Ulti playoffs started tonight, and our game was at 6. The warm up was … warm. The weather here was heating up over the past couple days, and tonight was the culmination of that. The wind was non existant though, so that made for some excellent playing conditions.

We were raring to go, but the other team failed to show. Only one of their players showed up on time. We were told that we would get a point every 2 minutes that they couldn’t field a team.

By about 6:15 or 6:20 we could finally play 6 a side ulti.

My game was horrible. My legs felt dead and I just couldn’t get up to speed. Maybe I was over heating, but even wetting my hair didn’t help. I couldn’t keep up to my check, and I couldn’t cut, nor get out of the way of plays. I felt like I was taking up space on the field. Fortunately I was throwing pretty good, and I was able to make a few catches.

We were up 6-3 (not counting the points gained from no team) and we were feeling pretty good for ourselves. Then we relaxed or something. They clawed back, and when time was called it was 6-6. They scored the final point.

It was a win for us, but I left the field deflated. I just didn’t enjoy that game at all. It probably didn’t help that we played at Uplands School fields. Those fields aren’t getting watered this summer, so they are hard and dry. I have multiple blisters on both feet.

Bleh. There is always next week.

Last night was our second double header ulti night. I was pretty pumped to do better than last week. This week we were at Central, and wow, the grass was lush and green meaning the ground was the perfect softness for some hard cutting action. I learned pre-game that a player from last weeks first game asked to be transfered to our team. We had ourselves a real speedy guy who can handle. Woohoo.

Then, a few minutes before the game the team was passing the disk and I was goofing around and tried to intercept it. The high speed pass hit the end of my thumb, jamming it pretty bad. It went numb for a few minutes, then just ached the rest of the night. Even today it is still sore, and I wonder if I sprained it a little.

Game 1
Our team played great and actually won the game on points, but defaulted due to not enough women. Bummer. The other team loaned us a couple women so we could play a real game.

They had lots of great plays, tried the zone, but mostly stuck to man coverage. I am not sure why, but they struck me as an experienced team and I was sure they were going to cream us.

As it was our handling was good, lots of the team was making excellent cuts and were getting open, and catches were made. We were also full of spirit.

I was having a great game. Handling I was doing really well. I felt loose, comfortable, and best of all, I felt fast. The new guy and I were hooking up passes very well. He threw to me in the end zone many times. A few of those passes were thrown as I was cutting, and I was cutting the wrong way. Luckily I recovered enough to make the catches.

My favorite play of the night was a perfect catch. I was running hard, and the disk was thrown out of bounds, and was arcing back to the end zone. I stopped just inside the zone, checked my feet to make sure I was inbounds, then had to strech out of bounds to catch the disk. Such a awesome feeling.

Another potential point I was chasing the disk down through the end zone. My check was beaten and trailing me. The disk was just floating too much. As the disk came down I reached out and caught it, then looked down. My right foot was just outside. I was inches close, but I called myself out. I had the best view, so I made the call. I am still not sure if it was the right call or not.

The only downside of the game was that on one play a guy on the other team caught the disk pretty close to the sideline. I wasn’t in the right position to make a call, and I prefer the player makes the call themself. I simply asked him to check feet. When the play was over he came up to me and basically chastised me. He went off on how there is no rule to get someone to check feet and that if he was out I should have called it. It was odd, but for some reason it still rubs me the wrong way.

Game 2
The other team chose to play even though we were short on women. They also started the game quickly so there was no time to cool down.

I don’t really know what happened, but they utterly overwhelmed us. We couldn’t make our plays. The threw on the zone, and it was strong. Their cup was fast, very effective, and shut us down.

I was still running hard, and my throwing felt good, but I felt slow and a little sluggish. Maybe that was fatigue setting in.

The only way we could break the zone was to really tire them out. Swing from one side to the other until we can hook the swing pass to a strong cut.

We had lost out mojo and it was getting increasingly difficult to score points.

In the end, we lost the game, but scored more points that game than both games of last week.

Next week the playoffs start. Apparently we will get 2 weeks of playoffs then the third week is the finals. Somehow I think we only have 2 nights left in our season 😉 It’s been a blast though.