Carolina (3 to 6)
What a better way to kickoff summer league than a dropped pull by one of your captains (he doesn’t have to be named). Our game against Carolina could only go up from there but not by much as we struggled against this ferocious team. Carolina’s cutters especially Mac and Natty B ran us up and down the field and Chris Bailey’s defense always kept us on our toes. As new players arrived throughout the game (who knew Gainesville had traffic) we quickly turned the game into a learning experience. Our focus shifted to honing in on our vertical stack and learning how to set an effective mark. This leads us to our MVP of this game. The Orange MVP for Game 1 goes to no other than Nathaniel Wilson. He is an offensive threat, a defensive threat and more importantly, a patient and knowledgable teacher.
Green (9 to 6)
Our second game against Green was where Orange’s potential began to shine. Green came out playing zone defense, forcing us into a offensive style that our new players had never seen. The bulk of our players played a handful of points savage while Alex presented a zone crash course to our rookies. The rookies caught on quick and were able to set a zone on their first point back on. They never backed down and were able to secure a break on their first zone D point. We continued to work on our zone and saw several D’s from our captains who were grinding it at the 5. This was a gritty, but very spirited game ending in the ultimate ultimate score, 6-9 (from the perspective of Green). Harin had a massive layout into the sandiest part of the field. Cooper (a core player for the Green team) tore up our zone defense and Maddy left Alex choking on dust with her incredible strikes up-line. And our unnamed male-matching captain made up for his dropped pull by skying the great Billy Field for a last minute score. But the #1 highlight from the game was our rookie to rookie connection. Joel pulls out a saucy flick from sideline to sideline to find Will in the end zone. This throw secured an assist on the stat sheet for Joel, but also a place as this game’s MVP. For only having played “one hour” of ultimate going into game 2, he really did shine! We are so excited to see what else he accomplishes this season.
Catch all you huckers next week,
Kyle & Alex