Windy times in the windy city

This is matsi reporting on the Gobies performance at the Chicago Invite. We came in ranked 8th (I think) and finish tied for 11th.

Playing conditions: Wind and more wind. Oh yeah, it was also "balls" cold the whole weekend. Many backhands were thrown, many flicks turned over into the ground. Owen put it best in one of our games Sunday: "That might've been the second flick I've thrown all weekend".

Saturday, pool play:
We came in as the #2 seed in our pool and started off against a lower seeded team, Truman State. We say it all the time, but this is "one of those teams" that we have trouble with. As in they throw stuff up we don't expect and come down with it. We unfortunately lost the match 13-7 (or something). The truth of the matter is that they dropped less discs than us and made stronger throws than us. I forget who we played our second game, but we won 13-7. Cool. Our last pool play game was against the 1 seed in our pool, Michigan State. This was a tough loss for the Gobies (13-5 I believe), but we can definitely learn a lot from this team and how they run their zone offense. They relied on quick handler movement and even quicker throws through our zone. We had a lot of trouble slowing down their attack.

Cross over game:
This was debately the biggest game of the tournament for us as it was against a rival sectionals team, Miami. We also had a heated game against them last year at Chicago where we lost pretty handily. Needless to say, we played well. Our D line really took it to them and we wore them out with stellar defense, forcing long points with their O line on the field. We beat them. Every tough sectionals team we beat brings confidence to the team. We have the potential to do something truly special this year. We just have to bring it on the field.

Sunday, bracket play:
In the championship bracket, our first bracket play game was the quaterfinals against Eastern Illinois. Once again, we weren't used to their style of play of throwing up discs when we least expect it. We went down early due to their surprise throws and spectacular catches. The O line struggled with a few short runs of getting broken. We traded points out of half until it was around 10-6. Soft cap went off, and we had to get our shit together. We rattled off four solid breaks, including two upwind. Hard cap went off as it was 9-9: universe point. The point was long, and we stopped them twice on the goal line. Unfortunately, we couldn't punch it in one last time upwind, and Eastern Illinois was victorious.
Apparently someone overheard an Eastern Illinois player state: "We didn't deserve to win that game". Maybe so, but we need to learn to bring our game from the first point in the first game. We can't expect to win a game if we have to do it with five breaks in a row at the end.

We went 1-1 in the next two games. The main thing of note here was that we beat Minnesota-Deleuth, a team that made it apparent that they thought they could walk all over us. Needless to say, not a word was spoken on the field or sidelines on universe point when our O line confidently and efficiently walked the disc down the field for the winning score.

What we learned/need to work on: Q
uick handler and disc movement is essential to breaking a tight zone.
It's hard to score upwind.
Fundamentals: most of our issues stemmed from simple catches and throws.

Big performances:
Owen: once again asserting his dominance over any zone that teams throw at us with his excellent popping and perfect backhands through holes in the zone. And sweet layouts.
Bharath: overall solid play on D-line. He knew how to get a D and then take over on offense to provide D-line with some excellent chances for upwind breaks.
The rookies: Erik playing great handler defense as well as minimizing mistakes, which is vital in these weather conditions. Bayunt almost having another callahan (might we say the new Jason Williams?). Eli playing great D, especially on in-cuts, and unleashing his forehand huck a few times.

Highlight of the tournament:
I would say beating Miami, but that's a lie. It was having Bro KP cheering us on and bro-ing out all weekend. Way to be a bro, bro.


- matsi

High Tide Writeup Coming soon

Hopefully before Chicago.

I'll get back into the swing of actually writing real ones of these soon, I bromise.

CWRUL Writeup

We beat a bunch of pretty good teams and lost to WVU in pool play.


Then we beat Toledo.

It was pretty sweet. Then we beat Bowling Green in the finals. That was pretty sweet too. 2 for 2? 2 for 2. B-team picked up a win too.

Also, first tournament with new jerseys. We were stylin' pretty hard.

NorthCoast Writeup

We beat a bunch of chumps and everyone played real well. Ed threw a whole bunch of scores to Mac. It snowed, and then it didn't.
B team picked up a win as well.

Winter Broage

So. We've been away from class for a while, which for most of us means away from case and away from our fellow brobies for nearly a month. We're reconnecting with our old friends from back home and, if you're anything like I am, putting up the wall between all things school-related and all things home-related. We don't do it to be hurtful, its just the way things usually work out. Usually.

Today I'm going to tell you about the biggest damn bro that ever walked the earth, Mr. Michael "Saylor Moon" Saylor, and what he did to keep the Goby blood flowing over the holidays.

Picture this: I've spent another late night riding my exercise bike while playin' me some Halo (before you know it you've been riding for like two hours and those headshots keep comin!). It gets to be about 3am or so and I feel like hitting some upper body because it just doesn't hurt enough, y'know? Sooos I do some more and the adrenaline rush or whatever hits me and keeps me awake until about 6:30 in the morning.

My phone, which I keep under my pillow as an alarm to make sure I wake up by at least noon or 1, goes off at 9 in the freaking morning. For the uneducated that's about 2.5 hours of sleep, and it sucks. I look at the phone- "Mike Saylor (Slide to Answer)". Well... shit. I can't just rightly ignore him. "Hello?" "Brady we are going to Fallingwater and you should come with us." "No thanks, I got... uh... family." Hung up. Put my head down on my pillow.

Wait a minute.

Called him back. "What the dick is Fallingwater? When are you going?" "It's a really famous house by Frank Lloyd Wright and we are getting a tour and we are going for a tour at 12 and we will come pick you up!" "Oh. Ok I'll go."

Damned if this guy doesn't drive a whole hour across Pittsburgh to pick my ass up from my house with no less than three incredibly attractive females, each with their own sorta aura of chill.And apparently two of them play ultimate.

Long story short, I got to go on this bomb-ass road trip to go run around this pimp-ass house with this thug-ass bro and his hot-ass hoochies. Pretty much a perfect day and the Penguins haven't even beaten the Islanders yet-(although Winter Classic 24/7 is on HBO at like the same time, decisions decisions!)

The moral is- even when you are killing yourself doing your workouts and training this winter break, remember that you aren't just doing it for "The Team". You're doing it for your brothers. So take some time out and keep those spiritual bonds you've been forming these last couple months (or years, or decades-Knab) alive. Check up on your teammates and see how they're gettin by. Maybe even do a little sumthin-sumthin with them if you can make some time. You can bring all your muscle, all your speed, and all your cardio back from break, but it will go to waste if you can't bring your heart back to your team.

Side note- I'd post some pictures but blogspot still basically tells me to eat shit every time I pick a picture to upload.

The Metagame

I know this entry isn't titled "NorthCoast Wrapup", because it's not about that. I'm not sure I can do proper justice to how much we wrecked shit up. It might happen over winter break, it might not.

What I did want to write about as I sit digesting a fantastic thanksgiving dinner is the metagame of ultimate. Q touched on this a bit with his Smash article, but I really wanted to elaborate on it and bring the metaphor to today's youth. If you aren't familiar with the term, it means "a descriptor for set interaction that governs subset interaction in certain cases". If you're into Street Fighter and worship at the Church of Low Strong, you'd call it "yomi", the art of reading an opponent's mind. Smashers and Halo (particularly Reach) players cultivate this skill to predict and counter everything an opponent might try before they even try it.

Now, the handler stack is probably the metagame hub of ultimate. The handles are confined to a very limited effective playspace and have the least amount of time and space to set up cuts or correct errors in defense. In a lot of ways, it's like Smash or any other 2D fighter. I'll probably borrow a couple fighting game terms in this article so bear with me.

So, let's say you're on offense, just threw to a cutter, and are now the break-side handle and the first look once upfield is out. Your Goby turns and presents to you. Now, probably most people's instinct is to cut strike, and that's a solid move. If you're fast, it should probably work... the first time. The next time, your defender is probably going to be wise to your shenanigans and position himself against your strike more carefully. If you keep doing it, your defender is going to settle into a more upfield defense. He's countering the strike. But by doing so, he leaves himself open to the guy with the disc getting an around-break to you. If you strike often enough and hard enough, he's going to be so far off you that your bro with the disc can hit you all day with around-breaks.

In short: Let's say you have a powerful move. Maybe it's your deep cut if you're a monster, maybe it's your undercut if you're a speedster. It might be your strike, it might be your IO flick.

Unfortunately, to everything in ultimate there is a counter. Deep cuts can be defended by defenders giving you the in, in-cuts can be defended with brackets, poaching, or a baited layout (Mr. Saylor!). So then, you have to develop your counter to their counter. In Mac terms, this can be "taking what they give you". So they take away your deep cut. Cut in! If they're sitting on the IO, slap them with an around. Now they have to worry about your powermove, as well as your counter-counter, which is dangerous in its own right. Basically you force them into a guessing game at best and if they pick wrong, they get beat. If they pick right, well, then, you're shut down a bit. But, just like in Smash or Reach, if they pop a shield you don't have to be done! Keep taking what they give you, all day long.

Let's say you fake a deep cut, they hang with you, but they know you're going to turn it into an in-cut because they know where the disc is and pre-empt your change of direction and hang under you. Normally this sucks. However, now you have the ability to bring the metagame to the next level, and force them to react purely by instinct. They're sprinting flat out to cover your force-side in-cut. Suddenly, you turn your hard force-side cut into a break-side cut. Being two levels deep, you force them to react by instinct. They scramble to cover your renewed threat and you can take the break if the handle sends it or even come back to the force side in a sort of mini-strike that will give you power if your defender overcommits.

Of course, you should always know when you are truly shut-down and need to clear out to make room for other cutters- but even then, don't just "clear out". Clear out with a deep cut. Why not?

This applies to cutters, to handlers, when you're on the block, when you're throwing to score... everything. When you're on defense, know that's what the offense wants, and stay in their heads. An offender who isn't thinking is an offender who isn't effective.

The lesson is:

To always have a Plan A

To realize that for every Plan A, your defender (or offender) can imagine a way to defend it (or exploit it)

To realize that for every counter there is a counter-counter

To realize that even the best defenders have to give you something at some point, at which point you can rip them up. Or, to realize that even the best offenders can be neutralized by knowing what your offender wants to do, and taking it away until the point is over.

At least, that's how I see things. Feel free to comment or add your opinions.

Overture Season 2011

Hey Gobies- It's been a long, long time since there's been a Road to Regionals update and I couldn't be prouder to write my very first article on Fall Brawl 2010. What. A. Weekend.

Gobies A Roster- Ed, Owen, Mac, Andy, Mark, K-Vick, Jason, Saylor, Brady, Terence, Rookies: Bayunt, Max, McGoogan.

Pool Play-

Round 1- Carnegie Mellon University X- Mr. Yuk

Mood of the Game: Friendly Rivalry turned Coldblooded Competition

For those who don't know, I have quite a bit of history with this team and couldn't have been more stoked to find out we were playing Yuk in the very first round of the tournament. Having rolled two summers long with the likes of Adam, Jesse, Kaner, DK (the other Donkey Kwass), and Scott, I was admittably a bit nervous about the prospect of playing against them. They threw zone against us and with great patience, O line scored pretty much entirely without turns the entire first half. Yuk held their own with some quick, powerful hucks but eventually dropping down a break. After the half, Yuk changed their defense to man+travel calls, though, and things got serious. Clutch layouts by both teams kept things neck and neck until hardcap went off, and after coming to 13-13, Case earned a break to go up 14-13, then held on Universe to win 15-14. It was an incredibly tense second half that would be a sign of things to come throughout the weekend.

Final Score: 15-14 CASE WESTERNNNNNNNNN

Round 2: Bye

Went over to watch our B team and friends throw down against Toledo. It looked like a valiant struggle with MC, BT, Weston, Danny, DK, and Eric taking charge on offense and some very tight defense by our B squad rookies. Apparently Case B lost but from our time observing it, it was anyone's game.

Round 3: OSU B

Mood of the Game: Pedal to the Metal

This game was practically a blur. OSU B struggled mightily to contain the likes of Pwnen' Owen and Mac Attack but their Man wasn't nearly manly enough and their zone folded like a lawn chair against that age-old patient handling of Ed, Andy, and Jason. Our D line earned multiple breaks and ultimately spelled the advent of the age of "Bayunt, take Short-Deep". We did a fantastic job of not letting up on OSU at all even when the game was clearly decided, something our team has historically struggled with in the past. Our well-earned victory provided us with a solid 45 minutes or so to check out our Ladies team throwing down some pretenders on the other field.

Final Score:13-4 CASE WESTERNNNNNN

Round 4: Kenyon

Mood of the Game: Sectionals more like Wrecktionals

We'd all heard of Kenyon's solid performance at Sectionals last spring and knew that we were going to have to offer them tight competition or it would be a very long Road to Regionals indeed.

I was a little confused why all of them were wearing Owen's high-school PUF jerseys, particularly when none of them played half as hard as our dashing new captain. We came out firing both halves and overwhelmed their offense with tight shutdown-D on their in-cuts and dumps with a side of Ed skying fools in the backfield. Kenyon's offense got a little back on their feet to offer a tougher second half but their defense still was at odds to contain Owen, Mark, and Mac's blistering cuts and some truly incredible captain-captain deep shots. With another quick victory came another extended rest that we put to maximum use against Pitt.

Final Score:13-6 CASE WESTERNNNNNNN

Round 5: Pittsburgh X

Mood of the Game: Not Impressed

Sure. Yup. 3rd in the Nation and all that. Cool. These guys admittably were solid, solid players with phenomenal cutting ability and athleticism. That being said, they put up a lot of garbage hucks and their defense was only about average. Mac, K-Vick, Ed, and Jason made them respect us deep on both sides of the disc. Pitt's legendary spirit made an appearance this game, say no more. Overall I think we were all satisfied with the way we played today and putting up a whole bunch against a Nationals-caliber team was a decent end to pool play.

Final Score: 7-13 Pitt X

__________________

Dinner: Hounddogs

Mood of the Game: SO GOOD

IT WAS SO GOOD. IT WAS SO GOOD. IT WAS SO GOOD. And then Libby Iced me and Mike @_@

Final Score: $45.22, Hounddogs

__________________

Day 2, PreQuarters: Kent State

Mood of the Game: Too much Hounddogs... Too much tournament party...

We opened up Day 2 playing our good friends from Kent State. First games on Sunday have not traditionally been our strongest moments and that was sort of true here again. There was definitely some waking-up done mid-game with regards to weaker deep cuts and less-than-100% throws. Fortunately, we only got complacent in after taking half 8-1, so it was only a matter of getting on our horse and closing out the game. We essentially traded throughout the second half, but it was more of the break-break variety than the hold-hold kind. Not the prettiest win, but a win nonetheless.

Final Score 15-8 CASE WESTERNNNNNNN

Quarterfinals: Pittsburgh Y

Mood of the Game: Oh, sorry, did we wake you up?

We sort of knew how things were going to play out coming into this, but that being said we played our hearts out and absolutely thrashed the newly-arrived Pitt Y team, taking 3 breaks in a row to start the game. Nothing was more satisfying than going up three breaks before they had to throw an entire line of sublimated jerseys out just to do something about us. Fortunately this squad had considerably more spirit than their other team, but all we concerned ourselves with was playing as hard as we could to get ourselves in gear to hold seed in the game beyond.

Final Score 8-15 Pitt Y

7th Place Game: Dayton

Mood of the Game: Ahhgazimba, zimba, zimba, Ahgazima zimba-ze...

HOLD THEM DOWN...

0-4,

YOU GOBY WARRIORS!

3-8,

HOLD THEM DOWN...

10-5 run to tie it up 13-13

YOU GOBY CHIEFS, CHIEFS CHIEFS!!!

3 breaks in a row, after cap.

Final Score 16-13 CASE WESTERNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

5th Place Game: Ohio University

Mood of the Game: I'M THE JUGGERNAUT BITCH!

In all seriousness, after beating Dayton there was pretty much no chance those chuckleheads from Ohio were going to keep us down. The fastest growing program in our conference was at a loss to halt this particular swarm of invasive Great Lakes bottom dwellers. Go ahead, throw an entire line of green paw prints at us. It don't bother us none. While every point was hotly contested, strong, patient offense put point after point on the scoreboard for us while the D-line earned breaks left and right with D's earned across the spectrum. Bayunt basically wrecked up the joint as a short-deep, Ed and K-Vick were up to their usual tricks, Mike did his thing where he supermans everywhere, Terence got a faceblock, and even I managed to snatch a pink lace out of the affair. Jason almost stole the show with a Callahan to win the game but was gracious enough to let Max close out the weekend with a sexy strike-cut.

Final Score: 15-6 CASE WESTERNNNNN

Enough couldn't be said about individual performances- we were just a strong all-around team and to say that one person did something particularly well would be to imply that not all of us were. Untrue. Everyone on the roster fulfilled their roles or bailed out when they needed to and played within themselves. It was the highest level we'd played at in recent memory and it brought us a 5th-place result over a controversial 7th "overseed".

Bonus Round: Chipotle+Cold Stone

Mood of the Game: Ed has to eat 3 burritos

Didn't happen, but we're all waiting.

Final Score: Gobies 1 Haters None

Minority Report: Ladies team takes 3rd, Case B beats SUNY-Buffalo and CMU-B to earn a double-IHOP trip, plus a forfeit from some weak men who had homework to do or something.

Welcome to Goby Ultimate, Ohio.