Haverween Weekend

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?!?!?!

-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