This was a real hot one and Tealing and Dealing came in with one thing in their minds. Don’t give up a giant lead in the first half. As we huddled up before the game, already sweating an unhealthy amount, Joe urged us all to have a good time out there and the game would come to us, hopefully meaning we’d have a lead before halftime. Even though we had the music and we had the ice cream motivation waiting for us after the game, this did not exactly go as planned.
After an absolutely grueling first point with no less than 3 turns coming from each team, Teal finally scored and was feeling pretty comfortable. Unfortunately, this comfortable feeling would not last long. We would go on to make every mistake imaginable in the frisbee bible. Throwaways, drops, pick calls, not holding the mark, it just seemed like we were making mistakes all around the board. We would once again find ourselves at half down 8-5 coming out on D. But little did the Pooh Bears know, we love being down 8-5 and we had them right where we wanted them. This was now the 3rd game in a row we were down 8-5 at halftime, and the previous games, we came out with 3 breaks after half, so today would be no different, right? Wrong. Pooh Bears continued to play solid offense until we found ourselves down 11-6, with little time for a comeback. As a wise man once said, it’s a poop or be pooped on world, and although we took a rather large pooping in the first half, something changed after we were down 11-6. We changed up our defense a bit and decided it would easier to play if we didn’t make mistakes. Turns out frisbee is better when you don’t drop the disc! We get break after break to even the game to 11-11, then to 13-13, where we end up winning 15-13 with a Fletcher dime to Joe for the win. Winning the game is always fun, but without a doubt, my favorite part of the night was Ellie yelling “Why do we always do this to ourselves?” after the last point. And she is right. Comebacks are fun, but these giant halftime deficits are starting to take years off my life.
Now on to the highlights of the game!! Captains Billy and Joe had another stellar game with 5 assists, 7 scores, and 6 D’s combined between the 2 of them. Manny had a D and a score, and above this, he continues to be an essential part of our stack, slashing up the middle with ease and getting the disc at will. Rosie had a big impact, scoring twice and being a reliable handler for us all season. Josh had a nice triple-single (1 assist, 1 score, 1 D) and even though saying triple-single sounds like an insult, Josh has continued to show us every week how valuable he is to this team. He takes what the defense gives him and plays the game with the highest IQ imaginable. Ellie continued to dominate on D, getting 2 D’s on one of the best female-matching players in the league. By now, she’s shown that she can handle any matchup on D and she will get D’s on anyone in this league. Haydn continued to dominate and fill up the stat sheet, with his most notable play being a hammer threaded between defenders to Joe for the score. Nes did Nes things aka she dominated the handler space as always. Fletcher provided some timely assists, including the game winning score to Joe on a cute little deep shot. Also, shout out to Joe for catching this and attacking the disc to seal the game. But MVP honors today go to the one and only handsome stud Sam Lovelace. Sam had 3 assists, a score, and a D, but these stats don’t tell the whole story. Anytime we got to a high stall count or offense wasn’t flowing, Sam would throw a huck that made me notably groan. But my groans were clearly premature as every one of these hucks was right on the money. He also had the most important D of the game. On a huck that landed right before the end zone, Pooh Bears threw a big around to Trevor that I surely thought would be a goal. But Sam got an amazing run-through D that would propel us to another break late in the game. If you don’t know, Sam is very good at frisbee. For the Pooh Bears, Max threw a lot of scores. Trevor played very solid D (including a sick handblock on yours truly). And Natalie is just a beast out there.
But yeah, I know I wrote this last week, but we should really maybe not give up giant deficits in the first half. At this point, it’s become natural and we know we’ll be able to come back from any score, but getting a lead early would be really nice. Regardless, our resilience and never-give-up attitude is something I haven’t been a part of in league, and it’s really nice to have a group that wants to win so bad. Also, as we all know, the pull competition was today, and I must shout out our girl Nes for getting 1st place overall for the ladies. I hope you took that MVP out to ice cream with your winnings. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get it done for the boys since Dustin is too powerful. But Joe did gamble away $12 for a rethrow where he used all his energy to have the best pull of the day and silence the haters. Sadly, the final round, he did not have his best pull, but we’re still proud of his effort. Next time, try a 360 flick pull buddy.
So yeah, that’s about it for today. Pooh Bears played a heck of a game and as we were playing them, I was wondering how they weren’t ranked better. They have a lot of talent and this is not a team I want to play against in the playoffs. Hope everyone has a great July 4th and see y’all in a few weeks!