Good evening one and all! Welcome to the late night edition of the Chronicle. The midnight oil is a good friend to any serious journalist, and we at the Undead Ultimate Chronicle (subsidiary of Green Thumb Incorporated) are well acquainted with it. For with it, we bring you up close and personal to a single team of Gainesville Ultimate League!!!!
Anyway, to the content! The Best Friends arrived on a sunny Sunday afternoon to a very particular situation. Only six Best Friends were present, split at gender parity, and only six of the mighty Horrify Flicks were there, all men. With Joe having left Gainesville behind (temporarily we hope) to watch his beloved Jags, it was up to us to hash out a game that’s would be fun and fair. After some brief discussion, we decided to give 6 vs 5 a chance, giving Best Friends a slight edge in numbers but the Horror Flicks an edge in overall speed (between Howard, Plant, Billy and Coach, this team has legs for dayyyysss).
As is becoming our signature move, we started on offense then got broken on the first point. A quick turn, followed by a throw from Coach to an already deep cutting Plant (I swear that man lives in the endzone) left us down and out for the first point.
Points went back and forth, each team playing to their advantages. Several notable moments for the Best Friends included a smooth bid from Nathan (recorded by the one and only Mrs. Plant no less), a game winning catch from Omie, and three assists from our very own Matthew Stock. On the Horror Flicks side, there was absolutely exceptional handling by Coach Oster who managed to net himself at least 3 assists as well as being the every other for several points. Another shout out goes to Howard, who’s speed was superb as always, but who also exhibited a lot of good awareness with the disc and made many really savvy throws (and a few assists of his own).
With the score at 8-7, and one point left before hard cap, the Horror Flicks had a chance to tie it up and send us to Universe. An unfortunate drop a few passes in left the door open for the Friends to seal the deal, finishing the game at 9-7, and then saying heartfelt goodbyes to Alison to go work. I guess there be people to save n stuff.
The Best Friends, now numbering 5, trundled over to field 3 to greet the Fantastic Fourhands, whose numbers were also looking rather sparse. After more discussion, they graciously opted to play down to our 5 and go from there (should almost have gone by the Fivehands for this game lol).
As we soon found out, the League fields feel a lot larger when you’re only playing 5. From simply gut intuition, that first point played against the Fourhands here was even longer than the legend-weaving, lore-creating, insanity-inducing point that we played against the Horror Flicks on the first game of the season. Like, it was huck city. Huck-lanta, Hucks-ville, Hucka Bay, Huckahassee, Hucksonville, Huck-lando, Huck Lauderdale, whatever the huck you want to call it, it was bigger than all of em. So many big throws…so many misses and drops…until the Travaglinis saved us from our big eyes and mid-ness and threw two big throws that connected perfectly, sending them up 1-0 and, you guessed it, keeping our streak of first-point-breaks alive!!
We settled into some play, mostly getting broken. The present members of the Fourhands were tearing up the field. Kate and Dustin were of course impeccable; their laurels don’t need to be reiterated in this article. Those need an article of their own. Suffice to say, they netted over half of the Fourhand scores and assists. The other half though, was no less impressively done by the rest of the Fourhands. Special shout outs to Jake, Aiden, and Tommy for quick cuts and being spectacular options for deep hucks from the artists formerly known as Kadustin. Additional cred goes to Summer and Tom for great field awareness, netting several D’s for their efforts
On the Best Friends side, well, we were able to rally once the score hit 4-1. Solid handling from Omie and Chris combined with cutting from Nathan, Danae and Mohammad formed the core (and the entirety tbh) of our counterattack. For the most part, there were several great hucks from Chris and Mohammad to Nathan, who was able to (albeit imperfectly), snap up the easy assist to Danae or Matthew. MVP of this game was absolutely Chris and Omie. Without their speed and hard work in the handler space, we wouldn’t have had an offense. Y’all are great!
Unfortunately our greatness stopped at a 5-4 lead, as the Fourhands scored not one, not two, but three (not four) more pointeven had a chance to tie it up and send us to universe. Sadly it was not in the cards for us to do so, as a turn followed by a Kadustin special (it’s basically…they throw it to each other) ended our brief hopes of a mini-comeback.
All in all, this was a great day for the Best Friends. And even greater was the spirit and fun present in the games today. With numbers low and gender ratios a bit wonky, there was every chance for things to just not be as fun. It is the opinion of this publication that the Horror Flicks and the Fantastic Fourhands deserve some spooky kudos from all for their flexibility and willingness to follow the fun. It really made for an enjoyable afternoon of our favorite sport.
Well, that’s it for now. I heard through the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey time hole that the Best Friends might have Brad “Nitro” Nelson back next week (the timestamp should give you a clue as to our sources for this factoid). What a wonder that would be. Until next time all you ghosts and ghouls!!