We came into this expecting to play savage according to our poll, and we ended with 10 people, which was super nice. We’re already the smallest team in the league, losing a player post-draft. Our first game was against the not-so-scary named best friends, which is a fitting name for them, because I absolutely love everyone on this team.
We would start the game out looking cool and collected getting an up-wind break. Surely, this would mean someone would get a down-wind break to shift the course of the game. But this didn’t happen as both teams played patient in the wind, throwing smart throws and working it down. Slowly, the troops (aka Ricardo and Brad) started showing up for the Best Friends, and they would end up making a big difference. Thanks to a late start, we ended up losing 5-7 in a pretty close game with a lot of turnovers from both teams. This is a team that may lack depth, but likely has the best 5-man lineup in the league with Nathan, Chris, Brad, Ricardo, and Mo.
Our next game was against Zach’s Pop Quiz. Not exactly what I think of when I think scary, but I definitely don’t enjoy a quiz of any kind. Unfortunately, this was a quiz that we did not study for. We came in to this game absolutely gassed from a hot game and this would translate. Again, we started out pretty good scoring right away, but this was short-lived. The handler core of Zach’s team was just too strong for us and we were not able to capitalize and get many D’s. We ultimately ended up losing 6-11 in a game that felt like we lost by much more. If I had to give us a score on the quiz, I’d say we got about a 72%.
With double headers, I sometimes forget what happened in the 1st game after 5 minutes, but I do remember some highlights. For everyone, we played hard throughout the whole game. Our team consisted of a Joe that was recovering from sickness, an Evan who just got his COVID shot (be like Evan and get your vaccines!!), a Howard who tore his meniscus 6 weeks ago, and Ellie and Kay who had practiced for 4 hours Saturday and 3 hours Sunday and still showed up. Thinking about it, we could’ve lost both games by way more considering how hobbled we were, but we did our best despite struggling to get lines at out at times. Both ladies were amazing both games. Ellie continued her dominance from last season notching 3 scores and looking much more comfortable with the disc and catching a questionable huck from yours truly. Kay was our every-other both games. Any time we needed to get the disc off the line, Kay would bail us out. She somehow only had one assist which was a beautiful around to break the mark. The 2 of them are going to be a nightmare for other teams all season. Evan and Joe also did their thing in the handler space, working well and moving the disc up the field. Paul and Lucas both played vital positions on the rails constantly getting the disc and dumping it backwards and Paul notched his first of many scores this season in the 2nd game. Plant showed why he’s an elite player in this league and absolutely dominated any matchup either team threw at him. And Howard was beasting all day. I would’ve never guessed he went through an injury 6 weeks ago because he was the fastest player on the field in both games. Constantly torching his defender upline and getting the disc anywhere on the field and throwing a pretty assist to Plant.
Even though we are 0-2 for the first time in me and Joe’s careers together, this doesn’t feel too bad. We were mildly crippled and missing 2 of our handlers in Coach Oster and Frank. No doubt that Coach will be able to whip us into shape next week. We played well, but unfortunately just had a lot of drops and throwaways, which is something that I know will fix itself moving forward. If nothing else, we at least have the best team name in the league so far, so that’s worth something. Only going to have (at most) 1 lady next week with Tabby being at regionals (GOOD LUCK LADIES!) so it’ll definitely be an interesting week, but I’m looking forward to working out the kinks and getting in that win column.