|
2011 Olympia Co-Ed Traveling Team |
Last weekend, 17 intrepid ultimate players represented the greater Olympia area at the annual costumed Hanford Howl tournament. The "As-Seen-On-TV" team was never cold as we donned our Snuggies, the discs never slipped because we could dry them off with Sham-wows, and Corey was on-time due to his instant egg-poacher. On day one, the sun shined and wind stayed away. Oly took advantage and went 4-0 -- beating three teams handily and beating the fourth on universe point. The day was full of great team play. Our team was younger than average, taller than average, and chillier than average -- and we took advantage of all three.
When Jon's under cut got blocked, he ran deep for Alex's huck en route to wining game 1 against Natural 20s. Jeff and Jim make great D's against Desert Lorax in game 2 and Asher found that backhands work better than hammers - at least when throwing to Mia. Jim had the winning catch for a 15-7 victory. Game 3 against a bunch of clowns (literally) was our hard-fought victory. We took a 1-0 lead and then fell behind the rest of the game until tying it at 9-9 on universe. Crafty handler cuts and throw from Todd to Jon for the 10-9 victory. Game four against WSU made us appreciate our depth -- while they had a good top couple players, we could beat everyone else. Despite an attempted WSU comeback, Oly stuck it out and won 13-7 on a throw from Mandy to Wynne.
Four wins seeded us 2nd of 24 in the tournament. We enjoyed the party and declared ourselves party victors -- if Todd leads the party in singing a drinking song, we'll add a 'W'. Day 2 pitted us against the Whitman team who decided they needed to bring in some new ringers to beat us. Slightly tired and a little confused about a first round bye, Oly came out sluggish and fell behind 3-8 at half. We switched it up and played 4 women for O points second half and won most of those, but it wasn't enough and Oly fell 8-15. Highlights of this game includes Kelsey's great endzone D and a number of layout catches. (As the substitute recap fairy, I would like to take this opportunity to note that my, um, less-than-graceful layouts -- and drops -- are frequently included in the recap for entertainment value. In the whitman game I had a layout that even Jon had to concede: "on the scale of 'legitimate layout' to 'hit in the head with a brick', Andrew's layout was slightly closer to 'legitimate'" -- so take that!) The Whitman team picked up Jon (I guess I couldn't pass as being a 22-year-old college student) and won the tourney, so we can still make a claim to be the 2nd best team.
Alex and Jim won the captain awards for their great play in their first (minus geofest) of hopefully many Oly tournaments. Our captains, Jean and Mandy, did a great job leading us fearlessly into the upper echelons of tri-city ultimate.
For the numbers people, we kept stats on all but four points. Women (43% of the players on the field when going 3 women) scored 45% of the points. However, the men threw for 75% of the points. A number of different people handled during the day, but the four full-time "classic handlers" accounted for 45% of the throws for scores while only catching 9%. The most attractive half of the team accounted for exactly half the points, putting into doubt the old adage that attractive people score more often. Our fast/tall fivesome had 45% of the scores but only 15% of the throws for scores. Our elderly handling duo of Andrew and Todd had 12 assists but only 2 scores -- running all the way to the endzone takes way too much energy. Jon and Wynne lead the team with 16 scores+assists each followed by Mandy and Mia with 12 each. Todd, we need to be a decade younger.
"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."