We came into this game hoping for our first win of the season. We were short-staffed and missing most of our handling core as well as most of our captains (bonnie and my right leg), but gained Davis for the first time this season. On the Purple side, they were down Brad (knees I assume?), Ricardo (Medical school?) and the Dustin half of Kadustin (something with kids?). We came out hot with the strategy of, “Run a trap zone and if there’s a turnover, pick up the disc and throw a score as fast as possible.” It worked, and we found ourselves up 5 to 0 fairly quickly. Then, Dustin arrived. He added spicy zone breaking throws on offense and heads up poaching man/zone deep coverage on defense, somewhat countering our strategy. We started having to work the disc up the field with more than 2 or 3 throws and that led to turns. Fortunately, Purple had its own issues with consistency and, with a mix of big highs and lows and a few runs on both sides, we continued to trade points, finding ourselves up 12 to 6. Unfortunately, at this point, something clicked on Purple and everything came together for their offense. At the same time, something clicked for us as well, but in a bad way, like when you’re driving and you realize something’s fallen off your car. The spicy Dustin passes that were getting dropped started getting snagged. Purple made smart decisions taking the easy breaks where they found them and resetting to handlers when they needed to. On our side, with our deep game covered (I tested and confirmed this with a few rough deep shots, oops), we tried to exploit free shots under. While our offensive motion looked pretty good, we just couldn’t string together more than a handful of passes before a drop or a throw into a defender cut us short. Little mistakes have a way of snowballing. Good defense and adjustments from purple led to forced turns, which led to unforced turns, which led to a 7-0 run before we finally worked the disc up the field to tie it back at 13 all. Unfortunately, Purple would go on to efficiently punch in the next 2 points and end the game.
A few purple highlights that stood out: Abdiel with suffocating man D on unders, ending up fully blocking one throw with his body. Dustin getting resets in the zone regardless of our strategy and one particularly good flick fake to backhand 80 yard huck score. Aiden running down said huck. Mills with some steady, smart handling and Alex with the same plus a few breaks through the zone that I didn’t see coming, one of which snuck right under my arm. Hannah open in the middle making hard catches.
On our side, Trey once again showed his great speed and quick changes in direction leading to D’s and good zone pressure. Emory was a great target pulling down multiple scores and played big in the cup. Dre continues to get back into frisbee and was really solid and consistent especially in zone offense. Sam fully used his height on a great score that he had to attack high just before a streaking Dustin could close in. It was great finally getting Davis who shook off some of the travel rust and got leaned on heavily to handle. The team as a whole has made big improvements in field spacing and chemistry on O and D.
Overall, this was a fun, spirited game despite the disappointing finish. Bonnie is back this week with ice cream, so things can only get better from here. Expect a shootout this week with green, final score 15 to 12 coral despite Nathan embarrassing me in the air and getting at least 1 hand block.