Starting the we were in god spirits. Right off the bat we scored a couple points and were feeling good. Then there was a rather long point, and right near the end I was starting to stitch up. Breathing was labored and the pain kept increasing. Unfortunately we lost that point and had to walk, but this gave me a chance to get some water and take some deep breaths. It went away and I played on. Actually I had no choice to play on since we had no subs at all.
The fields were in very god shape. Much better than last week. It had been raining during the day so the grass was wet, and the ground softened. Awesome.
Wouldn’t you know it, I was striking for the end zone and the the disc was getting away from me. I put it in overdrive, but couldn’t catch up to the disc. I ended up sliding on my butt a ways, but didn’t come up with the disc. 🙁
Throughout the game I was feeling great. Fitness-wise I felt fast which was much different than last week. My throwing and catching was spot on, and my timing for catching the disc high up in the air was spot on. I was also doing well breaking free from my check. I was having an awesome game.
Then came my backwards point. I have no idea what happened, but I was supposed to be a handler, but somehow ended up in the stack. Every time I tried to get back to a handler position, I got blocked by someone on my team cutting me off, or a pass going forward so I was out of position again. Then, on the turnover, my check got the disk, and I forced the wrong direction. Weird. After that point I was back to normal.
Nearing the end of the game (we hit a time cap), I was breaking for the end zone and the handler saw me. He threw it up, and again the disc was getting away from me. I sprinted hard as I could, and as I was gaining, the disc was dropping. In my mind I knew I could catch it if I dove. Then I remembered my teammate and his separated shoulder. I thought about the time I dove and ended up with a groin tear. I thought about my messed up shoulder. I thought about my family and how an injury would make home life more difficult. Then I decided to dive, but be careful. I layed out and started sliding. The disc was heading for my hand and my hand was open. The disc bounced off my hand and I wasn’t able to snag it. I slid to a stop and did a mental check to see if I had hurt myself. Nothing was hurting, but I was having a little trouble breathing. I ended up slightly winding myself, so a quick rest and the point continued.
We heard the call for the time cap and played on. The game was tied and it was tight. The final point was a battle that could have went either way. To both ends of the field multiple times. The issue was light. Depth perception was dwindling with the light, and so was our energy level. Passes became more and more difficult to see and turnovers kept happening. Then one of the passes to a player on our team went wild and he tried diving for it winding himself. He ended up leaving the field since he felt wrong, so we were down a player. As a result, there was some confusion an opposing player got open, got the throw, and ended the game.
We lost, but it was a fun, enjoyable game against an evenly matched team. I was drained by the end of the game.