The Rainesville weather, the rolling hills of field one, and an understaffed team had the “Sharon is Caring” squad starting out in a defensive zone that pressured “Workshop” into an immediate turn on the first point. While we were not favorites to win this game, we had a perfect recipe of steady hands from Culverson, Futral, Husband, and Jones in the handler space and solid cutting action from Bailey, Deal, Nickerson and myself making great connections with very few mistakes that the opposing team could’ve taken advantage of. The experienced hands of Michelle and the quick cutting speed of Kay made sure that I got my cardio in for the whole month of September in just a single game. Jared was a machine and got the full alphabet of A’s, D’s and S’s, as well as highlight reel worthy layouts – a deserving MVP for “Sharon is caring”. Ben, Plant and Bhagya had stellar performances in the middle of field and in the end zone and were ready to break down our zone after multiple swings and resets to Zach, Mills, and Mike making lots of space. The late appearance from Adub however, gave us a sneak preview of the full field huck to Bhagya potential that we fully expected from this team! The experienced O-line from “Sharon is caring” was ultimate-ly (see what I did there ;)?) what won us this game. Give it a few more weeks building chemistry between the youth and experienced and “Workshop” will be a force to be reckoned with!
Final Score: 10-9
Before our second game of the day, the guy who invented Frisbee (KJ) laid out his wealth of flat-ball knowledge and made use of the mud to draw out plays, teaching our league rookies a thing or two about offensive and defensive play. Right before we were about to start, Schimmel released his secret weapon, CJ, who took my hand and ran round the field to tire me out before the game. Y’all, don’t let her cuteness fool you; she knows what she is doing!
“Sharon is caring” started this game out strong, with no changes to the team from the first game; we started to read each other better, created more space down the sidelines, and even tried a few set plays. This extra space allowed league rookie, Jonathan to cut deep into the end zone and become free several times, and while not quite on the stat sheet – those connections will come! After playing consistently for the first half of the game, fatigue was setting in for “Sharon is caring” leading to a couple of disconnected hucks from Aaron and Jared with some quality intercepts from Pat and Schimmel. This allowed “Schanny?” to capitalize on the turns and make us sweat a little more than we had been, taking us from a cushy Texas 10-4 to more realistic standard of 10-7 (the score did not reflect the quality of play from the opposing team). Newcomer to league, Paul Nickerson, helped finish the game with a cradle catch in the end zone after a steady and patient 20-touch team point that led us to our second W of the day. Paul’s improvement and field awareness from just one game to the next is what makes this game so special!
Also, special thanks to Nan for showing up as a floater and allowing us to female match!
Final score: 11-7
The lack of subs this week allowed us to learn each other’s play style at a rapid rate and we played with heart for the whole two games really demonstrating our potential – I am excited to learn and grow with this fun, friendly and spirited team and I cannot wait to play with our other friends in the coming weeks!