Central Plains Sectionals Bore-cap

The Baller Bids poll is up, so holler at it.

This review is going to be extremely lacking, because this weekend was not a very good one for my picture-taking or note-taking. I was afraid it would rain on Saturday, so I made the decision not to bring my camera to the fields, and when I brought it on Sunday, it turns out that I had forgotten to charge my battery, and I only had enough for a few pictures. As for note-taking ... I just didn't do it. Sorry. Even worse, I don't really remember all that much from games (I really hope it's just fatigue that's preventing me from remembering details ...)

Ok, so from what little I can remember:

'Twas the night before Sectionals, and all through the Chan house,
Every Menace was gorged and tired, and I climbed into bed with my no homo-spouse.
I had just finished packing my game bag with care,
In hopes that I had everything and that I was well-prepared.
The rest of the Menace were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of DOMINATION danced in their heads.
I lay down, anxious for this long-awaited nap,
For in a few hours I would wake so my ankle could be wrapped.
I walked downstairs and heard some kitchen chatter,
and made my way to help demolish the breakfast platters.
Then away to the fields we drove with a flash,
where we surveyed all, hoping to crush and smash.
We walked to our fields, ready to put on a great show,
But I was still bitter about what happened a year ago.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
Northwestern, the team who beat us at Regionals last year!
With their new coach and new warm-ups, which were pretty sick,
I still couldn't help but burn with revenge, and felt sort of like a prick.
But we started our day against UChicago, who hoped to make a National's claim,
but much like every other time we've played them, the result was the same.
Even though we won a close one, 10-9,
At the end of the game, we saw our intensity decline.
But we had no time to mope, Northwestern was waiting and ready to ball.
This time they had all their ballers, like Jet, Kirby, Tiff, and Smalls.
And they executed, while our game plans went all awry,
And after losing 6-11, we kissed first place goodbye.
I couldn't believe it had happened again, and we all felt like poo,
but we hoped we could still pick it up, and go for the highest finish we could pursue.
Our next game with Wheaton was chippy, with calls galore,
their captain was furious, and with each call did she roar.
She cursed us down and up, from hell to heaven,
but we still pulled out the win, 13-11.
We returned to the Chan house, to rest and chow down,
and we ate and ate and ate and packed on the pounds.
That night we rested, and fell asleep thinking about the next day,
We were ready to be there, to dominate, to play!
We thought Purdue would be easy, with all the players they lacked,
but we were still trading points, so we changed our plan of attack.
We gave ourselves a push and a shove, and our defense came alive.
So we shut them down and won, 13-5.
ISU was up next, and we came out slow.
It took us 22 minutes to beat them, but we did it, 13 - oh.
Indiana was next, and I'm sure they thought they could hang,
that girl was '07 FOTY? You gotsta be kidding me, mang!
After a little back and forth, we got back on track,
our game started peaking, and we never looked back.
Even though they've been talking about making it on the Nationals scene,
hey Indiana, you only scored seven to our fifteen.
This set us up for a little revenge,
our earlier loss against Northwestern we sought to avenge.
We came out intense and ready to play,
fueled by memories of last May and yesterday.
There were a lot of sick bids, and some offensive flow too,
We kept tacking on the points, as our intensity grew and grew.
In the end we just had more in our bag of tricks,
and we took second place, winning 13-6.
Sectionals was great, even though we didn't win first,
it's probably even better for us, as it should intensify our thirst.
Regionals is next, and we only have two bids to The Show,
so let's prove we belong there, something we knew so long ago.
I'm glad I'm finally done, this is nothing like what I normally write,
but I hope it entertained you, and to all a good night!



...
Oh God.
See, I told you I didn't remember much!
But don't ask me why I wrote it like that. This is what happens when I wait for food to digest.


This weekend showed us some of what it is we need to work on before Regionals. There's a lot we can do to not only raise but maintain our intensity level during games. We've got to close games out when we're up, and not make stupid mistakes when we're trying to catch up. Throw-aways and drops need to be minimized, and we've got to throw to open people when we see them. We have to cut hard and cut to both sides of the disc, and we have to work on our defensive positioning, and contest every disc -- be it sticking out an arm or a hand, or laying out, or just plain falling over. Against ISU, we played sloppy on some points, and it made the game longer than it should have been. Like we've said before, there's a difference between beating teams and playing good ultimate. Even though we won against UChicago, Wheaton, and Purdue, we had some issue with closing out our games. We didn't play dominant second halves like we should have, and our games took longer to finish. Against Indiana, however, we peaked during the second half. They got a few scores on us, but we scored all the last points of the game. We clamped down and just beasted it.

The first game against Northwestern was a whole lot different from our second game with them.
In the first game, we were sloppy and just not ready to play and not intense, and they were. They had their full squad back, and were ready to ball. There was also more zone played by both teams. Northwestern threw their 17-person cup at us, and while we at first had issues with it, the grand opening of the Meg Hofner Hardware Store, specializing in the sale of one tool and one tool only: Hofner's Hammers, shred its way through it all. They did not throw that cup at us in the second game. Everyone was a lot more pumped up in the second game. We came ready to win, and all of us were thinking about redemption. Everyone was hyped up, even the bugs that were attacking Catherine's eyes. Little did they know that Catherine Doyle is NUMBER ONE ON THE STREETS and can't be messed with, so Goose risked pink eye and saved her eyeball from some nefarious beetle. Meg was throwing some ridiculous ass shit (in the good "ridiculous ass shit" way) and just straight balling, and Alexis went flying all over the place for discs and made plenty a sick grab. When we're more focused on winning and playing well and we have our heads in the game, we're such a better team, as shown in the difference between our first and second Northwestern games. We've got to work on making that second team the team that we are all the time.

So that's that, and I hope this wasn't too disappointing. Hopefully at Regionals I'll do a better job of note- and picture-taking. Speaking of which, expect a Regionals preview soon since I don't have papers due this week. As I'm sure most of you have heard, the Great Lakes got two bids to Nationals, so I'll also be posting a more general post that I wrote about that in literally, seconds, after I post this.

Also, Matt Lane has his Club Nationals photos up ... and how about some love for Illinois? (Let's see if you can guess what's Illinois Love about that picture ...) There was also a pretty nice Machine layout photo too, so yay Chicago!