Winter Whiteout '10

The Eastern Illinois Ultimate Club made its way to Galesburg, IL this past weekend to play in Knox College's annual winter tournament: Winter Whiteout '10. With only 2 pool games Saturday evening the team was able to make bad decisions and party at the Reaper House Friday night. A blurry and ridiculous Friday evening was not enough to slow down Reaper for our first game at 6pm vs Peoria however!

Game 1 (Peoria Parrots) - From what I remember this game was in our control the entire time. I asked the team to focus on improving our man to man defense for this tournament and let the offense take care of itself and wow paid off. The first game of 2010 set a solid example of how we need to start out in the spring. We got a solid warm up in with some dynamic stretching, followed by a warm up drill played at game speed!

Game 2 (Chi Ass) - Many of us got to watch Chi Ass, an assorted pick up team of Brett Porters making, play a very solid opening game vs Northern Illinois. It was clear this would be a tough game. This game was certainly one of the best this weekend. We ended up coming a bit short in the end but our defense and contributions from every player on the team made this a dogfight. We opened with a break and made Chi Ass realize we came to play! Mike in particular scored easily 6-9 points this game and even helped control the disc with some handles! As a team Reaper I think we bid more in this game than some teams did the entire tournament. Multiple players got some crucial lay out D's many of which leading to quick conversions. Dan/JT/Maggie/Meg I certainly remember hit the floor at crucial points this game. This was my favorite game of the weekend even though we lost, if we come out with intensity like this guys, we are going to surprise any team that takes us lightly.

After our first 2 pool games and a 1-1 start with the understanding that we had Northern Illinois to look forward to at 8am tomorrow morning the team headed for the hotel and then a very mediocre China Buffet who certainly did not expect 10 starving ultimate players to walk in the door at 9:30. After a very strange 5 min wait to be seated in an empty restaurant we got some food in our systems and learned how important and heated the subject of what cookie is in cookies n creme ice cream is (it's definitely Oreo by the way). I also learned that all of those claw stuffed animal vending machine deals are totally rigged. . . and very much miss my purple bear prize. Hot tub was awesome. . . rest of the night was an embarrassing blur for this writer but with the majority of the team making good decisions we were in good shape for game 3 in the morning.

Game 3 (Northern Illinois) - From what I can remember : ) this was a nail biter. They were up most of this game but we kept up and stayed within striking distance. The addition of Nate in the morning was certainly a big boast. Northern's strong duo of Phillip Moe and Chris "OC" O'Connell were easily the best one-two punch at this tournament. Last year we got crushed in this very same game at the very same time. This year I think we caught them off guard at 8am with once again tight "give nothing" man to man defense. The game went to universe and we came out on top.

Game 4 (Knox B) - 13-0 or 13-1, 2 callahans, no summary really required. They had some very new players with potential. 4-5 hour break after this game was brutal.... Ended pool play in 2nd place 3-1.

RIDICULOUSLY LONG BREAK 4-5 HOURS.......

Elimination game 1 (Knox A) - The elimination games... and this game in particular I remember being especially impressed by how much our girls started to pick up there already solid play. Knox A utilized a vertical stack with generally 2 handlers back sometimes with a 3rd dropping back off of the first cut. Our crippling man D forced turns on simple resets and and forced more than a handful of punts. Our deep game was alive and well and we had contributions from nearly every player on the the team.

Elimination game 2 (Illinois State) - Last years runners up... I was told they brought approx 5 of their top guys and the rest were mostly players on the bubble for A team. The game started off relatively even with teams trading points. Once our defense adjusted though they had problems resetting the disc and we started to take advantage of forced turnovers. Our run and gun style of play seemed to catch them a bit off guard and quick give n goes between the handles lead to some great deep looks. Ladies, once they started forcing 4/3 every girl on the team stepped up. Sarah easily averaged MULTIPLE D's in most points she was in. We held on and earned a trip to the finals.

Championship game (Northern Illinois) - Our pool proved to be the tougher of the two in my opinion after a very close semi finals between NIU and Chi Ass, with 3 teams from pool 2 advancing to the semi finals and 2 of them re-matching in the finals (Reaper vs Cornography). NIU managed to fend off Chi Ass in the semi finals on universe point to play us for the second time.

Before I go into the details of this game, I think something that really hurt our play this game was the fact that we have never won a tournament yet. While we came close multiple times in the 2009 fall season and finished quite strongly at basically every tournament we went to, our mindset has to be different when playing offense vs defense. Offensively you need to take a deep breath and realize that controlling the disc and making good decisions is key. While on defense we need to be aggressive, all over your man, constantly trying to keep yourself in position to deny your mark the disc, and adjusting so as to not get beat to the force-side/strike cuts.

The game started off pretty well, they scored first with a break and we responded. Eventually after about 3-3 is when things really fell apart. Our offense just started making silly turns, mostly just drops off our hands, and poor resets. While in contrast Northern was still playing a great game and capitalized on the majority of our errors. Our handlers decision making turned away from the best cuts and focused more on trying to force points. Basically the combination of beating ourselves with mistakes we weren't making all tournament and cornographys smooth offense put this game out of reach. We ended up making a small run in the end but ultimately we lost by 4 or 5. This is a game we need to learn from Reaper. Mistakes are going to happen, everyone drops the disc or makes a dumb decision every now and then. Realize what you did wrong, keep a cool head and get over it. If you turn it, don't just put your head down and curse, HUSTLE and get back on D! Also if a teammate makes a poor decision or turns it, pick'em back up!

Tough loss in the finals but overall I think this was a great tournament. Even without some key players our roster had depth. Everyone on the team contributed and when I asked the team to step up defensively EVERY single player responded. Continue to come to practice and work hard. Understand as a team our goal is to qualify for REGIONALS, which means we need to place top 7 in our approx 30 team section. . . we have the potential.


- #2

p.s - Special thanks to Brock Dunn, after hurting his knee early in the tournament he really stepped up on the sideline and stayed involved!