With the playoffs a week away and a very outside chance of making the top 2, the Cutterflies came into this week on a mission. All of our college boys were back in town and our attendance was top-notch as it was most of the season. Looking across the field for Sunday’s first game, the Dump Beetles were missing a key piece of their success against us in the first go around, with no Sam (we were missing Nes). Sam tore up our zone the first time, so we felt a lot better about that set with him not on the field. Sure enough, the Beetles struggled to find holes in our zone, throwing it directly at short-deep Plant and into the no-fly zone that Andy and Nevin created in the deep space. Before too long we jumped out to a large lead, taking half 6-1. Offensively, our struggles from previous weeks seemed to be gone as we were connecting across the board, with Bailey and Ayden dominating the stat sheet.
After a big half time speech from School about not letting up the pressure in the second half, we did exactly that and gave the Dump Beetles hope, letting them close the gap to 7-5. Determined to contribute SOMETHING to my team today, despite having the lung capacity of a rock, I took Alek deep from the dump space and outran him to catch a beautiful huck from Michelle. The game probably should have ended there, but with no Jeff around to keep time, we played about 10 minutes past hard cap and finished the game with a score of 9-7.
For DB, Manny was all over the place, sneaking behind our second level zone players to catch some dime throws from the Dannys. For us, Aymo rejoined us after being gone since week 3 and made a big impact, earning MVP honors, with 2 assists, 3 goals, and a D.
Game 2 against the Murder Hornets is one I was looking forward to after our really bad double-game-point loss to them the first time (we dropped the game-winning goal 3 times). Staying true to ourselves, we came out the gate and immediately went down 0-2, giving up a downwind break in the process. Unlike in previous weeks, though, it didn’t take us the entire half to battle back. Handblocks from Abdiel and Riley, along with some throwaways from Ben and co. got us back to 3-3. MH would try to turn the momentum train back around by throwing a no-dump zone at us and almost succeeded by taking away my other handlers via Ben’s gigantic mark, but at stall 8 I saw a streaking Nevin and shot a backhand through the cup for a wind-out-of-their-sails goal. We would break a few more times for half at 6-4(?). After that, the second half would be a bit of a rout, with MH having trouble getting enough players on the line and essentially running out of steam. Not even the Jim Davis good-luck charm could save them, final score 11-5.
MVP honors for game 2 go to our ladies, Laura and Michelle. They played amazing in both games and had to juggle playing with no subs around needy children. The first go around against MH, Emory and Bonnie abused us, but Laura and Michelle got the better of them in this matchup.
Our team is hot coming into playoffs, and we’re built for endurance. Looking forward to this triple header, and completing the revenge tour by finally getting a W against the very Hangry Cutterpillars, either in the semis or the finals.