Captain’s Report vs Texas:
Well Gainesville, it looks like I’ve officially lost the last of my marbles. After much self-examination, I’d come to the conclusion that the whole game between Royal Flush and Pink Slips was an intricately detailed hallucination brought on by the emptiness of failure and the swirling cocktail of substances in my body that would make a seasoned chemist sweat bullets. While momentarily uplifting, motivating, and invigorating, it nonetheless left and now my world is cheap beer, faded cards, and an eye patch (don’t ask). I’ve traded the high-rolling casinos for the dingy, dim-lit poker dens. I’ve made a small place for myself next to the only TV in the house which is a constant loop of Gilligan’s Island reruns and random VCRs. And yet, across town, in the most different of circumstances, how is there still ongoing coverage of Gainesville Ultimate Frisbee League? It’s the same Royal Flush team, this time they’re playing a rootin’ tootin’ blue-tin’ team called Texas?? What deified satellite is beaming this directly to me?! How is this happening?? And what does it mean? All questions that I suppose will have to be answered later, for I feel the fires of journalistic zeal burning within my soul, urging me to write a somewhat long-winded and half-sensical rendition of how the game went. Is this real life? Or is it just fantasy?
Royal Flush began on O, down-wind (ish), with sun in the handlers’ eyes, but not the cutters. That’s what we call in the biz a catch-22; either way, Ultimate will be played. And that’s what we did. After taking some time to find our flow and trading a couple of points, we began power-flushing, scoring anywhere from one to three points in a row before resetting. We comfortably took half at 8-4, and then basically rinsed and repeated to reach a final score of 15-8.
Flush’s offense as usual made good use of their hands and cuts. With almost our full team present, we had no shortage of solid handles to throw and cutters with good field sense to receive. Billy, Josh, and Rosie put some absolute dimes into the endzone, while Josh, Hunter, Thomas, Andrew and Jenny found consistent holes in the Texas zone to exploit for massive gains. Aaaaand we got Mike Ross down with his first score of the season! Just in the right place at the right time to catch a quick pass for the score. Well done!! One of the more hilarious moments was Thomas pushing the absolute floppiest of push passes toward Hunter in the endzone, which, to both their credits was caught in tippy-toe fashion. The two moments that I though were most impressive were Jenny getting some absolutely MASSIVE ups to score off of a high release throw from Josh (which you certainly don’t see every day) and Rosie deciding that the last point of the game was the time to release the sea eagle inside of her, going every other for 75 yards before picking up the score for the game winner. Some absolute monsters here in the Flush zone.
On the defensive side, Flush put up an impressive 10 D’s over this game. Overall, we ran a pretty tight zone, forcing lots of throws and a no tinsignificant number of throwaways, which Chief among them was the BO’B himself, netting 4 total, either using his roadrunner legs to speed past receivers like they were standing still and plucking the disc like a spring chicken, or using his grasshopper legs to jump over defenders hoping to get an up. He’s got Swiss Army legs that one. Cool moments were had from Josh Barker, using ups and speed to net 2 D’s for himself (which I guess are the main two ways to get D’s…) and Pat Gettino, who followed Rule #2 and Double Tapped a disc in the air. Gotta make sure it’s dead, otherwise it’ll come back up and bite you. Then we’ll have disc zombies, and no one wants that. Aaanyways, final shout out moment to the one and only Mike Ross, who cooly cornered a Texan with a high stall count, forcing a throw that led to a D which led to a score. Can’t argue with that.
From the Texas side, there is much to say (almost as much as the state is large). Offensively, Fletcher, Dan and Steven held up the handler line with grace, Summer, Joe, and Nesta kept us from going too crazy with a combo of height, speed, and raw bidding power (great defensive bid there Summer!), and honestly the whole team contributed to the scoring. Not a single person scored more than one point, showing that all of Texas knows how to be in the right place at the right time and understand the DDTD (don’t drop the disc) method. Particularly memorable moments were a pair of blocks from Fletcher (hand) and The Adam Daigle (foot). These were the D’s that you hear across the field and subconsciously flinch, but you gotta respect (even if it’s against you). Also, congrats to Lindsey for scoring her first league goal of the season!
As with all my writings, the dopamine hit of a great joke, a bad pun, or sharing Ultimate glory fades away, and I’m left with dull yellow lightbulbs and the smell of bad pipe smoke. They say once is happenstance, and twice is just coincidence. So, there’s really no need to overthink or read into this. I’ll still change gambling halls just to be safe, maybe on the other side of town. It was nice to have a moment back in the spotlight. Time to fade back into obscurity. See you in my fever dreams GNV Ulty.