Summer League kicked off for R.E.D. with a matchup against Coral, who sadly were missing Ben, Bonnie, Davis, and a bunch of other friends who were probably also inhumanely tall. They were missing Steven, who just loves to throw it deep to tall humans. And they ended up another great player down early when Allison tweaked her ankle on an in-cut; you’ve got a lot of fans and family on R.E.D, friend, and we hope you heal up fast!
Coral kept it close early and had an ESPN8 the Ocho top-10 moment on one score: after two turns by R.E.D. in the (not)red zone, a miraculous second-chance catch by one of Coral’s cutters led to a miraculous second-chance score, when a slightly-overthrown toss to G deflected off his hands straight into the waiting hands of another player in their endzone. Points is points, y’all.
Unfortunately, missing so many solid teammates eventually caught up against a R.E.D. squad missing only KJ and Nan. I’m super proud of our team for the hustle and hard play on both ends of the disc throughout the game. We generally spaced well on O, learned how to space better in the (sometimes)red zone, and forced a lot of errant throws and turns by hustling hard on D and keeping the mark.
Jess continued to be an animal in the midfield, consistently helping keep the disc moving throughout the game while adding some assists and D’s. Jill impacted the game directly from kickoff by being a BA as usual, but also started impacting it indirectly 14 years ago by raising an absolute manchild named Vander who displayed poise throughout and added a couple of scores. Nathan DiPietro came up huge by forcing early D’s on both person-matching and Zone D points. Andrew and Andrew showed off not only their inconceivably-matching shirts but also their unmatched speeds on both ends. Jenna hustled harder than anyone by shutting down a lot of possible throws to their ladies and hitting the ground for low-flying discs, while Emily and Reagan celebrated their R.E.D. debuts by getting buckets. Grez brought his Vicious Cycle jersey glory with a huge D. Weston really is taller and faster than he looks, and he looks really tall and really fast. Luke again put his speed on display with some chase-down D’s (I’m told his great grandfather was an actual horse) and he, Jared, and Schimmel got D after D and threw banger after banger to all of us happy cutters. We had so much fun I forgot to keep stats; and that’s how Nan ended up with 15 assists and 15 scores.
A great first week, and I’m already looking forward to running it back next week!