Northern California Sectionals Day 2

My apologies in advance for a less detailed Day 2 recap than Day 1, but I guess that’s what happens when I wait a week and a half to post.

Game 5 (Semifinals): Jam (6-15).

Just like the game with Revolver, we were pretty excited for this game. It’s always fun to test yourself against the best, of course. Well, the game started out disastrously, and I’m not sure why. We got broken something crazy like 6 times to start the game. Whether we were running strings, horizontal, or zone O, we kept making uncharacteristic mistakes and Jam was capitalizing on all of them. Jam really brought the defensive intensity on the downfield cutters, making the cuts that had been easy against every other team (including Revolver) ineffective. And when we got a good deep look up, we either botched the throws or the defenders were fast enough to reel in and get D’s. The second half was a little better as we were able to get more offensive flow, but we got totally crushed (as is evidenced by the score). This either means that Jam is way better than Revolver or that we just crapped the bed against Jam, but I’m inclined toward believing the former for now. On the positive side, I had a couple more filthy skies. The first was on zone O. We got the disc over the cup and I had a step on Taylor Cascino who was playing deep deep. The throw went up toward the back of the end zone. Greg Husak came bearing down from one of the wings. I went up early and grabbed it high over Cascino and with Hollywood right on my back. A few points later we were in zone O again, and a throw went up to the deep middle of the field. Cascino was the deep again, and this time I absolutely killed it, just ripped it down over him. That play almost made the beating they administered worth it. HA. As for personnel, they were without Bart Watson (wearing flats) and Damien Scott (not there), but I believe the rest of their roster was playing. I was especially impressed with how good their roster was top to bottom. The guys I didn’t recognize actually impressed me more than the “name” players like Boo, Idris, Namkung, etc. with the exception of Gabe Saunkeah who has got to be their best player. I came away more impressed with Jam than I have ever been before, but I am still skeptical that they’ll be able to overcome the dynamism of Sockeye and Bravo at nationals.

Game 6 (Backdoor): Berkeley Y (15-5).

Uh, we won easy. If anything memorable happened, I forget what it was. Instead, enjoy the smooth moves and smooth grooves of The Chi-Lites!

Game 7 (2^nd Place Play-In Game): YR (8-15).

YR proved once and for all that they are the superior team, taking the rubber match in a 3 game series of blowouts. The game came down to battle of O lines vs D lines (naturally). I think that with us, our top players play on the O line and then whoever is fresh ends up on the D line. This works out fine when our O line is scoring all our points and the D line only needs a couple breaks to win. Unfortunately for us, I think the opposite is true for YR. In my mind, their D line is superior to their O line AND to our O line (at least during this game). They kept getting breaks, so we weren’t giving our D opportunities to break for us. Our D was doing a decent job of getting turns but didn’t have the personnel necessary to punch in breaks. On the other hand, their D line was in so much better shape than our O line that once they got the disc it was off to the races for them. It was tough for me to go out with a loss to a rival like this, but the blow was softened by knowing that they definitely deserved the victory—not just because they outperformed us, but because they have all clearly invested more time, work, care into their squad than we did into ours.

Wrap-up

And so ends my 2008 club season. Though SCUC will be making the trek up to the Great Pacific Northwest to fight the good fight, I will be sitting in a cramped desk somewhere in Hayward taking the LSAT. Too bad the regionals date wasn’t announced until after I had to decide which sitting of the LSAT to take…Perhaps I am cursed as a club player. My freshman year the Brains played at sectionals, and I had a sprained ankle and couldn’t play. My sophomore year I finally had learned how to throw a flick, and we were HOSTING club sectionals. On the first or second point of the first game on Saturday, I laid out for a deep goal and jammed every one of my fingers on my right hand into the ground, tearing ligaments in my ring, middle, and index fingers. There went that sectionals, and that flick. Junior year I played! And we almost beat PBR Streetgang, a nationals team! My senior year was my first playing with a real club team, Monster. I had been fighting various injuries all summer – knee problems, Achilles problems, and a dull ache in my foot. None of it was stuff I couldn’t play through, but I went to the doctor to make sure there was nothing serious. Well, this quack told me I had a stress fracture in my foot…but refused to give me a bone scan. I dutifully stayed off it at sectionals and regionals as I had to watch Monster not play up to our potential. Soon after, I saw my uncle, a great doctor himself, at some family function. He took a look at the foot and told me it was metatarsalgia, which basically just means that one of your metatarsals hurts. The cure? Wear a little pad in my cleat under the ball of my foot. Problem solved, infuriatingly. And now this year, playing with a fun group of guys who are all ballers, I have to miss regionals in my own backyard.

Bop City.