Wisdom and Bagels

Its been a while since I blogged. Spilling water on one's computer (a second time) tends to be a detriment to internet access. As myself and my fellow gobies work hard through the summer, it becomes pretty evident how much i miss the company of our Pittsburgh Bretheren, Mark and Andy. Last weekend at no surf, with pittsburgh teams oozing all over the fields like a bunch of big sooty pimples, I wished that I could be skying pretty eyed, or bulge-enhanced chumps.

No Surf was an excellent tournament in which i got to participate against some high quality competition. It was definitely a learning experience for myself. Also the bagels were excellent.

I've been having to go to a lot of "summer on the cuyahoga events", and the last one I attended was a talk at shaker country club hosted by none other than the cavaliers GM danny ferry. The dan man imparted some sage wisdom about the cavs, and cleveland sports in general. He said:

"We're not cursed, we just weren't good enough to win"

Being the proud and mighty gobies that we are. We often tend to think that we "should've won that game" or failed to beat a team when "we're better than them". I think in times like these we need to remember the Dan Man's words. Once we become an excellent team, there won't be frustrating losses. We'll just be better.


-Kevin

Week 3 Summer League Results - Powder

Look man. We lost. GG. NBFD. Game nearly rained out. Ed an I were both tired/hurt on the field, didn't think it was worth it to over exert ourselves in a Summer League game. My boy Ed's been doin' work harder than Kobe, Ultimate 6-7 days. He deserves an "off" day. I hope he listened to a lot of chill-tense musik on the way home. Maybe even just chill.

I didn't even think I would make the game. I ended up showing, however, and it was quickly apparent to me that I was still injured. I bruised my right rib on a layout at Poultry Days. It hurts to breathe sometimes. It hurts more when I try to run. I was completely ineffective. I had like 2 good points. Barely broke a sweat. Didn't care though, thought it more important to heal up. I played limited minutes. I won't make practice tomorrow either - I need to heal up. I hope bruised ribs arent a big deal.

We even ran a cup-o-saurous one point, and the last point for us was an upside down point. But hey, despite all the fatigue and pain, we still had fun this week. It's okay to have an off week. That's the nice thing about summer league, it matters some, but at the end of it all, it's not Regionals we're talking about.

Player Profile: Michael MacDonald

Name: Michael MacDonald
Nicknames: Mac, Macwell, Mac Daddy, Mac Attack, Granville (On the Block)
Age:20
Height: 5'11
Major: Engineering Physics <---I hear this is difficult
Special Move: God Mode

Case's Resident LeBron, Mac is the veteran captain of the Gobies. Sporting multiple hairstyles and multiple throws, Mac is a threat to "go off" at any moment. His God Mode ability is often activated during frustrating games against lesser opponents, and does not shut off until victory is attained. Mac has a crippling weakness for protien shakes, chocolate covered raisins, and skying people. He enjoys physics, and bro-ing out at the ford frisbee fortress, where he is always the first to offer a high-five.

-Kevin

Summer '09: Mixing it up

Gobies,

It is wonderful to see the strong numbers that continue to make it out to Cleveland club practices and local summer leagues and to hear about those of you outside of the area making waves for the Gobies in your local areas. As we all are catching the Ultimate bug that leads to such dedication it is important to remember how much time still stands between today and Sectionals '10. Once school starts we expect you all to remain dedicated and show the new rookies what Ultimate is all about as you also dedicate time to school. It is important not to get burned out before the school year starts because, assuming we all put in the time we are putting in now, we have A LOT to be excited about this year.

So please, when you're not on the field and looking for a way to stay in shape consider some enjoyable alternatives. I've been playing basketball 3 times a week which helps keep me in shape and keeps me jumping. I love me some pickup Ultimate just as much as the next guy but consider hosting some full court pickup basketball or soccer or whatever else you can think of to keep you in shape. Bored by tossing? Go play a round of frisbee golf with your Ultimate disc and work on those hucks and making accurate throws. And - maybe most importantly - if you begin to feel injured or burned out from playing Ultimate please sit a day or two out. This is the time to do it.

All that being said, stick to your goals (or make some goals) of coming out to club practice and working out and doing whatever else you planned on doing over the summer to be ready for next year. We haven't even played our first club tourney yet but I'm already excited about our first tourney as Gobies in the Fall because I see the drive in so many players that I know will take us to a higher level of play this year.

Enjoy your summer.

Ed

On the Road again

So this past Saturday the Pittsburgh Summer League officially started. As Mark mentioned before, he and I got on the same team along with two of our friends from high school. Our team turned out to be pretty good, and it seemed like the majority of people were younger than 21. This means we had lots of fresh legs (we also had like 30 people show up) but a slight lack of experience. It seemed like everyone had the fundamental skills down they just needed some game experience, for instance who to pick up on D, making sure to clear out, keeping the force.

For me, this weekend was a bit of a kick in the butt. There were many things I could have done better but also some good things that encouraged me. Right away I noticed that I was less in shape than I hoped. I got tired faster than usual and on one occasion it made me give up a point. I guess my workouts of pushups, situps, and Wii fit isn't enough. There was one time I could have layed out for a D but chumped out, and one time when I should have layed out but more like stumbled-out. That was a little embarassing, I missed the catch and bruised my shin. I had 3 hucks throughout the day, one which was caught, one was a diving (missed) catch, and one anyone over 5 feet would have caught. So overall I was pretty happy with that aspect, one of my goals for this summer league was to work on my hucks (and handling in general).

Some of the best plays I made were when there was synergy between me and Mark. It seemed like when one of us had the disc the other would know exactly where and when to cut. We probably had 4-5 upfield/break throws this way. Other than that I had a few good throws/cuts/heads up plays that made me feel good about my overall playing.

As far as our actual games, we ending up beating both teams we played. The first game we went up 14-5 but somehow let them come back 14-13 before finishing it. Woops. The next game was a hard fought battle, we stopped them on their game point and took the next three points to win by two.

Overall this weekend was a lot of fun and a good reminder to me that I need to be working out (running/jump-roping) and working on my thows more outside of games/practices.

I hope the rest of your summers have been filled with flying discs.

-Andy

Poultry Days Write-up - Gobies an International Phenomenon

You may have come to expect long blog posts by me. This one will be the same, if not longer than most. Simply, a lot happened this weekend, and since it was my first Poultry Days, it was a little more special than most other typical tournaments.

Poultry Days is a big deal. There were 48 teams at this tournament, mostly coed, and in addition to the usual mix of teams from across the US, the national teams from Taiwan, Great Britain, Canada, and US were also present as they prepared for the World Games this year. It was an exciting atmosphere. I'll try and keep most of the talk about what happened limited to my team "Pollo en mis Pantalones", but there are other relevant topics regarding the Road to Regionals that I'll bring up.

I'll get right into Saturday morning. We were seeded 4th in our pool, and we all thought we were better than that, and that we had the possibility of winning the pool. We really did. Our schedule wasnt completely favorable however, as we played the 1 seed, 2 seed, 3 seed first, the the 6 seed and the 5 seed. We would have had to come out playing our best from the beginning, which is never an easy task. We also had 28 people this weekend on our roster playing for us. This meant a few things - less playing time overall for everyone, tighter rotation on the roles (O line players stay on O line, D line stays D line), the abililty to withstand injuries with our depth, but also that it's more difficult to get a flow of the game and develop some on field chemistry. I think our numbers may have hurt us a little early in the day by manifesting itself in the form of many miscues, bad throws, drops, loss of offensive flow (especially off the pull...). Those turnovers really killed us. We played pretty solid defense overall I would say, the other teams we played gave us chances to break them - we had a hard time converting. One of the biggest issues was endzone offense. Sometimes we'd still be in horizonal in the red zone, other times we made bad, rushed decisions, sometimes our handlers wouldn't be spread out properly and we would force bad throws. All those factors really killed us on Saturday, and we ended up going 2-3 - holding seed.

If you ask me, we all severely underperformed, almost everyone from 1-28 on the roster. We're so much better than we played...

I was on the O line all weekend, and so part of the responsibility falls on my shoulders. I had a couple of miscues. I put up one huck all weekend, and my target couldnt quit get to it (even though the throw was prety nice, and not forced). I did not have any assists on Saturday (or Sunday for that matter). I was not the playmaker; instead I fell into more of a reset handler responsible for keeping possesion - letting other players make plays. I was fine with that, and there were some bright spots on offense when I worked with some of the more experienced players.

In terms of D, I would say I was solid. Truth is, if you play good offense, you shouldn't have to play much D - and the offensive line was marginally successful in getting scores, i.e, there are less opportunities to showcase defense on the offensive line. In terms of people that only played O line, I would say I was pretty big on D. Most of it was just putting on solid marks, not letting my guy get the disc, and making the dumps difficult. My marks were pressured enough that I got a couple D's from my guy making a difficult throw. I was able to recover on a huck well enough to not get skied in the endzone, and probably the one that sticks in my head the best was a full layout D on a hard in cut in the middle of the field. The throw was a little high, so I was even surprised I got a hand on it. I was really pumped, and wanted to yell back at the sideline for someone that was telling me to hustle more on D, but I held back. That was pretty much the story of my defense that day. I tried for a couple of layouts on dumps, but they were out of reach, and I think I looked stupid trying. Sometimes you feel you are just inches away from those throws though, especially high stall ones. In retrospect, laying out for those wasnt the best idea because I didnt get good form on them; I bruised my knee and it affected my play the rest of the day, into the next.

Even still, as I said, the team didn't play to its potential on Saturday, and after a full day's work, we fell into the B bracket.

Sunday was single eliminaion. We came out firing against the first team. I was a little more timid with my playing time on Sunday, however, because of my injured knee. I took a lot of extra time stretching on the sideline. The truth is, I didn't feel I played great on Saturday, and I wanted to really play better on Sunday. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

I didn't play horrible the first game; I was solid, but I didn't make any super plays. The one that I'm upset about is a strike cut I made up the line for the score that I needed to layout for to catch. I got airborne, clinched the disc in my hand, and then it popped out as my body hit the ground. I was furious with myself. I had also landed on my right shoulder, and I bruised my ribs. I called an injury timeout to take myself out of the game. Talking to someone who saw the play said that my left foot caught the huge traffic cone (2ft tall...) that took me off my flight path, which screwed me up bad. If that stupid cone wasn't there, I would have had a better chance at it. In general though, I have a harder time catching discs on O when I lay out. I can think of 3 times right off the top of my head where I got to a disc while airborne, had it in my hand, and it pops out. In principle it makes sense - on D, you just need to get a finger on it. On O you have to catch it. I really need to work on that. My ribs still really hurt today, I'm gonna take a few days to rest up.

On a quick side note, this was one of the first weekends that I really felt the improvements of Air Alert (15 week vertical leap enhancing program, completed with Mark, Andy and Ed). I didn't notice it so much in my vertical, but I feel so much more explosive, especially when I go horizontal.

In the second game I only played 2 miserable points. I was clearly ineffective. I had 2 really bad turnovers, and got beat deep once because I held my head down for a second right after I gave the disc up. I did however force 2 D's on the mark, which was solid. All was not lost. I did get the feeling that my captains were losing faith in me, and that did not help. I felt a lot of pressure to perform this weekend, and sometimes I let that get to me.

So what did I take away from the weekend? I'll break it down to two things that I need to focus on:
- On defense, one of the big focuses of the team was getting back to your man ASAP even when they are on the opposite side of the field or clearing after you shut them down. Reason for this: even if they appear to not be a threat, in a few seconds, they may be as soon as a big huck goes up or the disc is swung over. Catch up to them, then rest with them in the stack with you still at their hips. The good thing is this is just a mental thing to focus on (partially conditioning). I can overcome this with practice.
- On offense, I didn't think I would say this, but my throws. Not my backhand, forehand, break or w/e but a different kind of throw. I want to work on getting lots of spin on my flicks and backhands with minimal windup for immediate swings and short passes, for give and go situations. This was something I saw executed well by the World's teams, especially by their handlers. The idea is to just put out space pass swings for my guy to get to and run out towards instead of always trying to hit a target.

This weekend was more about Ultimate though, and I had a great time off the fields as well. On Saturday night I spent some time with Team Taiwan. I got to know a few players on their team, and at the end, I traded two of my Gobies jerseys for Taiwanese Club Team jerseys. Gobies are officially international. Who knows, one day you might be playing in Taiwan and you see the fish out there. That's my jersey. On Sunday, I met up with a few Team USA players, my former coach Gwen Ambler, and Dylan Tunnel. The interesting thing about Dylan is that he wears the same number as I do - 78. You dont see that too often, so at the end of the day we swapped hats. The way I look at is that these were all steps taken towards our goal of Regionals. Gobies are global now.

So yeah, I had a great time this weekend. Some things even happened that I'm not going to blog about here. But in regards to Ultimate, I still have a lot of work to do. I talked to Jeff Meyers, one of the captains for the team and asked him for an assessment of my play. His response, I played solid this weekend. He said my defense was pretty good, just to work on the point I outlined above, and that I could be more of a stud on defense if I got some more conditioning in. On offense, also said I was solid, but to hit my first look a few times. Sometimes he felt like I hesitated a little.

I would say I took about 8-9 steps towards Regionals this weekend.

- Q

Kevin's Week 2 Summer League Recap

Minus two of our top players, week 2 saw team pink nearly dethroned from their seat of dominance. We played a hard-fought game against an energetic ice team which featured standout gobies Evan Frasz and Jason Williams. Those two were like trying to mark a barber shop. There were cuts everywhere, they dished them out at a frequent rate, and when it was finished, they made me look bad. Though we went up 5-1 on them, they fought back and injected some emotion and intensity thats normally unseen in a Cleveland summer league game. Though I made quite a few mental mistakes, victory was ours in the end. I think everyone on both teams had a great time. It was pretty awesome to see something casual turn into something spirited and intense. We were all gasping for air at the end of each point, and the celebrations after each score were like something out of the college series.

Nayyir posted his workout schedule in an earlier post. I've been trying to keep to the same routine, but my summer obligations with SOTC have been frustrating. Forced socialization with geezer alumni certainly gets in the way of thrashing my quads.

-Kevin

Week 2 Summer League Results and Poultry Days

So, this week has been pretty busy for me. For the last few weeks I have been going to both Club Open practices and Co-ed practices, as well as lifting/running/tossing on my own, bro-ing out mostly with Kevin, and of course Summer League. To be honest, its a little much for me right now - especially driving the distances I have to get to practices and such. I've all but decided this is going my be my routine for the next few weeks, and I'm going to try and stick to it. I don't want to be burned out this summer by Ultimate, and it is important to get some R&R during the "off season". Too bad in Ultimate there is no true off season. Anyway

Sunday - Co-ed Practice
Monday - Opting to skip Open practice and lift on my own
Tuesday - Lift on my own, option to rest muscles
Wednesday - Summer League
Thursday - Co-ed Conditioning Practice
Friday - Lift
Saturday - Toss and jog

Speaking of summer league...we played a team (Moss) that lost last week by the same margin we did. So it was a clash of the not-titans. The game held pretty true to form. Actually we were up on them by 3 early, but let them climb back into it by half. I believe we were up 2 at half recieving. They eventually caught back up, and even went up 3 points on us at one point. Luckily this week we picked up Ashley (but sorely missed Ed). At one point late in the game, I'd say with about 15 minutes left, Ashley, Rose and myself decided to take over the game, and we didnt come out till the end. Our offense basically fell into recieve the pull, have Ashley or Rose cut, throw to each other, I get the dump, and when we get close, have me throw to an iso-ed Ashley or Rose. We were pretty good about getting D's too. Sucks that in summer league we had to do that, since I'm all for everying getting their PT, but this was a game we needed to win.

So theres like 5 minutes left, and we had just tied it. The three of us were on a roll. If the point lasted long, this was essentially universe point (Summer League is to time - 40 min halves). We pull to start, and after some sketchy foul calls back and forth, I believe I hucked to an outstretched Ashley who almost caught my throw. Sadly, turnover. They get the disc back, and this team Moss basically ran the same offense all game, throwing to the open side. At one point after my cutter cuts force side and he is no longer a threat, I peek back to see another cutter cut behind me. I turn around just in time for the layout D. It wasn't an insta-layout D like I've been hoping to work on, but nevertheless, a big D. A few moments later, Rose is on the block, but catches it just outside, I get a dump, and throw a blade for the score to Trent (future Case player) for the game winner. It was a great feeling to come out with a win, especially knowing that Case essentially put the team on our shoulders for the second half to not lose it. I hope we can continue it in the next few weeks...

The other big thing going on in my world of Ultimate is Poultry Day's this weekend in Versailles, Ohio.

This is actually a big deal for me, not only because this is a great tournament (admittedly my first time), and the competition will be great, but because this is a big tryout tournament for the Cleveland Co-ed team. Remember, one of my goals is to make the team, gain lots of valuable experience, and play at a higher level. There isn't much to be said other than the fact that I need to play well. I have been designated as an offensive handler, I doubt I'll see many D line points, especially since the roster has 27 people on it. That moves my focus towards a few things. Overall, when the captains evaluate me by tournaments end, I want them to at least think I played solid. I don't want them to have images of poor decisions, bad throws, missed defensive assignments, or other things that can stick in their mind. More specifically though, I think a positive assist to turnover ratio is vital. By assist, I don't even mean that I have to throw many scores. I just want to be there for every dump, swing, and reset. I'll only take throws I'm positive of, and only huck if they explicitly give me the green light. On defense...I think I have to surprise them a little. The O line will turn the disc over, so I will have opportunities to play defense. I think people underestimate my committment to defense. Not to over-glorify the lay-out D (better if your man never touches it, or you dont have to bail yourself out with a layout) but I have been getting one pretty much every time I play or scrimmage these days. For the last 4 club practices I have gotten at least one layout D - and not on chumps off of poaches - off of hard in cuts.

So there may be a lack of faith on the defensive side for me, but I guess it's up to me to prove otherwise. Perhaps I'm playing the O line because they have confidence in me. I dont know. (The other explanation is that they view me as too much of a liability on defense. I hope not.) I'm not saying I need to dazzle this weekend, but I think I need to play just a notch above solid this weekend. Not out of this world, but just a step up. Speaking of world, I hope we get to play Team USA this weekend. Shoutout to my former coach Gwen Ambler, I'm gonna D you for sure.

- The Question

The "other" summer league

Pittsburgh summer league starts this Saturday. The setup is different from the Cleveland summer leagues. Instead of one game every week, we have double headers on Saturdays scattered throughout the summer (6 or 7 total Saturdays I believe).

The important thing though is that Andy and I managed to get on the same team, along with two of our bros from high school. I think (and hope) that us four will have to be the big contributors of the team if we want to win. I look forward to being a potential leader of my summer league team.

Summer league is always an interesting psychological battle for me. Sure, there are great players and good players on every team, but sometimes the games don't seem very intense and competitive. It's very easy to just kick back like everyone else on the field, play lazy defense, and make poor, but exciting decisions.

There's a shit ton amount of teams (24 or something), and it's nearly impossible to gauge how good or terrible our team will be. But I mean, we have the chemistry of Andy and I that stretches back to sophomore year of high school, not to mention experience with our other two bros, Jaymes and Niko. If anything, I know it'll be a great time playing with these guys.

Some goals for myself at summer league:

1) Backhand, backhand, backhand. My backhand needs a LOT of work. I've been working on it in my free time and at club practice, but I think at summer league I can take more chances and gain confidence in breaking people. Most of my issues with backhand is due to lack of confidence.
2) Shut down defense. My man shouldn't get the disc. It's as simple as that. The hardest part is making myself play hard when others might not be playing 100%.
3) Gain complete confidence in my low release forehand. The Huddle says to work on your strengths more than your weaknesses, and I think this is my best throw. If I can have the confidence to consistently break people with a inside low release flick, that would be great.

Hoping to start off 2-0,

Matsi

Week 2 of Summer League

OK, so last week was pretty disappointing for me and my summer league team. We got rocked. Score reporter says 19-5 or something. We don't really have a super team like **cough** Kevin's squad, but we do what we can.

For the record, I did not achieve my goal of 2 layout blocks last week. It was a rough time all around. We severely lack experience. In fact, I'll fess up and mention that I got lay-out D blocked (but know the throw was pretty behind me, and the other guy was a few steps behind me and he still had to layout to get it - ie, I didnt even have a play on it).

I did have an assist though, and a foot block, though an uncharacteristic number of turns, I'd say about 4. Like I said, rough week.

This week we play an easier team, although we wont have Ed or some of our other studs...so it'll still be very difficult. I think I decided that I'm going to not try too hard and let the game come to me. Often times when an unexperienced team is playing poorly, there is a tendency to want to do it all - especially via frustration hucks. I'm not going to do that this week. I just hope people know how to cut though...

I was surprised to hear how many people knew about my personal D goal. I guess thats what happens when you blog. Last week I had a couple of bids, but nothing really good. I can think of 2 instances when I might have been able to get something by laying out, but they were the types that I mentioned I have to work on - the instant layout D.

I can remember this one clearly: A guy catches the disc on an in cut, im on the off handler, and he creeps up, starts calling for the disc. I KNOW it's going to him, I'm a 1/2 step behind him, and the thrower puts up this toss that is inches from my outreached hand. If I had the presence to just get horizontal I would have had it no problem. That kind ot stuff.

Maybe this week...

- Q

Summer Dynamics

Summer is in full swing, and we're all still getting a handle on all of our unique schedules. I personally have been pretty busy with work and the Summer on the Cuyahoga Program. Mandatory programming and events have been keeping me from thrashing ultimate as much as I liked so far, so I've been itching to play more than ever. Last week i took a spur of the moment drive down to Versailles for D3 nationals, which turned out to be a lot of fun

The working world can be rough for one's planned ultimate training schedule, but Nayyir and I have been making sure to talk as much ultimate strategy as possible while running tests and preforming analyses on all sorts of helmet technology at Team Wendy LLC.

Here is a sample of a typical conversation

Kevin: Hey Nayyir, can you do the impulse analysis for the 5th impact?

Nayyir: Yeah yeah yeah i can rep that

Kevin: Aight, cool. I've been working on my low-release forehand. One day it will be as vicious as mark's

Nayyir: Yeah dawg, thats what im sayin'. Lemme rep this article about zone offense.

Kevin: Dang, thats some cool stuff. I'm going to go research sensors.

Tron (on Gchat): 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110010 01101111 01101110


Also, we've been paying more attention to health and nutrition. As ultimate players, We all have a tendency to nom whatever we please, because of our massive energy use from playing. However, in order to maximize our training, and bring our bodies to peak condition, we should try to follow proper dietary guidelines. As the son of a dietitian, i can say that the most reliable source for nutrition is located at www.nutrition.gov. However, if you find yourself wondering what you should eat, you can never go wrong with the five dollar foot long. They're cheap, delicous, nutritious, and you can even get tuscan chicken for $5 if you're Q in East Cleveland. He has a way with the black ladies.





-Kevin

Pre-Summer League Thoughts

Summer League starts tomorrow. I'm on Powder, baggaged with Ed (also playing with Ashley and Rose on my team). Needless to say, I'm super pumped. This year's league style is draft, so the teams are supposed to be a little more even. I don't think we have the strongest team on paper, but we should be pretty competitive - we might surprise some people.

But, as with everything regarding this blog, one of our goals is to make Summer League count towards Regionals. Yes, there are some chumps in SL, but there are also some legit players out there. It's going to be important to step our individual games up to stay competitive, even though the rest of the competition might be a step below us. This is our time to really work on things that we are uncomfortable with. As with my philosophy on a lot of things, I have set a few goals for myself in SL; here they are.

1) Limit turnovers, improve decision making - This may prove to be very challenging in SL when there is a constant urge to huck or make irresponsible plays. Also, if I handle, the disc will move a lot through me, so it is important to make sure I make the right play - not the low percentage play.

2) Cut more - Trying to become a more well rounded player. That means playing other positions, and getting used to the position more so that I am more versitile on the field. I'm a strong proponent of players being able to do lots of things, so that handlers feel comfortable upfield, and cutters are comfortable handling for a few throws. This can translate really well to our college team.

3) Step up the individual defense - On the marks, on the handlers, and on the in/out-cuts. I've decided I'm not going to look for lots of handblocks this summer (unless it's like...right there), and instead really committ to trusting the rest of the defense and play solid marks. On handler D, I'm going to be working on not poaching my defender. I think that really kills us in a lot of defensive sets. In regards to the in/out cuts, really challenging myself to not allow my guy to touch the disc all point. Beyond that, I'm going to aim at going out and getting D's, not waiting for them to turnover a disc on a bad throw, as many teams do in SL.

4) Work on the intangibles. I really want to gain a solid cohesivness with Ed, be able to know what cuts/throws we like, and develop a little on field synergy. Also want to step up as a team leader more, leading by example, and picking my teaching opportunities. A lot of times in SL people want to say 493 things in a huddle during a time out. Little do they know, most players can only focus on 1-2 things. We have to learn to filter out the important things, and focus on the task at hand. Really, it actually ticks me off when people try and teach too much in SL ("try this on the mark, lets change this, i found it effective when..., let's run this special defense"). Really, SL defense is more about playing hard as a team, and doing small things individually. Anyway, basically my goal is to only say really important things, and not step over other leadership on the team. I look forward to hearing Ed get some coaching reps in maybe, other captain permitting.

Hopefully, I'm also bringing in a new player on the team. He's looking to join the Case team in fall. He has only played recreationally, so I want to weave him in slowly, and hopefully he will like it, and stick with it. My goal is to kind of take him under my wing and develop him into a real contributer for the fall. It should be exciting.

So to sum it up I think I am going to play a little game with myself. +1 for a regular D, +2 for a layout D, -1 for each turnover. Try to get as much in the positive as possible. Only -1 for the turnovers because I feel like I might be handling a lot this summer. My goal is to average 2 layout D's a game. I'm pretty confident in getting a D on a lot of in cuts when I'm really able to time it right (and have good positioning), but I want to work on quickly getting off my feet in a short burst, without having time to fully gather myself mentally - like on high stall count handler dump defense - when I KNOW its coming to me.

We'll see how it goes.

- Q

D-III Nationals Recap

This weekend the Gobies traveled to Division III Nationals in Versailles, Ohio. We had a slightly disappointing turnout, having only 9 players on Saturday and 13 on Sunday. The extra help of two ladies, Kumi and Kari, and Kevin's friend Justin was much appreciated.

Our Saturday went like many of our Saturdays of this past season: we underperformed and we knew it. We lost our first two games against Rice and Vassar, and won our next two games to finish the day off at 2-2. It was apparent that we had the skill and talent to win our pool, but the offseason definitely took a toll on our team chemistry and physical conditioning.

Due to our win in the crossover game, we barely made it into the championship bracket as the last (18th) seed, and were due to play the 1 seed, Los Positas. They were definitely a solid team, but at the same time, I think our sectionals team could have beat them. Our biggest problem as a team (in my opinion at least), the inability to convert on the goal line, was shown this game. Los Positas took half at 8-2 or something similar, yet there were at least three points that we turned over on the goal line that they in turn marched down the field and scored. If we had converted those three points, suddenly it's a tie game at 5-5. It's disappointing: we work so hard at that part of our game in the spring, yet it still plagues us in game. I think if we can solve this issue for next year, we will see huge improvements in tournament results. We must be doing something wrong, we just have to figure it out.

Our first game in the 13th place bracket was against Kalamazoo (I think). We started off strong, then fell apart mid game, and then finished great with our backs to the walls, but fell short in the end to lose 13-11.

Other than the first two games of Saturday, our play was pretty solid. We definitely need to learn to play our best on Saturday and Sunday, not just Sunday, which seems to happen all too often (such as High Tide). Even so, our play was impressive considering all of the key players that were not in attendance for the weekend.

Notable performances. We finally used Kevin Vick's height to our advantage, as he skied many chumps throughout the weekend on hucks. Evan, the MVP of the weekend, came down with at least a few clutch grabs with defenders all around him. He's a fun-loving guy and jokester off the field, but he always brings intensity and heart to the field when it matters. He will be sorely missed on and off the field, as this was his last official tournament as a Gobie. He was never ashamed to show his bro-love to all. Bro, you're our bro, bro.

- Mark