Log Jam Writeup from Jon

Teammate Jon came through with a Log Jam writeup from the FSM perspective. Probably only of interest to participants...

Game 1: vs. Middlebury

Most of us showed up kind of late, and we didn't do a lot of warmup. Most of Middlebury was way faster than most of us, but luckily the young whippersnappers made lots of unforced errors. We played terribly for much of this game. During the stretch when we were playing lousy, we typically got possession of the disc three or four times per point, but could not execute our throws. Lots of turfed throws, inaccurate throws, miscommunications on dumps, etc. A few bad decisions, but mostly just bad throws or crossed signals on pretty good decisions. They took a 10-5 lead. We were very disgruntled. I think I saw some people making cell phone calls during halftime, to see if they could get a spot on another team or something. Then all of a sudden, things changed. We played slightly more conservatively on offense, but it was mainly just that a much higher percentage of our throws were now accurate. We went on what seemed like a very quick and easy 8-1 run to win the game 13-11. There were a few spectacular plays during the run, particularly a huge layout D block by Alec.

Game 2: vs. Chuck Wagon

Chuck Wagon = home team, mostly from Burlington. They beat us pretty convincingly at sectionals last year, won the section, and finished 6th at Northeast open regionals. We played reasonably well early on, taking a 6-5 lead. Seemed like our offense was pretty efficient and our defense adequate. Then they very quickly took advantage of some dumb turnovers to go on a 3-0 run and take half 8-6. Disappointingly, the game was capped at 10 at halftime (!) due to Chuck Wagon's first round game having run way over time. We traded points in the second half to lose 10-8. Still, an improvement for us over our previous meeting with CW, it seems like we legitimately threatened to win this game, sort of.

Bye:

Apparently, much Koob was played. Ancient Viking lawn bowling game, sounds like fun. Also, the inevitable rains begin, and the rain continued intermittently and with increasing intensity through the evening. Cassin, Lester and I went to a coffee shop for lunch and to stay dry, so I have little to report with respect to Koob.

Game 3: vs. East River Yacht Club

This is something like the #3 club team from New York City. They have some pretty good players but make a lot of unforced turnovers. We took care of business pretty efficiently in this one, and won 15-2, similar to the outcome when we played them at WMO. The game was notable for perhaps the worst shanked pull in team history, by yours truly. But we scored that point anyway, so cut me some slack. I think this was also the game where Jim B had a titanic layout D. Thank you very much, Burpees. I can only imagine what would happen if we all worked out as hard as Jim (of course, in my case, I learned this weekend that the answer is "debilitating achilles tendon disorder," but for the rest of you...)

Game 4: vs. PoNY

PoNY is the #1 club team out of NYC, and finished 5th at NE Regionals last year. It was a close game until early in the second half. Then we completely fell apart. The extended display of haplessness included a couple of devastating turnovers on what would otherwise have been short throws for scores for us, that were quickly returned all the way up the field for PoNY scores. They go on something like a 7-1 run to win 15-7.

So we played to seed on Saturday, finished the day 2-2, 3rd in our pool, and were scheduled to play the #2 seed from the other pool in the quarterfinals Sunday morning. By now it was pouring rain, so the outdoor tourney party was pretty much cancelled. No Koob for you. I did a 10-minute ice bath, which was absolutely excruciating, but my legs felt like new afterwards. Rich later did the same, but with even more ice, I feared for his life.

Quarterfinals: vs. Zebra Muscles

Zebra Muscles is the Rochester club team, a middle-of-the-pack performer at NE regionals every year. They were young and quick and played great man defense. We had a small early lead, but then fell behind 7-5 during an ugly stretch. I think I had at least 3 stall-nine turnovers during this run, where it looked to me like all the cuts and dumps were completely covered and often clogging each other to boot. Sorry. Better dump cuts and especially better chiliness from me should fix that in the future. I'm always yelling at people that they should never look off the dump, but I definitely looked the dump off at least once out of frustration when my glares failed to impel action. Someone suggested an L-stack set up where we always have two dump cuts going in opposite directions, I like that idea. Anyway, mistakes were made, and we were sniping at each other. Jim O wisely called a TO and told everybody to stop criticizing each other and to work on doing the ho-stack right. We then got our acts together, with the O team players doing a very nice job with the ho-stack, and before we knew it we took half 8-7. In there somewhere, a tightly covered Alec made a beautiful catch of my huck, which helped me feel not totally useless. Thanks Alec!

We began the second half trading points. Swilly hucks to Jed were unstoppable, he boxes out tres bien. After our only successful zone-to-man transition of the weekend got a turn, the D team calmly punched it in to get us another break and an 11-9 lead. The O team then lost its mojo, turning it over repeatedly and getting scored on three points in a row, so we're down 12-11. I belive Zebra Muscles had a huge layout D on our endzone line leading to one point, and a mac-ed D for a Callahan on another. Ugh. In the meantime, the cap goes on, game to 13. O team stays on, same personnel as the previous three points, but this time they convert to tie at 11. Next point D team fails as the Zebras make good use of their fastest cutters. Then the O team converts again, 12-12. We pull on universe point, play pretty good D, but are lucky that Rochester drops a short pass at midfield. To our credit, we were then very patient with the disc, working it until Alec was able to hit Matt Mann for the 13-12 victory. Overall, a good hard-fought competitive game, nice to pull one of these out once in a while.

Semis: vs. PoNY

The sun came out, it was hot, and our brains and legs were fried. But we played pretty well nonetheless, at least early. We built a 6-5 lead. When we broke the mark and swung the disc across the field, things worked really well. Then we had some dumb turnovers and they took half 8-6. In the second half, we seemed a bit tired and had some inexplicable turnovers. Just a few less missed dumps and swings and we'd be right in it. As it was, there were some moments of brilliance. The best was on a PoNY full-field huck to a guy defended by Jim B. The guy had about 10 steps on Jim and it was a perfect huck, but Jim closed the ground sprinting full out and then jumped / laid out very high to bap the disc away. Beautiful. To reiterate, work out like Jim. Also, some very nice grabs by Jed on more swilly hucks. There was nothing his defenders could do. Lowlights included Rich nearly getting killed on a widowmaker cut. He cuts up line for the scoring pass in the front corner of the endzone, Matt Mann's poaching defender and then Matt converge to the same place, I throw it without seeing Matt's streaking defender, and Rich gets crushed. Sorry again. Bad weekend for me. In the end, we lose 10-15. Without two late game turnovers at the opposing goal line, it's a 12-13 barnburner, so we're not that far off. PoNY went on to destroy New Noise in the finals 15-6.

Jon continues his tradition of writing only good things about his teammates and bad things about himself, so I have to chime in with a few points:

• First off, I'm grateful to Jon for only mentioning my highlights and none of my lowlights, like my five (FIVE!) turnovers in the first half (FIRST HALF!) of the Middlebury game, or those ridiculous slipped flicks, or the dorky gloves (which worked really well, though), or the knifing out-of-bounds backhand to a covered Matt M. at a critical juncture of the Zebra game, or... oh jeez, the list goes on and on.
• It takes two to tango on the throw and the catch, and one of the tricky things about the widowmaker play is that it goes from "easy score" to "geez, I hope nobody dies" in the blink of an eye. I hope Jon isn't feeling too bad about this; shit happens (speaking for my own experience with the widowmaker last year, but I bet Rich feels the same way).
• Finally, Jon ran hard and hucked well. I know now how much the achilles thing sucks, and I can't believe he's been playing through it for so long.