Goooooood morning everyone!! It’s here! It’s happening! It’s a brand new season of League! New teams, new friends, and new opportunities for Ultimate glory! But what would a season of League look like without a good old fashioned corporate rebranding of your favorite local news outlet?!
That’s right! For all the diehard fans of the Insect Insider and the Green Thumb Gazette (which alas had to be retired for reasons we don’t need to get into…) comes a brand. spanking. new creation: the Undead Ultimate Chronicle! Your one stop shop this spooky Halloween season for all the ghoulish gab and skeletal sensationalism! Unfortunately because this is yet another startup (never really been able to scale one of these for some reason), we’ve only raised enough funding to cover one League team this season. But I’m sure we’ll find a way outsource coverage of the other teams. Maybe a contract with this Ghoulsville Ulty group I keep hearing about, apparently they’ve expanded their board and brought on a whole bunch of new people (Congrats to them by the way) I’ll guess I’ll let them in on the GNV Ulty league reporting market for now. But someday, someday, The Undead Ultimate Chronicle will be it, and together we shall TAKE OVER THE TRI-STATE AREA (if you know you know).
Anyway, on to the content! This season we will be covering the newly christened (by popular demand) “Best Friends”. Captained by none other than Nathan Schaller and Chris Bailey, this team has clearly established where their priorities lie. As per teammate Bradleigh Nelson, “This was a very hard decision because while Best Friends does not particularly fit the Halloween theme, nothing epitomizes Bailey’s and Nathan’s attitude towards frisbee and this team more than best friends.” The team got to briefly meet and then jumped right into their first two games against the equally newly christened Horror Flicks (spectacular name) and Fantastic Four (incredible, some might say).
Against the Horror Flicks, we started off strong. Despite a stiff head/tailwind, we had solid handler movement, good flow, and most importantly, good vibes, all resulting in scoring our first ever O drive of the season (setting the tone for rest of the season). We quickly settled into a rhythm with Bailey, Omie, Ben and Matthew rotating in and out of the handler space and the rest of us cutting. After trading a few points back and forth, we managed a break to go up. We even managed to score a wild Ricardo and Brad part way in to pad our handler lines.
Then, disaster struck. First, we turned the disc. I resigned myself to the defensive grind. Then they turned the disc! I was renewed with joy! Then we turned it again. I thought, “We just tossed our gift in the garbage”. Then they turned it again! What luck!
You might assume that that was the end of this particular anecdote and we went on to make a great break point. Alas, if you take the last paragraph and just loop it 10 times, you’ll get a pretty good picture of how the point actually went. Despite amazing downfield plays from both teams, both also managed to choke over and over until finally Best Friends managed to metaphorically limp over the goal line. And now I get to say that I’ve officially been a part of the most comedically horrible point of Ultimate Frisbee in the world.
After that we went back to trading points until hard cap, resulting in a win for Best Friends, 7-5.
I was insanely proud of how quickly our team gelled despite having only really met on the line. A few shout-outs from the Horror Flicks game:
Matthew had an incredible assist to myself early in the game; a quick flick after a turn that flew straight as an arrow, and lined up perfectly with the route I was running.
Ben and Omie, although not huge presences in this game’s stats, really made their presences known in the handler space. With their quick resets and swings, they really formed the foundation of our handler flow. With several great high grabs by Omie in the middle space to top it off, the handler space was in good hands.
To round out the shout-outs is Danae! In the first game of her first ever season of League, she managed to score twice! Almost a third of our points and one of three people to score, the Best Friends are very proud of her and love having her out with us.
On the Horror Flicks side, they are shaping up to be a very strong team. With Joe, Evan, and Kaylen holding down the handler space, Billy, Plant, and Howard were able to roam free, scoring several on quick swing-break points and deep cuts.
After ignoring Jeff’s air horn to play a little longer (just cuz haha) we wiggled our fingers goodbye to the Horror Flicks and welcomed the Fantastic Four to our field 1 (#notmovingfieldsforthewin).
We lost the most important flip, and had to change to darks… We then proceeded to lost the second most important flip and start on defense upwind…but it’s fine. After all, things aren’t so scary when your with Best Friends.
This game went much like the last, with some point trading, followed by a break or two, allowing us to go up by two and hold that lead until a 7-5 victory.
The Fantastic Four played extremely well. Despite missing Dustin, their short game was impeccable, utilizing Alek, Kate, Danny, and Tommy’s smart-quick hands (real word, just made it up) to leave our defense in the dust while making use of Summer, Andrew, and several other new players downfield who showed very sure hands and smart throws (I’m so sorry I don’t know your names, shout out to you all though!! You know who you are 🙂 ).
Among Best Friends, well, we just kept doing our thing. Alison had several really great deep cuts, one of which I was able to hit her on. Her in cuts were as good as the out, with a well timed cut coming in clutch at the mid stall count several times.
Ricardo and Mohammad worked as the dream team that was marketed to us at the League draft, hitting each other back and forth, swapping from handler to cutter, culminating at the last point of the game where Mo had the spiciest backhand of the day. It looped through no less than five people (on both teams) to slice into Ricardo’s waiting hands. Can’t explain it, that’s just how the molecules tumble. Straight chemistry some might say.
Ava was also putting in the work in the middle (after club practice earlier that morning no less), patiently working it until stealthing into the end zone to catch a last minute pass from Brad. Opportunity puts ypu in the right place at the right time, but only you can catch the discs that destiny throws you.
In all, it was a windy day, but friendship and good spirit was in the air. And it feels fantastic to flex my League journalism muscles after months of sitting around and…ahemhemhem tirelessly working on fundraising…and talking to VCs..and making growth plans for the Undead Ultimate Chronicle, the one stop shop for up-to-date news of the GNV League’s favorite Best Friends…is what I meant to say.
Spooky day to you all!! You’ve just enjoyed the first issue of The Undead Ultimate Chronicle! May it’s future be bright! See you next time!!!