2010 Olympia Co-Ed Traveling Team

USAU Sectionals WA/BC

O went to Sectionals.

That's a big deal all by itself, considering that Olympia hasn't had a team at sectionals since Liam was in diapers. . . hell, maybe since Kathy was in diapers. But, inspired by Corey "I can injure my back flossing my teeth" Nunlist, we got all serious 'n' shit at practice and hauled ourselves up to Burlington for an A-pool-plus weekend.

Andrew, Aaron, Will, Nate, Liam, Santana, Beth, Todd, Jon, Corey

(kneeling) Caitlin, Erica, Andrea, Hannah, Lisa, Pam, Kathy

(reclining) Luis "Lucho" Merchan

We started out Saturday against Eats, Throws, and Leaves, the Spawnfest champion. It was 4-8 at half. . . and 13-15 at game's end. Thus began our tournament-long tradition of winning second halves. Hilights included:

Caitlin showing up with scrumptious baked goods. . . and scoring the eternal adoration of the gluten-free girls with "special brownies." The fairy was disappointed to learn that they were spelt-flour-special and not bellingham-house-party-special.
Lisa receiving the first two O points
Hannah coming down with a crazy one-hander in traffic; no one on the sideline seeming a bit surprised.
Beth busting out two fat flicks, one for a score
Andrew hitting Corey with a half-field flick on stall 9-and-a-half; Corey sending it long to Lisa
the whole point at 12-14--Todd getting awesome position for big endzone D; Santana rescuing us with great D after a turnover at on their goal line; Andrew hitting Santana for the score before anybody could say "no IO!"

Game 2: Swagger. Swagger's the latest Seattle elite mixed team. They have Shazam remnants. They have plays. With names. Color-and-number-combination names, such as "blue 46." As in "blue 46, blue 46, hut, hut, hike!" And they have claimed the whole municipality of Seattle. As in "c'mon Seattle! Let's go, Seattle! Eat these Olympia bitches for lunch, Seattle!" Anyway, hilights were: we scored a point! At 0-14 no less. It went like this. There was lots of defense happening. They possibly had 9 players on the field. We worked it up to midfield, and then Hannah had a key cut in the middle. She fed Liam, and he hit Lucho, who was making a nice downfield handler cut. Caitlin's defender, following vociferous instructions from her teammate, was covering Caitlin under. Lucho threw a curvy backhand around that silly defender to Miss C in the endzone. Then everyone took off their shirts and ran around. Hannah's pink sportsbra was prominently featured.

For dessert, we played Fryz, average age: 15. The hylytz:

The Fryz girls' pregame slumber party circle with chins in hands and cleats kicking playfully behind. The O girls tried it, too. It made the recap fairy want to watch Beaches and eat Starburst.
Beth's rim-pinching grab in the back of the endzone. (Yes, the fairy hears you snickering, Jon).
The zone that we threw after finding ourselves down 2-8 at half.
Mike's sky of a gentleman 1/3 his age for a score. Photographic evidence available. Mike's difficulty standing up afterwards. No photographic evidence available. RF: "he's like 45." Mom next to RF on sideline: "I'm 46! Is he going to be okay?"
Corey's butt-to-sideline cutter position, taking his own (and his doctor's) advice, and allowing him to save the day repeatedly by just standing there and catching Andrew's throws.
Todd's layout-D against man-boy Jesse after being footblocked by the same.
Jon's huge endzone D when our zone fell apart for a point.
hella D by Mike, Liam, Jon, Kathy, Lisa, Liam again . . .
Andrew's little IO to Beth on a T-stack after timeout. Sad face for no defender in particular.
Hannah's healthy catch of another hospital put.
Liam's cross-field blade to Jon; Jon's assist to Lisa
Beth's endzone snag of an Andrew bomb. Sad face for many slumber party girls.

15-16. . . and another convincing win of the second half bringing us to 2-4 for halves on Saturday.

We spent Saturday night in the comfort of the Cocusa Motel in Burlington. Not even close to as totally heinous as that sounds. Hilights were:

crazy s.o.b.s taking a dip in the unheated outdoor pool; the rest of us choosing hot showers over unnecessarily reliving the Skagit River episode from Spawnfest.
Erica relentlessly chasing from room to room the disc that her teammates were trying to secretly sign for her, inducing conversations like "hey Kathy, where is that one thing I asked about before?"
A beginning-to-end, on-demand viewing of a film entitled Zombie Strippers. It had its own set of hilights, which included: the christian stripper insisting that she was compelled to join the profession in order to finance her grandmother's colostomy. "I gotta . . . for Nana."; a particularly precocious zombie stripper firing billiards balls out of her vajayjay at rival zombie strippers; a military dude storming the strip club and proclaiming "we're fighting for the American way of life!"

We awoke refreshed and ready for more. The Carleton alums awaited. The fairy remembers this stuff:

Will knocking his beloved to the ground. RF to her defender: "that's his girlfriend." Defender to RF: " ooh. are they going to stay together?"
Beth's monster flick for a score to Corey. Did you know that Beth's name means "beast" in Haitian Creole? The fairy lies not.
Will's 4-foot-high layout for a score. . . until it got called back on a travel or a stall or some shit.
Super duper handlers on the upwind, 'specially Kathy sure-hands.
Will's second collision with Hannah.
Aaron's death-defying catch among many defenders and awesome put to Chris (making a cameo appearance)

11-12 at hard cap, and yet another half-victory to chalk up.

So, Walla-Walla Sweets were going the hell down.

Corey made sure of it, employing his booty-line strategy to bust open the field half a dozen times
Nate rescued a runaway disc and reeled it in on the way down to earth.
Free-range handler Pam owned the endzone.
The fairy skied that annoying guy in the flannel pants.
Corey hit Beth long for a score. Corey and Beth made kissy faces at each other. Will pushed Hannah into a mud puddle.
Lisa handblocked their little star handler lady in the endzone.
And Erica laid out for a D in the endzone and again for a catch of somebody's full-field throw. Not a bad punctuation to a great run of Oly ultimate for Red.

In the end, O played quite nicely, especially for 5 out of those 10 halves, and everybody received a rule book and a "play ultimate" decal in the mail. Yay sectionals!

"Put your entire team in the spotlight. Thanks to them, you're able to experience a level of success that you wouldn't have been able to achieve on your own. Remember that when it's your turn to help one of them out."