CCChristmas

Alright, alright. CCC. Classic City Classic. Civilian Conservation Corps. Rhymes with pickles. Six weeks late.

Of note, pre-tournament:

-Conger's car, my car, Dan's car caravan

-Danville Goodwill

-boony ass restaurant in Danville (chuckwagon, Jesse?)

-disintegrated caravan

-Hawks v. Raptors (Randolph Morris- Kentucky; we need to go to Georgia more because their game against the Celtics last week was the ONLY FUCKING NATIONAL TV GAME THE HAWKS GET ALL SEASON)

-I am very iffy on the Rocky series. Sorry Matt.


Here we go.

Day 1:

Our first game was against Mississippi. Aside from their straight filthy jerseys, what I remember most about this game is actually the warm-up. All of the continental breakfast was gone by the time Matt, Jesse, and I got up, and since there was nothing to eat on the way there, we had to spend extra time eventually finding a Chick-fil-a (whose breakfast, I found out, is surprisingly good). Needless to say, things got going rather slowly; it was cold as shit, and I don’t think I really hit full speed or started taking things seriously until… sometime after this game. And it showed. I forced some dumb hucks that resulted in breaks when we really could have walked the disc in with ease every time, and I really just didn’t feel on top of things. In the grand scheme of things, though, this wasn’t a huge deal, as we won something like 11-5. Still, it reminded me that personally, I gotta hit the warm up sooner than most or I just won’t get into the groove I need.

I had plenty of time to do this for our next game against Illinois since we had a bye in round two. On the way over to our new field, we caught the last point between Florida and Wilmington. Man, this point was sick. It lasted like 20 minutes and each team was so cool to the other, making sure to share the disc a lot. Brodie did sick stuff like throw turnovers with his left hand and Cole did sick stuff like dump the disc to Brodie. Seriously, I’d pay like, a trillion dollars just to watch Florida post on rsd.

Fareal though, Rusty on UNC-W is a really good thrower.

We caught the tail end of Illinois-Texas once we got over, with Illinois closing out a pretty big win. I remember Robert turning to me and saying “we can beat both of these teams.” I agreed. I actually don’t remember all that much of the Illinois game. Yeah, partly because it was a month and a half ago, but also because I didn’t play that much, along with the rest of the O line. We just rolled, 11-4. People were making plays everywhere, just outrunning their guy on both sides of the disc. Their offense relied pretty heavily on handler movement (they had a couple of really quick, solid handlers who also happened to be real friendly and seemed cool), and we did a good job of slowing it down. This win was pretty big for us (as was Texas later in the day). Yeah, there’s the whole C1 thing, but also a lot of us had never played against nationals-level competition outside of our region. Winning so handily, regardless of how those teams look this year or that it was the fall, was a big deal.

Duke was next. We had seen them two weeks earlier at Wolfpack, letting them back into our semifinal game, if only for a few points. This time, we made sure not to let that happen, winning 10-4. I was somewhat concerned about their huge Ring guy because he’s huge and plays for Ring (and didn’t play at Wolfpack), but he wasn’t too much of a problem. At one point in the game, there was a pick call that Brooks didn’t hear but his receiver did. The throw went errant and it looked like an unfortunate turn, but Roy came out of nowhere and laid out in the endzone to save the possession. Unfortunately, his defender called the pick, so it wasn’t a score, but still… sick.

The low point of the day came in our next game against UNC. We lost 7-11, and our offense never really got going. They do a good job of poaching throwing lanes, and I think that we lacked the patience to work the available dump/swings as for as long as we should have. The wind didn’t help either, and since they play some key guys on both O and D, they do a better job of breaking upwind than most defenses. Our D line struggled once we got the disc, getting trapped in the downwind endzone pretty often and not being able to generate many (any?) breaks. The other big thing with this game was our general demeanor. The prior games on the day had gone real well, and spirits were very high as a result. Soon after going down to UNC, we lost some spark and went flat, something that I definitely think affected the game’s outcome. Gotta keep this in mind for the spring.

We closed out Saturday against Texas, a team who had me unsure of what to expect. They had lost to Duke pretty badly along with their Illinois loss, but with all of their Doublewide guys I expected them to be pretty good. They really didn’t pose a problem, though, and we won 11-7. Justin and Conger got on me to open up the hucking game more, and it worked out well as a number of our scores came off of long throws. I even got put in for a D point after Robert cramped… and proceeded to get run pretty hard by Franchise. He’s good… real quick and with a nice outside in backhand that he gets off for a lot of break throws, which were helpful since they ran mostly vert stack. Both Peter and Conger’s parents showed up for this game, and it was cool to see them both make some big grabs and throws (respectively, pretty much) to do a little showcasing. Also, Charlie had a really, really dirty sky in this game in a pile of five or six guys. He’s been doing that that on the regular.

So Saturday ended on a positive note—4-1 and second in the pool. We checked out the other scores at frisbee central. No surprise from pool A, with Wisconsin and Pitt taking the top spots. Pool B had gotten a little more interesting, with Minnesota winning and Florida needing a UNC-W loss to Davidson in the last round to take the second spot. Pool C was definitely the biggest shock, with Notre Dame going 5-0 and Georgia missing out on the championship bracket completely after a final round loss to Michigan. This set us up for a quarterfinals game with Notre Dame in the morning. Greg, Robert, and I came back about an hour later to hear the UPA/C1 talk, and nothing of note was really said. This is partly because Cyle didn’t show up after saying he would… there was rumor that he called a separate meeting for C1 teams only. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it’s funny nonetheless. Anyway, back to the hotel (after buying five six packs of Sweetwater Blue to bring back to Virginia) for a laid back night that included me hating on the Rocky series, a brief meeting, and chilling with some of the girls team.

Day 2:

Notre Dame, 10am. I’d say our outlook going into this game was pretty similar to that of the rest of the teams that played them over the weekend. No one knew anything about these guys, and that, coupled with their really stupid (yes, I’m bitter, fucking deal with it) camo cut offs and roaring at each other from across the field led us to not take them so seriously. Still, gotta give credit where it’s due. They were athletic, pretty disciplined, and definitely intense. We pulled to start the game, and after a nice sky from Peter to get the D, it looked like we might open with a break. They had other plans though, as his throw to Brooks was blocked by a monster layout from one of their big handlers. We traded points for a bit, but once they got a break, they kept coming, and we didn’t really get it back together. Sort of like the UNC game. Conger wasn’t playing, so our O was lacking a bit of its firepower, and try as it could, the D line just couldn’t get many breaks back. Also, they were down to throw some more unorthodox stuff (lots and lots of scoobers), which definitely made them harder to deal with on the goal line. They won something like 15-9. We should have been more with it and could have played better, but I give them credit—Notre Dame’s a really solid team. I also like that they avoided a straight up cry fest on RSD after that whole Pitt video bit… it wouldn’t exactly have been unjustified.

So, on to the chumpionship. We beat Minnesota 14-9, opening up the rotation and having a good time. Jesse balled on D as he had all weekend, catching a callahan as a result of pure hustle down on the pull—the thrower just threw an errant backhand and he was there to snatch it up. I remember Max (on O) and Brooks (on D) throwing a couple real nice hucks, Conger throwing a whole lot of high release flicks, and me throwing a few blades for scores. It was a fun game.

The next, and final game, was against Michigan, who we agreed to play to 9 because they were trying to get out of there. Will Neff didn’t play, giving me opportunity to show off my tireless trolling and tell him that I thought his SAT story was funny. I don’t remember all that much in this game, other than our team being kind of lazy and one point taking like an hour. Good plays were made (Healy had a real beast layout D), but on the whole I think we were pretty satisfied with things up to that point and didn’t mind coming away with a close win, 9-7.

WELL. There you have it, tardiness and all. CCC was a great tournament for us. With a 5th place finish overall, we beat some teams that I think most would agree are on a level we had previously not really seen, and we did it handily. Still, though, it let us know that going into the winter and early spring, there was/is plenty to be worked on, included but not limited to staying up on the sidelines and on the field after going down a few points, working against straight up marks with poaches in the lane, and running a better vert stack with the D line are all among these. Lots has been done since, but there is plenty of work on the agenda for the coming months. Keep running, duders.