We came into this week like every other week this season. Spirits high, numbers low. We knew it was going to be a long day against the Weenie Hut Jr and Frisboos, but we were prepared and excited to play on a nice breezy fall day. However, today would once again be a day riddled with awful attendance and exhaustion all around the board.
We started off on a great note winning the flip against Weenie Hut Jr and electing to take downwind. We started the game off playing down a man as we only had 6 of us there, so our plan was just to survive as long as we could until reinforcements came. But the opposite happened. They dropped an early pass and Joe threw a dime huck to Plant for the first break. Unfortunately, the rest of the half would not go quite as smooth as this first play, despite numbers increasing up to a solid 9 people (8 after injury, feel better Lucas!). Mistake after mistake, we dug ourself a hole at halftime losing 6-2. The worst part was we weren’t even doing anything silly. Just a lot of drops on a windy day and a few too many hucks that went out the back of the end zone. But I was prepared to make a 2nd half comeback and gave an absolutely riveting speech about our lackluster defense. I told everyone we were doing the right things and we would start catching more discs, but we just had to tighten up the defense. And that’s exactly what we did. We came out on O and scored with ease upwind in what was one of our better points of the day. We continued to play hard D, bringing the score back to 6-5 after getting a few more breaks. During this span, I remember Will Byrd getting a big D to save a score along with a HUGE D from Kay. The Weenie Huts would send a hospital pass in the end zone and Kay boxed out her man despite getting run over to get the D. Despite our huge efforts, the weenies would tighten up their offense and eventually get a few more holds, leading to a final score of 6-9 (hehe). Sad this game ended short because we were really rallying quite the comeback, but our team was looking a little gassed, so it ended up being okay.
Our next game was against the undefeated Frisboos. We knew this would be a tough game considering how tired we were, but our spirits were still high and we were ready to go to war. Once again, this game started on a high note with us winning the flip, starting on D downwind. We would force the turnover and Joe again throws a dime for a score, this time to me. This was a super back-and-forth half with the Frisboos leading 6-5 at half, still on serve after they got the break back. This was BY FAR our best half of the season. Against any other team, I think we would’ve been up a few breaks at this point, but the Frisboos have the deepest roster in the league, and it’s not particularly close. We knew we had a chance to steal a game from the undefeated team, which me and Joe love to do, but it would not be easy. 2nd half, we would start by getting broken once and then once more, making this game pretty unattainable. Nothing too crazy, just more small mistakes that would be carefully punched in by this experienced team. We ended up losing 7-11 and I definitely think we put up the best fight against this team yet so far. I wish we could’ve played them first game when we weren’t so gassed, but we’ll have another chance to ruin their undefeated season later. And when I say that, I really believe this team has a shot to go undefeated. They have solid players all around, and the greatest strength you can have in league is having good late-round picks, and this team certainly has that. Some highlights from this game that I remember include another Will Byrd D against a giant of an offensive player. Howard also got a huge D in the end zone, despite giving up about 6 inches on a 50-50 disc. Ellie had a few huge D’s as well when passes floated over the heads of the offenders, Ellie was ready to gobble these passes up. Oster had a beautiful D that led right into a crispy backhand to me for a score at one point as well. Plant and Howard carried a lot of the load this game for us though. With Carsten covering me, I elected to play a more passive role and let them cook, and this led to tons and tons of open unders for these 2, which is part of the reason we performed so well. So big shoutout to Plant and Howard for elite cutting this game. And the biggest shoutout I can give today is to Frank. Despite being injured, she came out and took all our stats for us. Thank you!! I really do not enjoy having to run to the clipboard after every point when we don’t have numbers, so this was super nice. She also helped coach us up in the zone, which was very helpful.
And that’s about it for the games! Despite losing both games, we played surprisingly well and I think both games were winnable at a point if we hadn’t dropped so many passes. I really think we’re starting to put the pieces together, looking more like a team, and moving the disc with purpose. We really just have to tighten up our offense and I think we can start winning some games. I know I said it multiple times, but today was really just a day we beat ourselves with drops and bad throws. I definitely think we have a chance to really upset some teams if we play our best, but we’ll save that for the end of the season.