Demoralizing Practice

Wednesday night’s Ulti game was frustrating and a little demoralizing. We lost. We lost big. At one point the game was 12-1. It ended 15-4. I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong.

I think it boiled down to the whole team making a lot of rookie mistakes. We weren’t playing well, we weren’t running well, we weren’t trying hard, we weren’t holding our force, and we weren’t checking well.

I gave it my all on the field, but my throwing was off for this game. I threw too many blades and high passes that were intercepted. After a while I stopped volunteering to be a handler. This worked out much better since I was catching very well.

One of the things I practice when warming up is catching with my left hand. I actually had to make a left handed catch in the game.

I dove a few times as well. I made a couple good diving catches that helped us keep possession, and I made one defensive dive that I was sure missed the disc. We were in the end zone and as I got up I was sure that my check was going to be standing there with the disc. Instead he was walking away and my team was setting up our play. I never learned what happened, but I guess I got in the way enough to cause him to miss.

I called one foul. In the end zone on offense I was jumping up to catch the disc. I was stopped when I jumped and went straight up. I owned that space and yet my check jumped into me and when he came down his elbow made contact with my head. We got possession right on the end zone line. I don’t think we converted that point either.

The whole game I ran as hard as I could, threw as well as I could, yet the other team had us utterly dominated.

Next week are playoffs and I really hope that everyone gets there early so we can work on some things. Like holding the force. Very important to hold the force.

Thankfully that loss didn’t affect our standings. We finished the season in 2nd place. This has been an awesome team to play with. Most other summer league teams I have played on have not been anywhere close to making the playoffs, usually since we had a lot of newer players. This team has a lot of veteran players, and newer players who have some experience. I just hope that next week we win the first game. If we do, then we play a second game.