What happened in March

The past two weekends, UVA has played in Southerns and Easterns. We went 7-1 at the former, losing to Cornell in the finals, 8-10, and posted a record of 5-1 at the latter, losing to Middlebury in the finals, 10-15. So, two finals losses in 8 days. Kinda sucks, but being all that upset at going 13-2 over the course of two tournaments would be pretty silly, especially given that Cornell and Middlebury are proving to be pretty high-caliber teams this season. 

Here are the write-ups. Given that Southerns was over a week ago and I want to avoid vague rambling, I'll keep my thoughts more or less confined to the finals. With Easterns, I'll give a bit more, but I'm hoping to be more concise both to avoid unnecessary fluff that draws on and on and so that I can hopefully get the ball rolling on getting some stuff up that I've been thinking about for a while now. More to come on that...

Southerns

Our first game was against St. Olaf, and we barely managed to take half at 7-6. Things turned out fine, and we won 15-11, but I'd like to think that this game was the last time we'll need to be reminded of how important it is to warm up well and to come out sharp. Because really, no one cared about that warm up.

Playing Paidea was a lot of fun. As anyone familiar with their program could have told me, those kids can ball, and I don't just mean that they're fundamentally sound.  Many of them did, in fact, have just as good of throws as some of our guys, and their cutting was extremely well-coordinated. Beyond that, though, a few of them were not all that easy to cover, and they made a grab or two that really impressed me. Not that one game provided too much insight, but observing Baccarini was also cool.

After Paidea and before the finals, we played Oberlin (W 15-4), Brown in our crossover (W 11-9; Conger had the sickest Greatest I've ever seen), South Carolina in the Pre-Quarters (W 11-6), Williams in the Quarters (W 13-10), and UMass in the Semis (W 15-6). Our defense was good, offense as well at some points, big plays made by many, yada yada.

Then came the finals with Cornell, which, now that I've gotten around to it, isn't even a game that I care to recount all that much. My thoughts are as follows: we were exhausted by the time the game started, with only 14 guys able to play. We didn't make the necessary adjustments on defense (they run a horizontal cut across the field and then go in or out and repeat; a bracket/clam type D works well). They've got talent, but use calls like travels and picks to slow down team flow. One of their players also made one of the worst calls I've ever seen (and this is coming on the heels of watching and heckling a HORRIBLE call in the Rutgers v. Georgia Tech game the day before), mauling Conger before he could even jump and then contesting the foul on the basis that they were both going for the same space. Getting open on them isn't all that hard, but they do an above average job of closing that gap, getting a couple of layout Ds on late throws that were completed earlier in the weekend. On that note, the teams we had played thus far were, to be honest, not all that good, and we allowed our attitude from those games to carry over. We dug a hole 4-9 but came back to get it to 7-10, then scoring after the hard cap had gone on, capping off the comeback with an 8-10 loss. On top of being unorganized, this paragraph is likely one of the whinier and bitchier offerings that I've had for the public in a while, but oh well. Moving on...

Final thoughts on Southerns: Seeing Brooklyn was tight, and I think we all played better thanks to his presence. Juvie, if you're out there, see you at Regionals?????

Easterns

The following is an adaptation of an email that I wrote to enquiring members of the Floodwall list this morning. Again, more brief than usual.

Our Saturday pool got reduced from 5 teams to 4 and the point cap extended to 17 after Edinboro got in a car accident the night before (they're all ok... two cars totaled, but nothing more than concussions from what we've been told), so after a good warm-up, we got to sit around for two hours. We then played Queens-Kingston, Georgetown, and JMU. Queens-Kingston ran a decent zone and fouled a lot on the mark, but we won 17-10, the Georgetown game got downright sloppy because the wind and rain started to pick up but we won 17-6, and JMU gave us a game, taking it to 17-15. I think that JMU really gets up when they play us, both because we share a section and because a lot of people know each other. This game was obviously big for Moonshine, and we wouldn't have won had he not told us all of their deepest, darkest secrets. 

On Sunday, we got a first round bye and were set to play the winner of Georgia-Virginia Tech. I think that Tech was up something like 8-5 when I got there, and they looked to be in control, but Georgia finally got their act together and came from behind to win 17-15. Virginia Tech seemed pretty jacked to be up on Georgia, and I think they just collapsed when the momentum swung. I saw Peter Dempsey make a huge layout D at some critical point, and that was cool. 

We then beat Jojah 13-9. They were missing a couple of good players, but the game went rather smoothly for us, and I think that they got a break or two toward the end when we opened the rotation up a bit. Whether or not this is a down year for Georgia is yet to be seen (really, they're pretty enigmatic: winning Warm Up and Queen City is a pretty big deal, but 0-7 at Stanford and a pretty bad [by their own standards, I'm sure] Easterns makes you wonder), but beating them was a pretty big deal for our program. The last time we even played, from what I know, was Regionals 2005, UVA's last big shot at Nationals, where in the Quarterfinals Phil Altman had a disc controversially ruled down, someone bitched and moaned rather than getting back on D, and Dylan skied for the Jojah win to send us home. So yeah... nice to beat a big program from our region. 

Our next game was against Wilmington. We came out with two breaks that we promptly gave back and then some, with them eventually being up 5-3. We then scored and broke back, and I believe that it was at 5s when a Wilmington player got TMF'd when he came in real late and managed to hook his arm around Matt's neck, slamming his face into the ground. Whether or not the call was warranted, Wilmington sure didn't like it, and after the player in question got a second TMF for expressing his displeasure, one of their coaches decided to get on board and told the observer to give him one as well. So he did. We got the disc on their brick, scored for the break, and never looked back, winning 12-8. Everyone knows that those guys' MO is to act like jackasses, but it certainly backfired on them in this case.

Here are my quick thoughts on the TMF: I was standing on the sideline where it happened, and witnessed the play in its entirety. When the Wilmington kid started his bid, the disc was still somewhat playable. When he collided with Matt, it had already been D'd, but he couldn't have known that, and you can't fault him for trying to make the play. Where you can fault him, in my opinion, is the arm hook. Still, in thinking back to the play from '07 Nationals where the GOAT player brought down Bravo's Matt Lipscomb, I can definitely see where there is at least a slight chance that these kinds of plays happen out of effort to brace the impacted player for the fall. Ok, so maybe the guy is in the clear there. But for me, the real kicker is the transition from picture 4 to picture 5. In 4, the UNC-W player is laid out fully, with his right arm around Matt's neck. In 5, his knees and lower body have come down, but instead of letting go and allowing himself to fall, he holds on, putting his own safety above that of our player when it was him who made the bid in the first place. With all of the grey area leading up to what happened, I think the TMF was called for. There's my two cents.

So then we had the finals against Middlebury. We agreed not to use observers and to work all calls out amongst ourselves both because we're friends with a number of their guys and because we felt that we could live up to this idealistic approach. This choice has definitely gotten some attention, and I plan on writing some more on it in the coming days. I will say this: I think that that approach at the beginning of the game took us off of our edge a bit, given that we had just come from an intense game with UNC-W. Basically, I think that we lost some focus and allowed ourselves to assume that because the game didn't need observers (it didn't), it would be easy. In no way, however, do I think that this was a ploy or a plan or a plot on the part of Middlebury. I do not think that they took this into account in the slightest. It's very important for US to understand that playing balls out, focused ultimate and being spirited are absolutely not mutually exclusive. So yeah... we lost 15-10 to a Middlebury team that ran an extremely coordinated zone and had some really talented players. Having played both Harvard and Brown, I really think that Middlebury is the best team in the Northeast.

That's that. Two finals in 8 days, two silver medals. Kind of annoying, but not shitty by any means. If we win out at Sectionals, which we certainly have the talent to do, we should get a 2 seed at Regionals, making the road to Nationals a bit easier on us. And, just to be clear, making Nationals for the first time in UVA's history is still our goal and expectation. 

Throwing while tired

Throwing when you're tired is obviously really important. Long points where you're constantly changing direction at full speed on either side of the disc make moving it once it's in your hands a bit trickier than, say, tossing back and forth on the Lawn. 

In a game situation, the most important aspects of making sure that your throws are as sharp as they were on the first point Saturday lie in making smart choices rather than which throw you actually make: since quick disc motion gives cutters a much bigger margin of error (more on this soon) and dump throws are very high percentage, you're probably doing yourself and your team a favor if you spend more time looking for quick disc movement rather than a big gain. Everyone knows the feeling of frustration that comes from seeing a sloppy throw (usually a break attempt or a huck to someone who's not all that open) get turned over just after an intense effort to get a turn or work the disc the length of a field, and not forcing the issue upfield becomes critical when everyone is tired. 

Fatigue, though, shouldn't completely alter the offensive gameplan: if what you do is make 15-yard throws to open in-cuts, that shouldn't change. The problem, though, is that it often gets sloppier because remaining mechanically sound takes energy, which is already at a premium. For example, the first thing to go for people when they're tired is stepping out and bending at the knees rather than the waist, and standing straight up often leads to unbalanced or turfed throws.  When you're tired, you have to make sure carry out the fundamentals that make for accuracy and consistency. 

The concept of muscle memory makes a lot of sense to me, and we've all heard it said a lot that practicing your throws while tired goes a long way toward solidifying good habits for when the feeling strikes in a game. While throwing after a recent workout, I started to see throwing while tired as a progression, with certain throws and their accompanying fundamentals as predecessors to others. I think the following could be a useful checklist for practicing your throws while tired, whether after a workout or before a game late in a day or tournament.

1. Accuracy. Obviously, even a well-thrown disc won't do your team any good if it's to the wrong spot. When you're tired, throwing accurately often means taking some heat off and, at first, just guiding them to the spot. From there, look to throw with more spin and build up to the various speeds at which you're typically comfortable releasing the disc. 
2. Throw quickly. Once you're accurate and throwing at normal speed, work on pivoting and faking and actually releasing the disc at game speed. It's important to make sure you're on target first, since a lot of errant throws come from trying to move quickly but without much focus.
3. Throw from different release points. Now that you've built back up to accurate throws that are released and fly at game speed, work on the various release points that you would normally use in a game.

My basic point in wanting to get this out there is to stress the idea that throwing is a pretty layered process, and that when there's something making it more difficult than usual, it helps to start from the beginning and build up to the point where it's easy. Now that I've typed this entry out, I'm thinking that this kind of approach should definitely made when other elements (wind, anybody?) are altering your throws relative to how they come out when you're most comfortable. Also, what I listed above is really just what I think makes most sense as far as getting on top of things, but maybe others would order them differently or add other building blocks?

 

One last thing: now that you've read this, if you want the Clifnotes, peep Zip's Tips March 17 and 18, 2003:

• March 17: during a long point or a long game your body tends to get physically tired. people yelling at you and pushing you on or telling yourself to keep working are both good ways to keep your physical output high. a much more difficult aspect of fatigue is to keep your mental game on point. some keys to achieving this and also playing well when you are mentally tired:  1)only take higher percentage throw options. your receiver is probably tired as well and he may not be able to let out a long huck. also, even the best of the best don't have as good throws when they are tired-- instead, they just have a very good sense of which throws they still have.

• March 18: throw when fatigued: after a hard track workout or practice make sure to pencil in 10 more minutes of practice time. throw thirty forehands and thirty backhands and focus on making them good. it is not often that you get a chance to throw when you are very tired and it is extremely important to be able to maintain your throws late in a tournament. 

And with that, I'm out. Goodbye, Spring Break.