Sectionals

College Sectionals

The spring season was immensely frustrating for the Jive Turkeys, but West Penn Sectionals was our chance to finally play with a full roster and in good weather. Oh, and if we finished in the top-2 for our conference, we’d make Regionals for the four straight year. Oh, and we wanted to go undefeated. Decent stakes, I guess. So decent, in fact, that Jive did not drink on Friday night so we could rest up. Let’s hope that was a good decision.

Saturday

The first day was pool play, and games began at 8AM, so we had to be at the new-and-less-comfortable cushies by 6:25 so we could prepare for round 1 against our rivals the Messiah Mammoths. Of course my car had a delay, as it took Max about half an hour to get his food from Sheetz. This did not give us a lot of time to warm up, but we came out with good energy. Jive and Messiah traded points for the entirety of the first half, and eventually Messiah took half at 8-7. Our offense was working well, and we were converting our deep looks, but our man defense let us down, and we could never got a real lead. That changed in the second half, and we came out strong and marched to 12-9 before Messiah climbed back to make it 12-11. The game got pretty heated at the end, but we put it away at 15-12. We expected this to be a tough game, and it did not disappoint. We were confident, and our defense was much improved in the second half.

Probably got beat deep or something lame

The second game was against Clarion, typically one of our conferences weaker opponents. They were much improved from last year, however, and we traded points early on. Our zone defense, which we have practiced at all of the (few) practices we’ve had was not working, so we switched to man, believing that if we shut down their main cutter/handler-bro, we’d be fine. Sure enough, once we made it more difficult for him to get the disc, Clarion struggled, relying on hammers and low-percentage hucks. Not a problem, and we won comfortably 15-8 (remember this score).

Up third was Bucknell. We have some history with the Mud Sharks (see: Simon’s “you’re too fat to play Ultimate” insult in 2011, our Universe Point game to go to Regionals in 2012, and B-team playing them this year at High Tide), but this was a different team, probably a better team. Apparently they had some YCC player who was supposedly pretty good, but I try not to think about those details. We went up 2-0, and scored at a 2:1 ratio until half-time. I try not to include personal details in these write-ups until the end, but I’m going to note that I had three layout D’s on their “YCC bro.” Welcome to college son. We stormed out of half-time, played really strong man defense and converted our hucks for a 15-8 win. Three down, one to go on Saturday.

Pictured: Beat shit

Last was the UPJ Flood, another team we’ve played many times. They gave us some trouble last year; they threw a bunch of crap and converted all of it. We did not really know how to stop a swill-throwing team. Well, this was a new year, so we forced backhand! Und it worked. The Flood don’t seem to believe in dumping the disc, instead expecting their cutters to jam it up the line (like we used to!) and complete risky passes on route to the end zone. At times it worked, but more often than not we smothered their cutters and got turns. This game was never particularly close, and in some sort of cosmic coincidence we won it 15-8 as well. Four games, four wins. This meant we had one more pool play game on Sunday, against the Funk, and then the championship game. Like Friday, most of Jive stayed sober, preferring to hydrate with Select 55s before Sunday.

Sunday

Day two meant another early wakeup, but thankfully Max did not order more hot food from Sheetz and we had plenty of time to warm up. And what a tremendous warm up it was as we pumped ourselves up with the help of Armin van Buuren, the real AVB, not this AVB. Serious bangers on Intense. We won our first flip of the tournament and opted to pull. Because we suck, we immediately got beat deep. Good start, fellas. The mistake proved anomalous, as we responded and took half at 8-3. From half we rattled off 7 straight points and won 15-3. This was a good game to warm up for the finals, and we got to cycle many of the 22 players we brought with us.

Starfish stretch. 

Aside from us and the Funk (undefeated and utterly defeated respectively), our pool was a mess, and we had to wait to find out what team we were playing. Naturally, it was Messiah. This game meant a lot to us, and to them, as they were defending West Penn conference champs. No matter how ready they thought they were, nobody was more amped up for this game than we were. With the Xplöde blasting Hans Zimmer’s Man of Steel theme and music from The Dark Knight Rises, I can speak for everyone as saying we were fucking stoked. Much like Saturday’s game, both teams traded points to start, and we were tied 3-3. Jive then converted on the next three points, before Messiah called time out, then proceeded to even things at 6-6. We had our deep game working again, but our man defense was inconsistent: sometimes shut down, other times lackadaisical. We did take half, though, at 8-7. The game stayed tight, and a little chippy. It was hard to get a lead of more than two, but we were ahead all half, and eventually worked the score to 14-11. We had Messiah right where we needed them, on their heels and with a lot of work left to do, but we played sloppily, not converting our chances, and they made it close at 14-13. We were upwind the next point, but we had contracted our offense well all weekend, and we worked it up the field with a great 40-yard swing pass from Simon to Kilburn. It almost went to shit when Simon floated a short backhand over my head, but Dane made a tremendous diving catch to salvage the throw. He dished it back to Simon, who shimmied a short backhand to me in the end zone for goal 15.

As you can expect, it went all Pete Tong from there. Jive had taken care of business, going 6-0 and winning the conference for the first time since 2011. This tournament was our chance to make a statement, to prove to the other teams that just because we did not make the rankings or have enough (see: any) results, we were still one of our regions contenders. But the best thing, I think, was just being back on an Ultimate field with this team. The winter was rough, and it seemed a lot of us got cabin fever after a while. I think of this team as a great social community, and hanging out with everyone on campus is terrific, but there was no balance between campus and tournaments. Sectionals came at a perfect time. We got to play well and win the tournament, and I was reminded of why I love tournaments so much. Our camaraderie is terrific, and is built more so on the field than at any house party. Now we get to build on this positive experience in two weeks time at Regionals as one of Ohio-Valley’s top seeded teams. There are three bids to Nationals up for grabs, and the Jive Turkeys are ravenous. Let's goooo!

Select Highlights:

-Skying fools in the Messiah game

-Casper’s phantom D’s against Clarion (PUNZZZZ)

-Lev dropping that flick huck. I’ll forgive you one day

-The Union Dutchmen winning the Frozen Four (not Ultimate, so what)

-Getting D’s caught for points. This happened a lot.

-Sideline music of AVB and Hans Zimmer

-Milstein booting Sunday morning

-Kilburn battling through injuries and scoring deep looks

-JIVE CORGIS!!!!

-Simon’s terrific turns against UPJ: “I’m stuck in defense mode” –Simon

-Joe walking 27 miles at Relay for Life Friday AND THEN throwing points on Saturday. Legend.

-Winning mother fucking Sectionals by going 6-0.