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| The Jive Turkeys right after beating Georgetown 15-14 |
After weekends at Vassar and Gettysburg, and our own Jive Fest, it was time for the Jive Turkeys to head to Reston, VA for Georgetown's fall tournament Huck Off the Hilltop. The tournament, advertised as competitive with a lot of D-1 schools, was slated to be a good determiner of where we were as a team before the spring season. For a team with aspirations of making College Nationals in May, we were excited, but unsure of what to expect.
As a result of some bizarre scheduling, our games on Saturday did not actually start until 1PM. Our pool included Carnegie Mellon, Towson, and Delaware-X, and it seems that Georgetown structured the pools and game times around team's travel times. Whatever. Not complaining about playing games at 1PM, 2:30PM, and 4PM on the first day.
Saturday
The first test was Carnegie Mellon, and while the weather was not bad, per se, some pretty heavy winds led to the some sloppy play. Both teams struggled downwind, with the first seven points being scored upwind (in favor of Jive 4-3). The game remained tight until half time. Jive went into the break up 7-6 thanks to aggressive defensive play and good end zone offense. It was an intense game throughout, and we needed to make big plays in the second half to open up a small lead. Because of the short rounds and weather, hard cap went on about 15 minutes after half time and the game ended 9-7 in Jive's favor. A win over a D-1 team that consistently makes Regionals was a great start.
Game two was against Towson and the 500 people that they brought with them. I actually asked one of their players when they had such a large team with them, and he told me that they were making A-team cuts next week, and anyone with a shot had to come to the tournament. Fair enough, I suppose, although Towson's "depth" never seemed to matter. Jive came out with strong zone defense and immediately flustered the handlers and opened up a 3-0 lead. The game was never close after the first three points and Jive took the win at 13-4. Because of the wide margin of victory, this game was a good chance to cycle our players more than we did against CMU. We had 16 people with us, and the Towson game was the best time for everyone to get playing time.
The last game of the day came against Delaware-X, another D-1 team trying to polish its roster at the end of the fall season. Their previous game didn't look particularly impressive, and we went into this contest a little too confident in our superiority. We made dumb decisions, played lazy defense, but did enough to reduce the deficit from 6-2 to 7-6 by half time. It is one thing to be confident, but we can never assume that we will roll over a team. Lesson learned for the second half, as Delaware never seemed to be as threatening. Our zone offense clicked and the defense started making plays and we won 13-8.
Sunday
Day two started at 9AM. Our matchup was against Georgetown, the tournament's host and a Regionals-level team that spent much of Saturday mixing its roster with veterans and new players. This would not be the case on Sunday, as it was Georgetown's A-team that we were up against. We were pumped for this game: we had won our pool the day before and wanted to advance further in the Championship bracket. We knew that Georgetown was better than their Saturday record of 1-2 indicated.
The first half was close and Jive took it 8-7, but the second half was immense. The two teams traded points for almost the entire game. Jive made a number of big plays, both offensively and defensively, but could not pull away, instead getting broken for a couple scores after half time. We went down 14-12, but we were able to tie it up at 14s. Hard cap had come on, so this game was going to end on Universe point. We pulled, Georgetown turned the disc, followed by us turning the disc. It worked out perfectly, however, as Georgetown earned the disc back on the corner of their own end zone line. Instead of moving the disc down the field, Georgetown tried a swing and it fell incomplete. Jive only needed to convert the goal line pass to win. Relying on the same isolation cutting that had worked so well all tournament, Jive punched in the goal and took a thrilling 15-14 victory. It was a huge win, hard-fought and also well-deserved.
The semi-final game was against Lehigh, a team we've played before and will certainly play again this spring. Our legs were shot, and Lehigh had not really been tested in their first game of the day. We lost 15-4, but this game would not belittle the tremendous accomplishment of our universe point victory against Georgetown.
The victory against Georgetown was the most exciting and rewarding Fall Season game that I've been a part of during my four years with Jive. It was such an important indicator of where are as a team currently, and how much better we can become. We never quit, even after going down multiple times late in the game. We did not lose our heads after a couple of untimely mistakes and pushed and pushed for the final point. Huck Off the Hill will be a tournament that I will long remember, and hopefully is just the start for this year's Jive Turkeys.
Select Highlights:
-Grefe playing with the team both days. Bowman and Faithful being team cheerleaders
-Post skying that Georgetown dude twice, getting hacked, and calling "AND ONE" after both goals
-Dane's ridiculous sky-D against CMU. That kid never stood a chance.
-Moller, 5'6", guarding Falcore, 6'4" from Lehigh. He'll sky him next time.
-Air Joeldan
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