Both teams came into this game missing key players. We lost Luke to regionals, as well as Reagan and rookies Alexander Thompson and Jacquelyn Langrell. Zach’s team was down Jared, Eric and Michelle among others. We expected to come out and continue to roll and did so for the first 3 points. Then Pop Quiz punched one in. Then they broke after a misthrow. And another time. Someone dropped a pull… suddenly we were down 4 to 3. We were turning the disc more than the last two games combined and not getting away with it. We tightened up our offense and punched in a score. Then a break. This is where, I think, Nick put in a perfect, low, IO flick huck that sailed in to Zach in position to beat Carsten for a score, which, if you know Carsten, is pretty hard to do. At this point, it seemed like we had all warmed up and settled into smart, easy offense combined with tight person defense, while Pop Quiz’s low (old) numbers started to show. We scored the next 7 in a row, got scored on again from, I think, another perfect, low, IO flick huck from Nick that sailed in to Zach in position to beat me for a score, which, if you know me, is actually a lot less impressive than the first throw. We put up another 2 points to hit 14 to 6 before Pop Quiz got a second wind and scored 3 straight, including a perfect strong to break-side blade from KJ that Zach caught behind me for a score. We finally ended the game 15 to 9 with probably a throw from Tom to Vander.
Shoutout to Pop Quiz for a fun game that ended up closer than we expected with their missing players. I mentioned KJ and Nick for their standout throws but I also remember good defensive coverage from Pat on me where he might have gotten a layout D if the throw hadn’t been stopped by an extended polite conversation about disc checks between TK and Zach. I saw Liz with some hard grabs and a score and Emory had one point where she worked up the disc about every other touch before finishing with a score. Zach snuck in some spicy hucks and got the better of us multiple times as a deep receiver.
On our side, I thought the disc got spread well and it felt like everyone had a good game. But Tom, Lucia, and Vander had great games. Vander had 2 Ds and 4 scores, including what I initially thought was an overthrow from Tom Brown that ended up being caught in stride after a burst of speed. Tom moved the disc easily and had 6 assists and 2 scores including a number of nice hucks. Lucia came up big with 3 scores and an assist and had a memorable D where she showed off her ups and spiked a disc away that I was sure was going to get caught. On a low point, Bonnie came in for one point and threw an assist, unfortunately negating the win as she had promised not to play after last week at the draft.
Overall, it was a good matchup although I wish we could have had both teams at full strength. I’m looking forward to the regular season rematch before meeting again in the finals.