Game 1 was a big one for Hades Blades, who needed a win to keep second place and their first-round playoffs bye. Meanwhile, Huckules had the bye sealed up but was playing for the pride of winning the regular season and the potential to not play us twice in a row on the same day.
Both teams came into this game shorthanded. Huckules was missing Brad, KJ, Will, Zach (Strickland) and Larissa. Hades Blades was missing Nan and Schimmel, both Sams and half of their Bens. Alek was nice enough to attend despite coming off of a red eye flight. Wind was coming in from the southwest, creating a bit of an upwind/downwind and a good “thrower’s wind”.
Ben lost the flip hard for Blades, somehow ending up playing defense upwind. Huckules worked the disc downfield for the score and set a zone for the next point. Blades worked the zone easily by spreading the field and the game was fairly efficient up to 3-2 Huckules. At this point, the game got sloppy, and I think we had 3 turns. But, luckily, so did Huckules, and we kept serve. On the next point, Blades made a defensive adjustment and moved Coley to guard downfield. It turned out to be a good decision, as he had an immediate lay-out d and then scored for the bookends. Blades took the next break as well and we found ourselves up 5-3. We proceeded to trade points, going into half up 6-4. Things looked pretty good for Blades at this point, coming out of half downwind on offense. But, Huckules wasn’t done. They made adjustments to their zone and we ended up making a turn and giving up a break. We would take the next point upwind, then trade points, sitting on an 8-6 lead. Huckules threw in some person defense and Blades made some errors, and we found ourselves tied 8-8. At this point, it was mentioned that if I took a timeout, hard-cap would go off, it would be universe, and we would win if we held and scored down-wind. I held my head high and did not take the time-out, definitely because of principles, and definitely not because I was winded and didn’t fully understand what was explained to me. We proceeded to work the disc down the field and score seconds before cap. Huckules took the next downwind to tie us again 9-9. We found ourselves with the opportunity to take the game on a single downwind O point and the team stepped up. We worked the disc up to the front corner of Huckules’ endzone and Coley gave me what I asked for, a nice high floaty flick over the defense for the score.
After the first game, we all shook hands and complimented each other on our spirit. Adub told me specifically how much he liked my enthusiasm and how I shouted to encourage my teammates and compliment their good plays. He also let me know that he liked the way Coley celebrated scores, even more than when Coley and he were on the same team last season.
With the first game done, the regular season had concluded. Huckules held on to take 1st place, and Blades held second, clinching their first-round playoffs byes.
As efficient as the first game was, the second game was quite a bit sloppier due to the wind picking up and both teams becoming noticeably more tired. I can still see the look of disgust on Coley’s face when he found out I lost the flip again and chose to take upwind on defense. In my defense, I may have thought the wind would get stronger in the second half. And I may have suspected we would come out flat. And, for all you know, I did, and I’m very strategic. At any rate, there would be lots of turns this game and a few runs. Huckules stunned us, going up 3-0 before we answered with our own 3-0 run. At this point, we gelled (enough) again as a team and traded point until the second half, where a couple of breaks put us in the lead, allowing us to finish the game 10-8.
Highlights: Overall, I thought these were great games. I was really impressed with how Blades kept up energy on defense, especially in the second game. I was also really happy with execution in zone. Huckules threw a lot of different looks at us and I saw great adjustments from everyone to work around it. Specific highlights: Jess chased down a handoff by the endzone that looked out of reach and managed to disrupt the final pass for the D, then got the bookend. Elliot’s 3 timely d’s between games (not just right place, right time. impressive run-throughs on experienced players. I would make a case for steal of the draft). Coley’s nice floaty passes to me that I’ve been asking for. Lyle’s nice pass to me for the score and his hammer catch during a critical zone O point. Bonnie hit Pawan again for his second score of the season! Austin’s consistent catches. Clea’s textbook work on the rails to work the disc up through the zone. Christian’s strong work in the handle space including adjustments when Huckules threw switch-ups at us. Alek also crushed the zone, keeping us spaced and setting us up for easy scores. Jacob’s shut-down handle D that generated a lot more Ds than will show up on the stat-sheet. Coley’s immediate game-changing D when he switched from handle-d to downfield in the first game.
Looking forward to next week when Blades will select to play either Flick of Fates or Apollo’s Nuggets in semifinals. Assuming perfect attendance and that we pick Nuggets, line is Blades -2.5 over Nuggets, o/u 16.5. On the other side, line is Huckules -0.5 over Flick of Fates, o/u 15.5.