Prithee and well met! It is us, the twelve-legged duo (intentionally bad bug joke) Nathan and Jessica to bringeth you the final segment (unintentionally bad bug joke) of our much loved show Insect Insider (based on ratings I made up). It’s me, Nathan, bringing you heavily biased coverage of game 9 because, as my brain’s perceiver of the world, everything I sense and remember is colored by my hope, dreams, fears, desires, and selective memory 😀 ! Anyway, to the coverage!
It was honestly, overall a beautiful day outside. Nice breeze keeping the humidity down, but hot as inflamed skin after a bee sting. I was definitely was feeling the pull of the sun, on my energy that is. Thank goodness we were on Field 3 the whole day with the built-in shade (RIP the Hornets, C-flies, and Beetles).
This was a game that I both looked forward to and dreaded. At long last (!!), we got to return to do friendly battle (def not an oxymoron) with the B-Deez, the only team to have pulled us out of our cocoons and squished the budding B(C)utterflies we were becoming. What chance for good spirit with a side of tit-for-tat!
But alas, my excitement was shot through with dread, for aside from the Bumblin-deez being an amazingly spirited team, the only other context of our relationship is with them as the winners and us as the losers. How then could we possibly see things any other way???? And yet, pontification aside, there we were, lined up and ready to put in 101% to boycott-these Bumble-Deez of any and all point-related acquisitions.
We started off strong, with some point trading, followed by a Cattys upwind break, followed by a Deez upwind break, followed by a long ass point where we all questioned what life was and what we’re doing here. Then we remembered it’s because we love Ultimate, and went back to grinding. After tying it up at 5-5, the Cattys managed to squeeze out a sixth point to take half.
For the whole first half, I somehow managed to forget that Billy is the long-range sniper of the Deez, and was like, I can cover him flat, aligned on the wrong side of him. It’ll be fine. Spoiler alert, it was not fine, several times. Also, shout out to Billy for being a mortal and also admitting to feeling sun-drained as well XD (definitely did wonders for my self-esteem).
After half, we were rip roaring and ready to go… Jk, we were tired man!!! It was hot out there!!! More grinding, and before we knew it, it was 9-8, hard cap imminent, and us on O. But then we turn it! The BumbleDeez begin their drive to keep the game alive. But then they turn it!
Several passes later, the other Deez deep threat, Trevor, in a spectacular display of hand eye coordination read TK’s backhand like a book and got a huuuuge hand block. Alas, a foul was called on the mark, and it was eventually sent back. Several more passes later, it was my wonderful co-anchor Jess Peterson who sprinted, dropped, and rolled to come away with the game finisher.
Not the vibe we had hoped to sting back with, but at the end of the day, it was the Caterpillars who nommed away at the buzz of the Deez.
The Catty handlers were on fire today, with half of our points scored by Brad and Oster and as always, the disc working was patient and consistent. I managed to have a shining moment where I actually feinted under and hard cut deep, and it worked! Faking cuts works?? Absolute insanity. We also had a very strong sideline today, with Chip Deal manning the stats (and sometimes the pull), and WillByrd and Coach Oster-toaster keeping the cheers and heckles coming (when not playing of course).
Honestly might feel like a cop out, but everyone on both teams absolutely played their hearts out (it also is slightly a cop out because do I remember much of what happened other than feeling really hot? Nope, not really). I remember Mr. McFleury throwing some turns (and you know, throwing lots of assists), Liz catching high things cuz she’s tall, David and Fletcher really making us work when guarding them in the handler space (and sometimes the cutter space), and Larissa zooming around the field like she had Greta’s energy.
But forsooth! The regular season has passed us by and now playoffs is upon us! But yesterday’s heroics doth not purchase future favors, so we would all be good to remember that it’s anyone’s game come April. Who will be victorious? According to Mr. Roger’s next door neighbor (probably named Secluded Steve or something), it will be neither of us, but I hold fast to the hope that one day (maybe in 3 or so) we might face the Deez again in League 2023 finals.
But again, enough of my verbose verbiage. Here to bring you brief stream of consciousness coverage of our second and final game with the Dump Beetles, here’s Jess herself:
Team huddle discussing all of the things we wanted to work on this game. Hammers, changing handlers, end zone plays, full field hucks. All of which we executed in this game, and all of which had 50/50 outcomes on whether they were good or not!
We knew it was going to be a good ole day when we started the game with an impromptu spirit circle! After that big plays were made, some successful, some straight into the arms of the defender. Steven and I each got stat BINGO; turns, assists, d’s and scores. Andrew got bingo without a turn, which is even more impressive! One of my scores was a hammer from Steven, after Brad yelled from the sideline “Look at Jess, she wants a Hammer”. Steven gives the people what they want! Nathan was skying for scores, and Jake Murley got his first D of the season, something he had been chasing all season and I was so happy he got it!
The Dump Beetles were missing some key personnel this week, including their number one draft pick and one half of their fearless captain pair, but that didn’t stop them playing impressively. D’Beetles were short of dumps and definitely wanted to be a part of the Huckery Catties with Alek and Danny “Shameless” going for glory with hucks, hammers, and hooliganism oh my! Abby and Jenna crushed the middle and Elizabeth consistently holding down the handling space, bringing the disc up the field. Manny and other Danny, who isn’t shameless Danny but more of the green kind, played superbly cutting and coming back to handle and Jake got D’s for dayz!
Hopefully we didn’t stress TK out too much with our high risk and low completion rate throws, but we inched our way off of the side-line with a well fought, 11-8 W.
Aaaaaand that’s all folks! Thank you for coming with us on this incredible journey of the Insider and for supporting slap-dash, decently written journalism on a website only a hundred people of a single city in one country on a world of 8 billion people have any reason to go on. It’s viewers like you that keep us doing what we’re doing. Perhaps you shall see us again in the summer (rebranded of course for the season) bringing YOU the most UP-TO-DATE coverage of GAINESVILLE LEAGUE ULTIMATE. Ta-ta for now!
Update/redaction: I have been informed by proxy that we did not take half, the BumbleDeez did. We then broke them immediately afterwards to tie up at 6-6.
Let it not be said the Insect Insider does not acknowledge it’s misprints 👍