1st Up - Chicago Invite
At least it didn't blizzard this time... That was the main highlight day 1, we started the day with a tight game against Missouri State. We beat them last year game 1 at Chicago Invite and upset them in our pool again this year. From what I remember we jumped out to a small league then let them creep back to within 1-2 points but we were able to hold them off until hardcap to get the win and start the day off right 1-0.
Next up we faced the top seed in our pool, Minnesota Duluth. We beat them soundly in the fall at No Wisco but this is the spring and they caught us off guard with an effective vert stack and a zone our handlers just couldn't figure out at all. Poppers did a fine job window shopping but we couldn't get continuations off our short passes and ended up turning it over far to many times on our half of the field. This game was never close. I think this was a wakeup call similar to the washington game at midwest throwdown. We have to be able to take a deep breath and work it through zones effectively, I think having a guy like nate there is key but I feel this game helped us work on this weakness and apply what we learned day 2, especially in the rose-hulman game were we did find success against a strong zone.
Our 2nd to last game of the day was against North Park. Last year at our first sectionals we pulled off a huge upset and beat the much higher seeded Lost Boys. This time would be different. Losing tim and missing some key starters really highlighted our rookies need to improve throws and be more confident in the wind. Starters also seemed to be forcing everything and depending way to much on the deep game. I know that personally I was a turn-over machine with my eyes on the endzone instead of looking for the open cut. North Park's poachy man D and effective use of switches to harass the in-cuts and mark the deep ball really hurt us. Handlers needed to take a deep breath and find the open throw. Cutters needed to organize double in cuts and double out cuts to counter the defenders switches. If you don't know what I am talking about here please talk to a captain and ask them about how to beat bookends.
Our cross-over was against St.Johns. We've never played them before but similar to the Duluth game we were never quite in this game. Rookies saw a lot more playing time this game from what I remember but overall as a team our intensity was down after a tough series of losses in our previous games. This has got to change, we have to be able to rise up a a team and get ourselves mentally in the game regardless of who we are playing, or how much we are down. I can't stress enough how important it is to have a sideline who is INVOLVED IN THE GAME, talk to your teammates, be encouraging, be positive, and BE LOUD!
After going 1-3 on the day we got lucky and made the championship bracket because of that win vs Missouri State. But with how we played saturday we new we had to pick it up Sunday if we hoped to save any face after saturday's dissapointing results.
Sunday game 1 was against Case Western Reserve. We crushed case with a small squad in the fall at Whitesmoke. This game started off with Reaper looking nothing like we did Saturday. Our defenders harassed everything and played with intensity, our handlers did a much better job against a 3-man cup. Losing Steve day 2 because of his sore hamstring was a bummer but at the same time I think it forced a few players to step up. Also I believe having Nate Kinsinger show up was definatly a huge help in the handles, he brought a chilly mindset to help anchor the handles and work the C.W.R cup with OC and myself. Mike did what mike does best and absolutely tore up the cup with very effective popping. The big difference sunday was that when our middle poppers caught the disc we actually were able to move the disc up through the middle after getting it past the cup. This was huge, as the outside wings finally figured out how to time their cuts to really gain yards on those break-aways. I know we had a decent lead at half and then something happened... we got complacent. Our defense started to slack, our intensity dropped after we got a decent league and Case punished us for it. They broke us upwind MULTIPLE times. Our looser D lines weren't able to stick to the basics, letting them work it up the break side, and get uncontested under cuts. Rookies and D line players got to be able to own up to this... you got to be in the mindset of hustling 100% when you do get in. After a well-placed timeout and a universe line getting the disc downwind we were able to close the game out after like 6 turnovers and multiple failed red-zone conversions. Scary game... but we pulled it out and advanced to the quarterfinals.
Next up was Rose-Hulman. Rose was seeded like 32nd or something ridiculously low, they beat duluth who crushed us the day before and were undefeated going into our game. We had plans to change that though, Rose through a very tricky clam-ish zone both downwind and up-wind (it had been upwind/downwind all day with winds being around 15-20mph upwind all day). I believe we scored first with some type of big huck from either myself or OC to mike who caught it outside the endzone and was able to convert to a streaking wing player. After that Rose answered multiple times and we went down 1-3 or 4. I don't know what happened at this point, maybe we called a time out, or maybe something just clicked with our starters but the handles and cutters simply figured out the zone and rose never made any type of switch. Cutters like mike, zach, and drew really figured out how to pop effectively and work it between each other to gain yards, the handlers in OC, James, and Nate were chilly and played less selfish with multiple dump swings and we took control of the game. Our defense and sideline seemed to wakeup. Mike and OC were definatly the MVP's of this game with OC throwing some incredible upwind hammers and strong flicks, Mike also was able to throw some great continuations from the middle and bring down some swilly backhands from #2 who couldn't help but try to throw some backhand hucks threw the rose zone. Hardcap blew directly after yours truly tossed a pull directly out of bounds securing the Reaper win and ending Hulmans cinderella story run.
Semi-finals vs Ball State was awesome for a few key reasons. First off, we started the game with DEFENSIVE INTENSITY. Our O was shaky but HUGE plays from OC and KYLE fired up us. Mike showed Ball State that the deep game was not going to work for them and they would have to figure out a different way to beat us. Zach punished them further with an easy callahan. We proved that we had the legs to contest them and that we could generate the D's but our offense was shaky at best, the huck was working early for us but once they adjusted our short game just wasnt strong enough. We have to able to punish teams on the under. Cutters you need to be confident making an upfield throw. Mistakes like drops and slowing down resulted in simply to many turns and opportunities for ball state. They exploited the errors we made and were able to pull away. This wasn't a bad game especially considering we were missing a few key starters. Kyle S in particular had a very notable game with a few huge skies and explosive lay-out D's, it was really great to see Kyle step up! At the same time I think this was a wakeup call to Kyle and few other guys like Hinze that getting those short step-out backhands and flicks upwind are going to be the key for them to even further improve! This was our last game at Chi Invite and honestly I think it showed that we can hang with any1. We beat ourselves with errors far more than Ball State forced turns.
2nd Up - Last Call
First off, I would love if a girl on the womens team would be willing to write a re-cap of how the girls did on the blog, you ladies did a great job this weekend vs high-caliber competition and broke seed! Please contact me if you are interested in doing a recap!!!
Waking up saturday morning I was quite worried. It was storming extremely hard, tons of thunder and lightning with heavy rain. Fortunatly I think our team did a really good job of organizing a later start time, and getting information out to the other teams about the post-poned tournament. It was hilarious and awesome to have Ball State B, Valpo Ladies,ISU Ladies, some of Chi Assorted, and some various Reaper guys and girls at the Reaper house in the morning waiting for the weather to let up. After around a 2hr or so delay we were able to get the games started and something miraculous happened... IT WAS BEAUTIFUL OUT!
Now sadly I was at tournament central for many of the games at our tournament, mostly sitting near all the stuff watching my watch, blowing the horn, filling in scores, and watching the games around me. I kept my eye on Reaper whenever I could and saw Chi Assorted crush everyone faster than some teams took half. From what I saw of Reaper though it looked like a lot of rookies were getting some playing time and really showing progress compared to Chi Invite. I think it helped not having the weather be such a factor day. Josh K, Joey, Kyle, Lovie, and Nick all had some solid scores and teamwork in some of our bigger wins which was awesome to see from the pavillion. It was also great to hear some of our veterans talk a lot more on the sidelines and show the rookies how important it is to be that voice and help those on the field. I think Mike, High Release, Classic Steve, Drew Traver and Josh Hardie in particular really stood out to me as making a serious effort to talk to guys on the field and be that support.
I came in to play for the Chicago Assorted game which I think both teams were very excited for and was going to be the first real test of the day for both our teams. From what I remember O line started off with a few turns, some forced, some not but converted giving us the 1-0 lead. D line then just couldn't get the job done the rest of the game. The experienced players on Chicago Assorted were able to find a solid rythm and connect on a lot of deep shots and break throws. Chicago Assorted worked mismatches and ran us into the ground, D line needs to be able to step up our game and not get caught letting our guy get away with a free deep cut. Also fundamental things like stopping the strike cut, and being more active on the mark (moving our feet, keeping hands low, adjusting for handler swings etc) simply wasn't happening. We got out-hustled to the force side and our offense off turns was a joke. Mike Hinze, Alex Castillo, and Myself really weren't able to generate anything effective. I know personally I threw some dumb swilly hucks when I should have been more trusting in my other handlers and thrown some more swings. Dan Rolando had some great plays and really stood out this game, O line still needed to improve on working vs zone and poppers working it to wings vs zone D. Chicago Assorted over Reaper by a wide margin. On a different note it was great to see some alums playing. Evan M and Dan N both played really well this game and repped the growing alum group well. Gerlerlerler anoter cherished alum also was there and playing with a different team, I am sure he scored a point or two on the weekend :) haha.
Our final game of the day was against another pick up team called Mixed Reaction. In all of our games saturday the goal was to spread playing time out especially to a lot of those D line guys who have been coming to practice and working hard. I don't know if it was the loss to Chi Ass or what but D line continued our dry spell into this game as well. Mixed Reaction jumped to an early lead showing us that they loved to huck it early and often to a bunch of athletic and fast cutters. O line let up a few breaks and D line's drought and inability to score any breaks was incredibly frustrating. We were down around 3 points at half and after a short meeting with Mike and Steve the captains made the decision that if they got to 10 points in the second half and D line wasn't looking any better we would throw our universe line in and try to make a run. Well that's exactly what happened, we were down 3 or 4 when they reached 10 points in a game to 13 and we had 10 minutes until hardcap. I remember yelling, "Starters, now is the time to show why you've earned a spot on the universe line!" Every guy on that line not only comes to practice often but works there butt off when they do! Mixed Reaction was caught off guard as they no longer had any mismatches to huck to and when they were forced to look to swing the disc they found resets being contested and cuts they had relied on earlier in the day disappearing. Hucks were contested and D'd, marks stepped it up and we were able to convert quickly on turnovers. After scoring 2 quick ones in a row our sideline seemed to wake up and get involved which only fueled the fire. Mixed Reaction stepped it up but it wouldn't be enough, our hustle and smothering D overhelmed them and we would pull off a very impressive 4-5 point comeback in 10 mins to win on universe point. Highlights include Zach scoring around 3 points in the comeback and coming up with a few awesome D's. Mike also had an incredible sliding footblock D to stop a huck(which I think was on universe point!). Reaper steals the game and goes 3-1 day 1. Things to take away from this game and Chi Ass as well are that as a team we need to be able to rise up and play our potential. If we are losing or something bad happens pick each other up, get loud, get positive. Those that were not on the universe line need to think about why we had that success and how we made that comeback. Once we picked up our fundamental on defense, stopped the strike cuts, had good marks, and didn't give them any free in-cuts or deep-shots. Even if they caught they disc whoever was on D either lay-ed out and came up short or was 1 step behind and immediatly pressured the guy that caught it. Working our ass off on D lead to easy points, they turned it over at least 2-3 times within 20 yards of the endzone. Learn something from this game.
Day 2 of Last Call proved to be excellent practice for what sectionals may turn out to be... WINDY with lots of ZONE practice. From what I saw on the stat sheet we handled game 1 without a problem and everyone got some playing time and put in work. Guys that aren't consistant starters, you need to be in the mindset of working hard and improving everytime you step on the field. Show what you've learned at practce and make the points you do get in count. Your time will come and I know sometimes its frustrating not playing as much as you want because we have a 20+ person team but honestly that depth to our roster is SO IMPORTANT. Ask any of the vets who played 2-3 years ago what it was like to go to tournaments with 8-12 guys... it's exhausting and we can't/couldn't have the success we are aiming to have/have had so far this year without you guys. Your time will come, cherish your seniors while you have them as the year is almost up try to learn something from us before we are gone... I will go into this more later so I'll get back to the action now :).
Game 2 was against Northern IL and I was actually part of this game thanks to Karlson "tagging me in" from my lonely spot in HQ where I spent game 1 chasing down all the stuff that was blowing away at HQ. It was great to hear from Steve that we were in the driver seat this game with around a 6-2 lead. In particular Captain Karlson mentioned that Andrew Peterson was having a very solid game with some assists and scores. I must note that Chris D also brought 1 case of stolen Rockstar energy drink from his roommate, since the tournament was technically "sponsored" by Roskstar who his roommate has connections to but ended up bailing on us :(.
Back to the action though! I was very proud when I joined the team at the Northern game. I saw what Steve was talking about and saw many rookies playing great regardless of the steady 20mph up-wind vs down-wind play. Honestly my favorite part of tournaments is seeing our team have fun, seeing our rookies show off what they have learned, and seeing our TEAMWORK leading us to have success on the field. I am so proud to see guys like Barbarian, Andrew, Dele, Lovie, Hinze, Josh K, Brian etc make some great plays out there against a solid team like the 5th seeded Northern team. Mike Hinze also had his moments but inconsistancy in his decision making and execution continues to haunt him, it's crunch time this week and I am confident mike is going to step it up at practice and not only be a solid presence at conference and regionals this year but play a major role in the success of Reaper next year. Vets like Braydon, Hardie, Brock, Chris D, Nick, BEARMAN and Alex really took charge and stepped up, ESPECIALLY when we were going upwind. Yes we anchored those lines a lot with solid handlers like OC, Nate, Mike but we didn't really stack any of those lines and at no point did we have anything close to our universe line out there yet you vets were able to show Northern that we weren't going to let them in this game. Braydon, Brian, and Kyle especially stood out to me on defense, I recall some really great defensive bids by Chris D and Braydon. Nick and Alex moved the disc well all weekend from what I remember, they didn't stand out with flashy risky throws they often settled for the safer and smart stuff instead! Brock also impressed me this game, when he got the disc as a cutter he was always quick to hit the contuation and FOLLOW his throw, often beating his defender and catching the disc with momentum. Great game Reaper, our depth handled these first two games.
In the semi-finals we got to face Rose-Hulman, who we edged out at Chicago Invite. We knew that this game was going to be on a different level than our first two games of the day. After a turn-over heavy first point from our O-line that still ended with us converting our D line with the support of Nate/OC/Karlson/Timmy switching off on handles upwind we were able to really get some great movement upwind and convert. I think we jumped out to a bit of a lead early, like 3-1 and were able to avoid wearing our top guys out. Some guys that don't get a ton of points really stepped up and AS A TEAM, our zone D looked great, downwind we played man and zone on and off depending on the line and had success. Poppers upwind played with confident and minimized errors which was huge, guys like Traver, Zach and the Mike - Timmy combo absolutely SHREDDED the Rose Hulman zone. Chris aka "OC" aka "THOR" came up with multiple poster-worthy skies, and as the day progessed Chris's play did nothing but become smarter, as he is finally starting to get away from old habits, and is showing that he is catching on to the importantance of swings and trusting his fellow teammates and handlers. Chris's upwind throws were huge weapons for the Reaper offense. Our handlers in general in OC, Nate, Karlson really got a fantastic flow going. Downwind we opened up the lines a bit more and Rose responded with a few breaks but it was to late, Reaper advances to the finals.
The finals were against Chicago Assorted who beat us soundly the day before. It should be noted that quite a few guys on Chicago Assorted smugly reminded me at the tournament party about how they upset us on Saturday so this was a great chance to show off that sunday is a different day and that we weren't going to let someone beat us again on our home turf so easily. I don't know if we broke them or scored an O point first but whatever happened we scored and didn't look back. Chi Ass's handlers had all kinds of problems with our zone and wings/monster did an excellent job limiting them when they did get it through the cup and containing them or forcing poor throws. Our sideline did a great job early but got a little quite when when we started to pull away. Josh Hardie, Drew Traver, Motherbird, and Myself were consistantly talking on the sideline and really being that 8th man on the field, ESPECIALLY when we are playing zone up and down the field like we were this game we need the sideline on both sides of the field MOVING UP AND DOWN TALKING to the wings... to the monster... to the cup etc! I'd say basially everyone that got in this game contributed made a huge play at 1 point or another. I think we layed-out more in this game then we did in all of our previous games of the day combined. Tim, Will B, Mike, High Release, and OC all had sweet layouts and hit the dirt at some point with athletic bids/layouts. Shortly after cap blew signaling our victory Mike caught a great Callahan thrown right to him after our zone forced a high-count pass.
Last Call Recap and Thoughts Going into Conference
I think it was great to win Last Call, it was awesome seeing guys step up and results from practice show on the field. I was very proud to be able to say that I play for Eastern Illinois and get to wear our jersey. I know some guys wish they played more and if we had 10 more guys we would be able to have a B team but the fact is that we don't. Attending to practice and working hard, especially on defense is what we as captains try to go off when we call lines. Showing intensity on the sidelines and not sulking or daydreaming is also going to show us that you care about the team and make us notice you while at the same time helping your teammates on the field. This weekend I want everyone to make an effort to step it up on the sideline and keep our energy up. When we score, especially if it's impressive (haha) I want the sideline to MAKE SOME NOISE! Get on the field and give your teammates a pat on the back, slap hands, chest bump... ANYTHING! Think about NBA games... when a player is shooting free throws after the shot they almost always slap hands with there teammates, regardless if they make or miss the shot! Be in that mindset, I hope to have 20+ guys again at Conference and Regionals (mark your calenders if you haven't already... April 30th-May 1st in Rockford for Regionals). I can't stress it enough that even if you play 1-3 points a game you've got to give it your all when you step onto that field, some of you that feel you deserve more playing time consider your role on the team in a bigger picture. What will you be playing next year? Considering that we are graduating Tim Leung, Steve Karlson, Will Bearman, Nate Kinsinger, Dan Rolando, and this poor Captain. Who is going to step up next year and fill our shoes on O line and D line? You might not playing 6-10 points at conference this year but what about next year? What are the weaknesses in your game that are preventing you from being a starter this year? Think about these things and realize that our goal this weekend in Rantoul and at regionals in Rockford is to have success on the field similar to when we were up by 3+ on Rose-Hulman, or as in control as we were against Northern.
Sectionals Link - http://scores.usaultimate.org/scores/#college-open/tournament/8551
Our first game this weekend is against Illinois... starters... veterans... reaper. This game and how we handle it will set the tone for the rest of the day. The series is upon us, and I ask you all to have an underdog mentality for EVERY SINGLE GAME THIS WEEKEEND! I am telling you now we are going to get down against some teams, we are going to have silly turnovers, teams are going to get a great D on us, but when we are down in the dirt; when we are down as a team and when we mess up on the field is the moment that is going to DEFINE us this weekend. Those moments are our opportunity to RISE UP and not get down on ourselves! We've trained to long and to hard to let a teams reputation beat us. I am going to make my mark fight for every damn throw, I am going to try to stay smart on offense and keep my eyes on the best cut... NOT THE ENDZONE! On defense I am going to put 100% effort into contesting every cut I can and never hold back on bidding if I think I have a shot at the disc! I'm going to pick up my teammates up when they make errors and remind them to stick to the basics without putting them down. I'm going to say it again, our goal this weekend is to win every game we play and to have fun doing it. With that in mind I will leave you with a question, "What are you going to contribute this weekend to our success?"
-James Roush #2
No comments:
Post a Comment