Sean Ryan - recap

Friday night started as usual, Robot came over and hooked up his 360/Halo 3 and we shot people in the head and watched footage of LPC from Santa Clara and CHUG. We had pesto and chicken pasta while we waited for Greg to show up before we packed up and headed south. A quick pit stop to pick up Kevin and the Robot-mobile was full up as we made our way through snake highway 17 to Santa Cruz. One of Ernst's Campo HS friends, Alex Ng, goes to Santa Cruz now and let us crash in the study room of his dorm suite.

Game 1 - UNR, W 15-3(?)

Game 2 - UCLA, W 15-13
They ran a fast ho stack with confident dump swing looks until Seraph got the disc and ripped his flick shots deep. We got an early lead and held it through half as their D team struggled to convert turns into breaks. I didn't see Yugo/Biclops/Diesel/Nirvana there but they had a lot of young and hungry faces that I'm confident their program will mold to make some noise this year in the spring.

Game 3 - Oregon, W 15-8
Dusty was on the sidelines coaching and I noticed a bunch of their star D players absent. Eli and Gavin led the charge and made sure their rookies adhered to their disciplined vertical stack instead of putting up 50/50 shots deep. This game was definitely inconsistent seeing as I threw a Callahan right into a poached defender and then a few points later D'ed/macked the disc down from an errant throw right into Slimfast's hands to even each team's Callahan goal count. Funny how my mindset about offense has changed over the years. I first started with vertical and thought it to be ineffective and pushed strongly to switch to horizontal. Now with a few seasons of H under my belt I wouldn't say I'm pushing for the change back, but I'm definitely curious and interested to try V again. Having only one dump backfield opens up a lot of freedom for that handler and makes the swing look so much more effective. I first noticed the simplicity of V when I watched JAM at Sarasota and listened to Damien or Idris call out the offense. All they would say is what position in the V stack each person was, with use of fancy code names too, and then call out the force if there was a turn and close with that snazzy team clap. Offense doesn't have to be constant motion and clearing that H requires, sometimes simplicity and discipline is just as effective and can be rewarded. I'm rambling now and this topic can be saved for a future post.

Thankfully we finished our pool by 1 PM so we could scatter before the light rain hit. A trip to the Mexican place downtown for a burrito and a Nalgene full of horchata later and I'm back to the fields while some of the guys go back to the dorms to play Settlers of Catan. I split my time between Davis/SFSU and Cal/UCSB, surprised at the SFSU upset but not the Cal one. Ugmo has shown a lot of preseason strength in the last 4 weekends with a cohesive offensive set and stifling defense thanks to their club THBC season together. Kevin and I get a ride from Potter/Pierre to swing back to the dorms and shower before dinner. The gyros plate at the Falafel place on Mission and Bay hit the spot. Kevin was still hungry so we went downtown to the cookie/ice cream place and picked up a baker's dozen of deliciousness. The Pleiades were at the Mexican joint so we paid them a visit and luckily I brought my Nalgene for Horchata Refill round 2 fight. We decided against going to the bars so we ordered a round of drinks there. My first beer bought legally, a Corona, and the dude didn't even ask to see my ID. Oh well, legal is legal. I get back to the dorms and find the guys have turned Settlers into a drinking game, sponsored by Grey Goose's finest. I call it a night early and look forward to match ups against Cox, Guy, and Bobble in our quarter-final date against UCSD.

Robot, Adam, and I headed to the fields early to watch some of the action and ended up downstairs for Davis/Humboldt, BLU X/UCSB, BLU Y/Oregon. The weather was sunny and nice compared to Saturday but the wind had picked up and forewarned a lot of zone. Taz and Gizmo took charge of half of the BLU rugrats while Kix and Fresh had the other half. EBAY heckling ftw.

Game 4 - UCSD, L 11-14
How ironic, the only game I played well in is the one we lost. These guys ran an aggressive split stack and didn't hesitate to cut deep when Dollar or Nero had the disc. We get the first few breaks but somehow find ourselves down a few at half. Our D team couldn't punch in the turns for breaks in the second half and they held their lead until the cap blew. They threw zone even though the wind had died down and that did well to pad my catch/passes stats. I was pleased with my over-the-top throws although Ricky mentioned my hammers were a bit high which gave them more hang time than necessary. Something has to be compromised when you're 5'8" and ripping hammers and scoobers over 6' guys in the cup with their arms fully up. I think I ended the game with 50 C/P, 5 ST, 2 SC, and 0 turns but that still couldn't squeeze out the W for the team. Cox, Guy, and Ryan all had some sick plays in this game. Cox guarded Robot when he wasn't marking me so I had to make extra sure I threw to the space that he couldn't reach. Guy had a nice layout D on Adam and Ryan caught a sick cross field flick blade while fully horizontal. Seems like this program did a good job of giving their rookies field time last year and don't be surprised when this team blows up big come Regionals now that the southwest has more than 1 bid.

Game 5 - Claremont, W
The youngest Stout was roaming the sidelines with the clipboard. The video of him breaking his collarbone from last season still resonates in my head and makes me shiver. I've broken my collarbone 3 times, the most recent 2 breaks were from Ultimate and on my dominant arm. Wearing a bra for 6-8 weeks sucks, I can't imagine having to sit out for 8 months. These guys looked very strong even with Joaq switching from orange to banana yellow. They had a MoHo freshman guard me that I vaguely remember from Potlatch when Downtown Brown played the MoHo reunion team, Death Star Gay Bar. Marking up and chit chatting with Shy was also fun. I'm a big fan of his highlight footage from SW Club Regionals last season. I only played the beginning of the first half of this game so I don't remember much. I got orders to decleat so I went downstairs to watch the Cruz/Tide semis and enjoy the view of the city/ocean.

Game 6 - Stanford, W 15-10
I think I saw all of their big names there except for Scardato and two of their captains were on the sidelines. They played a lot of rookie heavy lines and played conservative disc with very few shots deep from what I remember. Ezra had some big pulls this game, one of which landed in the back corner of the endzone that froze me like a dumb deer as Ryan proceeded to count from 1 to 10. I must have forgotten I had a flick huck or something. How embarrassing, 5 for 5 now. The highlight of the game was when we put a huck deep to one of the rookies and Schlag gets sick air for a layout catch D. He gets up thinking he's in the endzone and starts walking it out but the line was actually 5 yards or so behind him. I totally forgot I was on the sidelines and yelled "TRAVEL!" and he stopped moving but then glared at me because I wasn't on the field. I followed up with an "I'M SORRY!" call and play resumed after a laugh or two from everyone. My bad, I am an asshole, sorry.

Initiation was tough. The sun had almost set and temperatures were dropping dangerously low to have to endure while wet and shirtless. Greg, Harry, Tim, Josh, and I lined up kneeling with eyes closed as everyone proceeded to spray pop in our faces, drip obscene amounts mustard and maple syrup from the hair down, and pour whatever else was handy and embarrassing. Whoever pulled my shorts out to spray whipped cream down my butt better watch out, that's some borderline questionable shit. Having the eyes closed was key, I couldn't afford to get my contacts wet nor did I want to see what was being done to me. After everyone had their share of laughs at our expense we picked up our stuff and what was left of our dignity and headed quickly to the showers before the hypothermia set in. What a dumb tradition, esp since I couldn't care less about hazing other rookies now that I've been initiated.

Greg and I went to the Falafel place again and enjoyed the gyros plate while the rest of the guys were blissfully ignorant and chose Taco Bell. A bunch of the Pie Queens were there when we walked in and even know I knew most of them I decided not to say anything since I haven't met them formally, so I sorta glared at them for a bit while we waited for our food. Social skills at its finest.

Here are the highlight pics that Matt took. There was a lot more action but thankfully he values sideline yelling more than picture taking. I told him he should have a rookie stand right next to him so he can still shoot. Then he can say whatever he wants in a normal voice while still looking through the lens and then the rookie echoes it at higher volume. Good idea!


The official EBAY pic. Count it. Maddy would be proud.


Tubbs in the air with a huge sky.


Phil with his patented "catch the disc with two hands so I don't drop the damn thing" catch.


Who would take someone dressed like this seriously?


Claremont rips a crossfield hammer to Shy, Charlie comes up big with the D.


Ryan Thompson with a flick past Robert.


Greg with a flick past Tom James.


The future of LPC Ultimate. Suede (cuteazngirl), Harry, Tim, and Charlie.

Overall a great weekend despite a disappointing 5th place finish. Santa Cruz is an amazing place to cap 4 weekends in a row of Ultimate and I'm glad I got to see all the EBAY people. The team defense played very well with sideline support but we need to work on maintaining that constant intensity instead of relying on bursts of ups and downs. Two months of grunt work from now until Santa Barbara in Jan is a long time to wait. I'm going to pretend I'm Captain Michelle and try to organize a 1 day scrimmage between Davis, Cal, LPC, Stanford, and Santa Cruz. Ha, I'm hilarious!