casual ultimate » extreme frisbee playoffs, round one

sectionals sends machine out to the plush polo fields of naperville for the third weekend in a row. if meningitis doesn’t take down our team, this three week stretch of running on concrete will. one layout was enough to let me know that i didn’t ever want to do that again; i think the grass out there is currently more abrasive than that old-school astroturf. fortunately, we weren’t going to have to hit the ground too often to make it through to regionals.

saturday morning greeted us with crisp fall weather - clear skys and chilly air, with temps in the mid 40s. good hittin’ weather, as john madden would say. the open bracket consisted of 7 teams, which makes for a less than ideal schedule, with 2 guaranteed spots to move on to round two. but with regionals in scenic tulsa, it stands to reason that pretty much any team that wants to make the trip, will get to play. oklahoma, the sunshine state. gorgeous. gorgeous. anyway, first game puts the 1 seed (machine) against the 2 seed (haymaker), because that makes perfect sense. whatever. the game goes to machine 13-7. i think, you’ll have to verify with score reporter. during a game, i, at best, know what half we’re in. what’s the score? i don’t have a fucking clue. when people start shaking hands, that’s how i know the game is over.

next game puts machine against the wizards of ball state. for a while, i was worried they weren’t going to show, it’s not sectionals without ball state. the one thing you can ALWAYS count on from ball state - as a defender, you have no fucking idea when, how, or from where they are going huck the disc; but huck they will. they don’t give a shit if their receiver is 5′2″, 50 yards downfield, and double covered; that disc is going up. i think they scored 3 on us, in a game that lasted about 35 minutes, resulting in an hour and half wait until our next game. sweet. i love sectionals.

next game was against some team, presumably from indiana somewhere, and apparently not good at ultimate. i wish i had more to say on this one, but i don’t know what happened, i blacked out. 13-2.

at this time of the day, we’re scheduled for a 4th round bye. as is the team we’re going to play in the 5th round (illinois). and there’s an open field. wtf? i love sectionals. captaining occurs, and machine vs. illinois gets under way promptly. good work guys. illinois comes out fired up, as they always do against us; we come out mildy awake, as we always do against them. half is 7-5 machine, with our offense getting broken twice (good work us). but, we will not have a repeat of 2005, and machine takes the second half 6-1 to make the final score 13-6 (again, score reporter, it’s highly possible that i’m an idiot).

saturday night’s entertainment was supposed to be watching the michigan/notre dame game (tivoed), with tbrizzle and pfil doing shots for their respective team’s miscues. two 0-2 teams.. two rookies QBs.. the scouting report said tbr was going to be hammered quick, and that’s almost as entertaining as drunk cho. but someone had to go throw a wrench in those plans. dissappointing to say the least.

meanwhile, back at sectionals sunday morning. first round bye for machine, awesome. apparently some team bailed saturday night, which left the schedule at one more game of round robin, then finals. the last round robin game was illinois B. we almost let them score a point, but brown bear had some sweet goal-line D to deny the youngsters. 13-0 machine. saturday afternoon, illinois had beaten haymaker in a tight game to take over the #2 spot and earned the right to play us again in the finals. again, illinois was hanging around early in the game, thanks to some offensive miscues by machine. but again, we woke up at halftime and only let them get one in the second half. 13-6 maybe? yay, machine is sectional champs. sweet.

at this point, some rookies went on a beer run, and we settled in to watch the haymaker/illinois rematch game-to-go; or some meandered over to heckle the briefcasers. post-tourney shenanigans included:
- watching football on a tv that schulz brought out (plugged into tbr’s truck for power).
- brown bear trying to make me do a shot of soco with him. no way i’m sharing a bottle with menigitis boy, so i suggest we wrestle for it; he wins i do a shot. i think you can guess what happened.
- kolb getting hammered off 2.5 old styles and running around the coed field between points.