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| My phone's attempt at photography. Look at that tree! |
Haverween
Haverween was the last
tournament of the fall season for the Jive Turkeys and is probably my favorite tournament of the fall. The last couple years we’ve
had beautiful weather here and quality fields. The weather looked good and there were a number of
teams attending that we will play in the spring. To quote Captain Tenneal, LET'S GO!
Saturday
The weekend began with
an early morning wakeup for the Jive Turkeys. With most of the team arriving for the 6AM departure (Kilburn showed up late, like a sir), we hit the turnpike
still feeling the effects of a raucous Friday night. No matter. Our first game was at 9AM
against F&M and we wanted to win the pool. We almost showed up late,
however, when traffic came to a complete stop because a horrific accident was being
tended to. My car got to the fields at 8:50, so a warm up was out of the
question. Classic hungover Turks. We able to come out firing against F&M and opened up a 7-2 lead until
completely losing focus and entering half-time down 8-7 to, by all accounts, a
vastly inferior team. We remembered Trevor's old rally cry of “A lot more better”
and we had no problems breaking apart their zone in the second half. We were relaxed
and confident and won 14-11. Not the start we were looking for, but a win is a
win.
Messiah-B was next and
was a quick, fun, and comfortable win. Aside from a couple of veterans,
we were obviously playing a pretty inexperienced team. I was happy to see us
stay intense in a lopsided game. We were able to clean us some
of the mistakes from the F&M and really get warmed up before game three,
the toughest test of Saturday, against Villanova.
I only remember playing
Villanova once before, freshman year at St. Joseph’s tournament. This team
could not have been more different (and not just because we weren't drinking Jäger against them). They were quick, confident, and athletic.
Nova’s strength was in their handlers, who were largely freshman and
sophomores. We played them tight the entire game, but our lack of depth on
Saturday seemed to hurt us towards the end round three. We fought for the
entire game but lost 15-10. It was a strong performance from Jive considering
we were without some A-team players and, despite the loss, many of us felt
that this was the best game of the day. I would love a rematch against
Villanova in the spring will a full squad.
Game four on Saturday
was the first game of Championship bracket against Philly U. It was another
fun, but not particularly tight game. We showed some strong zone defense early
and ran an extremely effective two-handler zone offense. Much like Messiah-B,
the game against Philly U represented a chance for everyone to get playing
time, and this was one of the best performances for our newer players of the
fall season. Jive won comfortably 14-7 and was looking forward to a
Quarterfinal matchup against Drexel the next morning. All in all, Saturday was a great day of Ultimate for Jive. We had to play a different style of offensive without Simon and Trevor, but Slap and Salad were great as the main handlers. Additionally, our in-cutting, not our deep-cutting dominated our opponents, which has not been the case this fall.
Sunday
Losing sucks. Losing to the same team multiple times sucks harder. For this reason, I wanted nothing more than to ruin
Drexel’s weekend with a win in the Quarterfinals. We’d struggled against them
at the past two Haverween tournaments, and it was time to finally change
that. The game started close, but Jive was the stronger defensive team, forcing
turnovers and hand-blocking the same handler three times in a row (one for me,
two for Simon. Suck it Drexel handler). Fun fact: if you want to get in a
team’s head, hand-blocking their main handler is a pretty good way to start. We
entered half down by one goal, but stormed out of the break to take five of the
next six points to go up 12-9. The game was comfortable from there on out, as
Jive won 15-11 to advance to the semis against Haverford.
Jive had traditionally
been very successful against Haverford and we started this game strongly by
going ahead 3-0. This run proved unsustainable, however, as Haverford took the
next three points to even at 3-3. Neither team ever took a large lead the rest
of the game. In a call plagued by long arguments, Jive led 10-9 when hard-cap
went on. We only needed one goal to win, but could not punch in the final
score, as Haverford evened at 10-10. The game proved a heartbreaking loss for
Jive, as Haverford caught the final score. After we defended their deep
look, a trailing Haverford player was able to lunge for the disc and score on
Universe Point to beat us 11-10.
We were unlucky on many
D’s this weekend, and to lose on a deflection is never easy. Nonetheless, I
think one of the best parts of this final fall tournament was our ability to
stay composed and not disrupt our game plan by getting angry. We’ve lost focus
at times due to getting too frustrated over small mistakes. It’s hard to think
of many instances where we beat ourselves this weekend, and I think the team
should be proud of this. We may not have won the tournament this year, but our
focus was much improved and we gelled as a team more than in previous
tournaments. It really felt like we had meaningful contributions from everyone. For that, kudos to everyone who came this weekend. I could not
have asked for a better way to close out my Fall career as a Jive Turkey. Even
if you do not win the tournament, you can always find ways to make your team
better, and we did just that.
Select Highlights
-Against F&M,
Milstein and Emery dared us to force a turnover as fast a possible. On the first throw
after the pull, I hand-blocked their main handler. Under 20 seconds? I think
so
-Kellen’s “Gronk-spike”
against Messiah-B and his absurdly massive catch against Villanova over two of
their defenders
-Jive Corgis!
-We talking about Tong Fest?!?!?!
-We talking about Tong Fest?!?!?!
-Slap’s epic pull that
was dropped by the dude on Philly U (not “Philly U Guy,” though.)
-Dandy’s box-outs
-Ruining Drexel’s
weekend
-Huge layouts D’s
against Haverford
-Brian Manning, Travis Miller and the entire Jive party crew on Saturday night
-Salad and I stealing a
sign about pooping and calling a random Haverford girl to wish her happy
birthday
