Royal’s favor.  Around this time Tanya showed up and now Navy had 3 women there.  We did play Julie for a few points in the second half when we were on offense so Navy could use their women because let’s face it gender situations suck and there is no way around it.   It was totally my call to go 7-0 on offense a few times to give an injured Julie a break.

So second half started with a score by Royal and then Navy went on a little run to bring it to 7-5 then we basically traded points from there to end the game 11-7.  Highlights that stuck out in my mind for this game were Cathy’s on point throws time after time, Fro Joe calling us a-holes, a nice layout by Topher for Royal to keep a disc alive, and Kyle E throwing one of the sickest air bounces I’ve ever seen.  Good game Navy sorry for the circumstances!

Royal (Whiskey Disc) vs. Black (Night Night Time)

Much like the last game we were in the same situation only having one girl.  However, Lee decided that playing up wasn’t a big deal so we played Julie the entire game.  The game started with Royal on offense and a quick huck to myself going up over Rob to put Royal up one.  Black is a tough opponent with Skoolie trash talking us the entire game.  So Black kept pace as we were knotted at 3′s then Black stepped on the gas and took half 6-4.  Black was receiving in the second half and gave us a break so it was 6-5, but the next point Black would score after a tipped pass Penn State’s very own Scottie lays out and scoops up the trash for big score that put Black up 7-5.  Black then gave Royal a gift with a turn on their goal line.  That made it 7-6 and then Royal was able to put a run together to go up 10-8.  At this point it was very close to hard cap and Royal made a turn which made the score 10-9 as hard cap went off.  Technically the game was over, but since Black had been so gracious and not making us play down I decided against some of my team to not call the game, but to play the last point which could have resulted in us losing.  Topher got the disc on the sideline and after missing a couple hammers early on in the game hits Zach with a hammer to end it.

Highlights — Scotties lay out trash catch, Coleman was a machine on layout D’s having 2 huge ones, another layout grab by Topher, and Jeremy Brenner’s monster flick for the score.

Black is very dangerous and I hope I don’t have to face them again!  Great game Night Night Time!

- Phil

Tang (Orange) vs. Tactical Geniuses (Red)

For the first game of the day, we were glad to see that at the flip of the disc both Alton and Spencer were not at the fields.  Alton arrived right before the first pull to face Tang’s first Clam zone attempt of the season.  We thew it together on the line in hopes of neutralizing the deep threats and taking away some of the room for the other speedy cutters that Red has in their arsenal.  We pulled to Red and forced several bad throws, soon finding ourselves at the good end of a 4-0 lead.  At this point Spencer sprints in from the parking lot with a long scroll of parchment, chock-full of solid tactics and detailed plans to get their O going.  He quickly gathered his team together, sat them on his knee, stroked his wizened red beard, and restored some much needed order and poise to the Red attack.  After several more points, we took half something like 6-3.  The rest of the game was more of the same–not many long-distance plays, and the Geniuses tried both man and zone. We scored a little bit more often and the game ended 11-5ish.  The game was a lot closer than the score indicated and Tang certainly wasn’t expecting to beat this talented Red team.  The game had excellent spirit and I hope we can play them again.
Diamond Gems :
Orange: Erica came back after being beaned in the face by Alton’s huck to corralled two toe-dragging scores next to the endzone line on those beautifully oblique shapes that we call fields 1-3.  Brandon and Ponz both played some great D in the zone and cut hard.  The way that Travis and Roshan ‘Bollywood’ Goli played together, you would think they were Siamese twins–working it smoothly down the field.  It’s also amazing that Travis still has use of his arms after his thoracic spine was bent in half by a hard challenge during a TG catch.  If ultimate ever has referees and they call a foul in favor of Travis, I’m pretty sure he would graciously decline the call and then give the ref a hug.
Red: Red’s ladies played hard and mistake-free.  Dani and Pav had several difficult lunging catches in the middle of our zone when we were all thinking ‘Yes! a turnover’…and then they caught it.

Tang (Orange) vs. Epic Pale (White)

Without the services of Laura and Tim, the outcome of the first game was completely unexpected.  Most of us would have been totally fine with winning just one game on the day–considering our two difficult opponents.  Our game against White was a battle to the end.  After instituting our new Clamshell earlier against Red with some good results, we gave it the old college try against White as well.  It slowed them down for the first couple of points and we jumped up 2-0.  Then Palmer and Evan had some inspired handler cuts and moved it downfield pretty quickly for a point or two.  There was only a one point difference at half.  Soon it was night night time, the moon was up, and it was universe point.  Bingo Bango, the game went to Tang-o 10-9.  Both teams played excellent defense in both execution and especially effort.  White definitely has a hat in the ring for the championship.
Highlight Reel :
Orange: The legendary Dan Khan could very well be game MVP with his on-the-mark variety show: handblocks, footblocks, setting up his sideline traps.  That’s not even mentioning one of the most impressive throws I’ve ever seen in a game.  The disc was swung to Dan against White’s zone and he launches this 50+ yard curving flick across the whole field and over the Deep’s head to where I was standing at the side of the endzone.  I didn’t have to jump, I didn’t have to move…beautiful stuff.  Now if I just could have caught his nice hammer later on…. Nicole had some quality popping time in the 2nd half and set up the final score with a nice, long bladey flick catch. Brenden played outstanding D and sealed the game with the final score. Nothing gets me going more than seeing Ponz hit the floor, his rolling dive in the endzone was oh so close!  Tang was thankful to have Laura at the game, despite her injury, and her cheering/coaching helped spur us to the victories.
White: Palmer was a patient, tactful handler for White and had several pretty throws to break our zone open.  Adam G and Andrew worked their tails off on both sides of the disc.

- Kek

Black (Night Night Time) vs. Forest (Gangrene)

This was a really fun game. We started without Coleman, the Switzers, Skip, Cameron, or Rob, and once the game started, we soon found ourselves down 2-0 or 3-0. Once everyone showed up, we had it tied up at (I think) 5-5, but (again, I think) we lost half 6-5. After our first-half rally, we still had several drops in the second half. Luckily, we pulled this one out and ended up winning on universe, 11-10. Greg Feldman was absolutely sick for Forest, laying out all over the place and jumping over everyone to get Ds. Something similar can be said about Coleman for us– dude played like a madman. Overall, it was a really fun, competitive, and spirited game.

Final score: 11-10 Black.

Black (Night Night Time) vs. Royal (Whiskey Disc)

We had all been looking forward to this one since the rain out. We’re built in such a way that we’re definitely capable of beating Royal. We were the last team that Phil wanted to play (they beat everyone else!). Before the game, Phil and I worked out a deal that would prevent us playing up at all. Royal only had one woman (we had two) so we both agreed to play 6-1 the whole game. Why would I agree to this after all of the bitching and moaning I did earlier in the season? We were still the underdog, but I was pretty sure that winning or losing this particular game was not going to affect our seed for quarters, and we wanted to win for real.

We started off really strong. Skool was in true form, heckling Royal for even “letting us play” and inquiring as to whether or not the #1 team in league has been scored on all season. It seemed to help keep the momentum going our way, as we took the first half, 6-4.

The second half was a different story. We made a few too many mistakes while Royal turned it on. Frustration started to settle in and we found ourselves down 10-8 as the hard cap went off. We scored the next point to make it 10-9, and Royal agreed that we could continue play, since we made them a deal earlier. We were stoked at the prospect of still possibly winning this game, but we couldn’t pull it out. Royal turned it, then we turned it, and Royal scored for the win.

Final: 11-9 Royal.
Lee

More to come as I get them…