Rider, Day 2

We got an e-mail late Saturday night. Three people looked at it and had decided that we didn't need to show up until 1020. Upon further review today I can see how that logic is flawed. It was. We got a call from some bro that BJC knows (AKA Everyone) and missed our first game. Don't worry, it was double elimination. Before we left, Rob's mom (BEST MOM YES) again had cookies, brownies, cupcakes, coffee and tea ready for us before we left. 

We show up somewhat on time and meet up with David to find the field for the 2nd game. It was Goucher again. They wanted to go eat wings instead of play Frisbee, although they did propose to play a game of WAH for it. I was happy to go that route, but the legislation never passed. We got our first win of the tournament. Because of this bye we now didn't have a game until 2pm. For those keeping score at home, that is a lot of hours to wait. 

BJC and David played for Montclair St. to pass the time. Rob, some blonde chick sitting out for Montclair, and I played Fantasy. I of course 1st picked some guy wearing a hat that was number 4. Everyone knows that the best player on the team is both always a handler and always wears number 4. Rob picked a Freshman. This would lead one to beleive that I would easily win this game. Unofrtunately, I lost -2 to 6. I failed to notice that Number 4 (Montclair) had a nosering. Thems the beats.

We ate some (someone ate a lot of them) cookies that we had from Rob's house and went to go get Bagels at some place that was probably a Bruggers and just changed its name. David paid for my bagel (Sugar Cinnaminidfjksfhsdkljf obv.) because I am a bum and my money was in Rob's car. The bagel was passable. It tasted like food.

Our final game of the tournament was against some team wearing black. Our injuries were alright, but people were definitely tired. I liked our chances considering it was our only game that day and David was fresh. We went down some ungodly amount of points (5?) through our normal tactics of dropping passes and swilly throws. At some point they threw zone at us for two points and then never threw zone again. I wish we weren't so completely dominant at dismanting a zone so we could play against it more since that is really my only strength as a handler (ten yard forehands). Regardless, we came back after half and we got soft-capped making the game to 12, brought it to 11-9, and got hard-capped after scoring to make it 11-10.

This was our third game losing by 1 point. Two were comebacks, one we lost it after having 3 game points (two on offense). There are several reasons behind this.

List:

• We take too long to get into games. Either we don't warm up enough (Showing up the fields late, Jerking off, etc.) or we don't get mentally into the game. We often come back after half because we spent the entire first half warming up.
• We don't make mid-game adjusments, often waiting until half. This is waiting too long. We can't give up 3-4 points trying to sort stuff out until half. 
• We get complacent(sup 2x4) when up by a few points. We think that we are just a better team than them and don't play as motivated. This also happens when we are down.
• There are three ways to handle pressure. One is to be dwarfed by it and have your game suffer. Two is to ignore it and play your normal game. Three is to use it and play above yourself. There is no one on this team that is in the third category. 
• That was a list inside a list. What up.
• We don't have a kill-switch. We can't say on the line "We're taking this point" and know that we're taking the point. This isn't to say we don't have the play to be able to run something and get the point, but we need to be able to just turn it on and take a point or half.
• Taking too long on the line. We get hard-capped enough that we should not be taking a minute+ figuring out who is covering who and what side to force. This is a simple thing that can be taken care of before the line is out and we literally needed ten seconds longer to force universe point in our last game.
• I forgot the rest. Should have written an outline.

I rode home with David/Ellen/Tom. I played ff5 and had to pee really bad.

Props --

Rob's mom. The best.

Fields. Not the best, but at least they were a normal size. They also didn't cancel the tournament even though the fields got owned.

Alex for not turning the disc over like ever.

Rob for finding out the password to his wireless internet

Wireless internet

Slops --

Sloppy fields

Rob's car almost exploding

$9 tolls

Tolls

unnessecarily long slops lists

Bridges

2-3 subs

injuries

Dropping pancakes

Getting caught in the thunderstorm while carrying my stuff inside and then getting bluff checked by the rain and Tom.

I have come to the conclusion that this team could be anywhere from the best team at a tournament to the worst depending on how many pancake catches we want to drop. We easily would have won 4/6 games this weekend if we caught most of them and would have been in our remaining two games instead of getting blown out by ten.  

This is honestly because of one thing -- Practice intensity. Every sports program places a premium on practice intensity because it is difficult to play at one speed all week/month and then just turn it on for the weekend. Not sprinting(sprinting>running) during drills and things like that affect your play during the weekend even if you are already a good player. Sloppy play and organization during practice translates into sloppy play and organization at a tournament. Every player at Rider droped passes, every player made bad throws, every player made poor decisions. You can always get better. 

Sports.