Coming into this week, we knew we would be short-staffed but hoped our veteran crew had the energy to get through a long game. Before the game we knew there wouldn’t be many subs. After the game, we realized we needed them badly as Ben, Bonnie, Schimmel, Jess, and I all came in a bit off-colour. This week’s game to 15 seemed to challenge us in some surprising ways. After a 3-0 start, capitalizing on some tough turnovers against our opponent, we went back and forth for a few points before starting to fall victim to our own miscues. At one point, up 5-1, we were confident in our play and feeling good. A zone defense on the opponent seemed to work pretty well, as our wing players often came in to disrupt the middle a bit. Our veteran lineup for this week gave us some solid backfield play: Schimmel, Lyle, and Ben seemed to catch fire. Suddenly, the tables turned though. After a few deep throws that went just a little too far and a couple of other throws that seemed to miss the mark, most of our team seemed a bit gassed. The opp. capitalized for six or seven straight points, going into half 8-6, then added one more right after half.
After another initial struggle at the beginning of the half, we agreed to try and be a little more secure with the disc and switch up some of our positions. Utilizing a vert stack to catch some of our cutters in preferred matchups, Coley and I took some of the leg work for the team but fell victim to our own miscues at points. Although we started to make up some ground, it was too late.
We had some great play, especially on the defensive side. We did force a good number of turnovers with players like Jess often locking down her FMP matchup – she had a back to back D at one point. Coley also had his own tremendous day as he mopped up tons of mid to deep range throws for us in the zone.
Understated: Christian is also coming up as a steady handler who is beginning to take on more shares of the possession and provides us with some more handler movement, I’m looking to him more confidently to add some spice to our offense. Klea’s reliability as a steady thrower also brings us peace when she gets the disc, and her reliability in attendance (despite getting a wrong clock reading from her oven) has been a huge boon.
We’ll be grateful for some rest and lessons learned from the miscues in this game.
Hades’ Bladēs