Wednesday, December 3, 2008

SFUC Week 4

Week 4, Game vs. Pork Barrel Projects.
They featured Jam players Ryo Kawaoka and Justin Safdie, the 2000 Callahan winner, and Fury's Erin Percival.
Compared to my first two games with Moral Hazard (I missed one to go watch my Trailblazers lose to the Warriors at Oracle) where we absolutely mopped up a couple teams with ease, this game was tense, cold as balls, and managed to be sloppy and high level at the same time.
The temperature had to be in the mid 40s or so, which is extraordinarily cold when you are used to playing in Southern California, or Northern California in the summer. Additionally, there was dew all over the nice FieldTurf fields, making it tough to change directions and to grip the disc. From tossing with Shy before the game, I could tell that my throws would be terrible this game. I ended up only throwing one turnover, but it was more due to a ill-executed rushed throw by me to a fast break cutter in the end zone who wasn't making it easy on me. The cold did severely affect me though; I was looking off in-cuts that were anywhere near a defender because I had absolutely no touch on my flick. I was reduced to looking upfield for about 2 counts and then turning to look dump.
Segue! Our dump game was singularly pathetic this game. Throwers were refusing to look to the dump even when they were uncovered and nothing was open downfield. This led to about four turnovers in the first half. Furthermore, the dumps weren't getting open. Not moving, not getting separation when they did move. It was frustrating to watch when I wasn't in.
Despite that shortcoming, it's clear that our team is chock full of ballers. We have some incredible throwers, cutters, and defenders from both genders, and our weaker links are not great liabilities.
The first half of the game was full of these dump errors, in addition to the normal turnovers that can be expected in a frigid league game. They were outplaying us with easy swings and openside cuts, and our huck game was off. Cutters were getting separation, but the throws weren't coming out high or far enough, probably due to the temperature. Slap was making huge bids as normal, but things weren't going her way and her frustration was showing. (I think she is the most outstanding [as in her abilities stand out] player in the league so far from what I've seen).
The second half was a different story for us. We started generating turnovers and cleaned up our offensive game quite a bit. The game had some contentious calls, but they were all resolved in a nice League fashion. We went on a little run to push the score to 10-8 in a game to 13, and traded to win 13-11.
Besides the lack of any throwing capabilities, I had a blast this game. I love going up against the Jam and Revolver men, and now that I am getting my legs back under me I was doing some good things out there. I had probably 4-5 / 13 goals, and played good defense on Safdie downfield and worked hard on the mark shutting down the ubiquitous break mark throws that Pork Barrel Projects were getting against us.
My clear personal highlight of the game was putting a major hurting on Justin Safdie in the air early in the second half. I made a lil double move from the back of the stack and took off toward the right back corner with Safdie about 5-6 yards trailing. The throw went up at a tough angle for me, a high floaty outside-in flick to the middle of the field. I changed my course, and Safdie was able to catch up easily because of the float. He is a lot bigger than me and managed to get his bulk on me to box me out when the disc was floating down. At the last moment I disengaged from his box out and went up high and early and snatched it in the end zone. I love it. To be fair, he got me earlier when he was at the back of the end zone and his thrower put up a blade to him and he boxed me out and skied me. To be really fair, I got him even earlier when the huck to a deep cut I made on him was a five foot high laser and I snatched it from right in front of his face.
The most exciting sequence of the game was at 12-11, game point, they had the disc on the goalline on the far right sideline coming out of a timeout. My man was the iso at the front of the stack. Everyone was setting up after the timeout, and I was standing up watching both teams mill around waiting for them to stop so we could play. Next thing I know, my guy is sprinting to the left cone for a catch while everyone continues to get set in the stack. I call violation, he argues that since our marker tapped it in it's in, a small discussion ensues with everyone on the field, disc goes back. I have no idea what the actual rule there is but it seems like sending it back is the only fair way to settle it. ANYWAY, they tap it in and get a swing across the field and toss a little throw for the score, but IN COMES SHY LIKE A FLYING WALRUS to get the layout D and save the goal! I am making terrible deep cuts like crazy trying to end it, we work it up the field in spite of that, and I get a short goal for the win.
Delicious.
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1 comment:

Dan Chazin said...

Accurate analysis. Saaaaafdie! Fat walrus baby!

December 4, 2008 at 10:36 AM

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