it would be a travesty in so many ways if this tournament weren't wrapped up with a full account of the weekend's action. suffice it to say that it was one of the most impressive showings for reed ultimate... and i mean ever... and it's something all who were involved will remember for a long time.
the plu bbq was also a tournament that we really want to share with our teammates and if this write-up is any way of doing that, then i hope that you'll take the time to read it and share in the triumphs of the berserk. i mean, while only nine guys were standing out on that field when the final point was scored, our hard work in practice and our support of each other really contributed to our unexpected and improbable run through the tournament. read on, and enjoy.
plu bbq 2009: day 1i woke up at 4:50 am because i didn't want to drive down to tacoma on friday night. frankly, i don't want to drive to tacoma EVER, but for the plu bbq, i'll make an exception. it was dark and cold, dawn was a long way away, and a light drizzle fell as i packed up my car and swung by sellwood to pick up grant cole (of LC fame). grant and i plugged in an ipod and talked frisbee the whole way up, going back and forth on the struggles of small school ultimate. we empathized and commiserated: he talked about players showing up drunk for practice and i wondered aloud whether this was better or worse than players not showing up for practice at all. we talked about being short at tournaments, about having to carry a team through a season on injured legs, and about the most exciting games we'd ever played. i told him about how a thesis always gets in the way of a senior year at reed and we both agreed that we may have blurred the academic focus of our college careers for the sake of ultimate. i don't think either of us felt that we had made the wrong sacrifices. while academics was always prioritized in the 1a slot, ultimate wasn't far behind at 1b.
when we arrived at the fields, reed was already slogging through their first game in a fog that made it difficult to see the seventy yards down field towards the opposition. i got out of my car in jeans and sneakers, but learned within the first two or three minutes that i would almost certainly have to cleat up for this tournament. and so it began...
game 1: seattle u
[10 players]
russell played a few points and kind of hobbled around on both defense and offense. joe and bryson were in a groove, joined by four freshmen: tevon, game on, francis, and ben "hoo!" corner. megatron and nipples rounded out the pack of current students, and i joined in to put us at 10. we rolled on through this game, as seattle u had little concept of how to run an offense or how to slow us down on d. i never took my motor above 75% and joe reminded us that going through the motions might get us a win, but more efficient play would save our legs for the long road ahead. eventually, we closed them out by a score of around 13-4 or 13-3. we were never challenged, never pressed. we looked forward to round two.
game 2: lewis and clark[9 players]
russell was (understandably) done, so we were down to 9. two subs feels like a blessing in hindsight, but it certainly felt difficult in the moment. our cheer was pretty decent, and we dedicated it to CT: "you're bacchus! b-a-c-c-h-you suck our cockus! you're bacchus! b-a-c-c-h-you suck our cockus! etc." LC immediately brought in their drill to a chant of "R E A D!" and then pulled off one of the most brilliant cheers i've ever seen: chanting "roofies," first at a brisk pace and deafening volume, they gradually slowed their chant as they fell to the ground, "passing out," if you will. clever. LC: 1. Reed: 0. fortunately this victory didn't help them much on the field.
it's hard for me to remember much about the details of this game, except to say that we were pretty neck-and-neck the whole way. neither team jumped out to a big lead, and keeping them close really benefitted us in the long run. this was not a back-and-forth game of turnovers, but an efficient demonstration of how you run a horizontal stack. they never really tried to zone us, but always came down in man. our low numbers made it really easy for us to take advantage of one-on-one match-ups, so each time we came out for a defensive point, we picked the guys that we could shut down. lc had strong performances from sam and from ben (a freshman who's going to be sick-nasty in a couple of years), but i think the victory came down to one thing: our mentality.
we played with nothing to lose, but didn't resign ourselves to reckless decision making. while we made some big plays on offense with our studs, our win was more a result of our shut-down defense. we figured out what they wanted in the early going and did a great job of taking that away from them late in the game. they took only what we gave them and as we got closer to the end of the game, they began to lose their composure. we took care of the frisbee as they made throw-aways and mental mistakes. we covered the pull well and stopped their handlers as they had trouble reacting to the triple-threat of me, joe, and bryson. and mostly, our role players were fundamentally sound by making in-cuts at the right time, stretching the field at the right time, and eliminating big plays from their role players. it was a sound team-effort all around. (this will be a common theme from the whole write-up.) LC: 1. Reed: 1.
if memory serves, we took half ahead by just one point, and had to pull to start the second half, but we kept the pressure up and won the game 13-11. we got a break to score the last point of the game, and i have to say that it's always sweeter to win it on defense. LC gave us a sweet south-portland shout-out cheer, and we responded with the best we could come up with: "this is not a very good cheer, but after this we'll buy you beer."
game 3: ups b[9 players]
we could have won this game with 5 people. they had no concept of how to run a vertical stack, i got a stand-still, no-jump d on a huck, and we were efficient and methodical in putting this one away (which gave us much more time to watch the PLU women's alumni team). the final score was something like 13-3. joe and bryson saved their legs as much as possible for the next game, and we spent a lot of this game letting people play outside of their typical roles, e.g. megatron, game on and tevon handling with fish, bryson, nipples, and joe cutting downfield. fun game. easy game. on to round 4.
game 4: south eugene axemen[8 players - henry had to leave to go to his brother's dance recital... more on this later]
south eugene has some good players, and we have a history with them. reed has played them a couple of times in recent memory: my senior year, we met them at the bbq on sunday morning and lost on double-game point in a shitty downpour. i didn't play due to over-exertion on saturday, but i filmed the whole thing and we made some pretty nasty plays against them. we also played a combined south/churchill team at club sectionals that same year. i sat out this game as well, but we handled them pretty easily with a big team and lots of subs.
south eugene came out with an attitude. their best player, who played with rhino a little last summer, called me a douchebag when he was standing next to russell during our ups game, and they generally decided they were going to be pain-in-the-ass high school kids. the worst part about this was it was some misplaced teenage angst rather than a deserved response to something we had done. we asked them to hold the line, and then a couple of them decided they would slowly walk up and down the line (a la ben kohn circa 2005). i called a pick in the early going, to which their best guy laughed and called me a "joke." i asked him if it was a pick. he said it was. i asked him why the bad spirit so early on? he said that every time they play us, i am a douchebag. i later told him that i have never played south eugene high school. ah, to be young and confused again. the best part about this was that we never every sunk to their level. we made calls that needed to be made, we shook hands when necessary, we didn't talk any shit, we never spiked the disc. they were looking for a fight, and we didn't give it to them. we played ultimate. they played mind games. we won both.
the key to this game was getting out early. they were able to run a couple of huck plays to the speedy kid, but then i guarded him and forced him under all day. they were successful with a couple of big breakmark throws as a result of travels, but we calmly called them back. we made their three best players try to make all the plays, and eventually, they crumbled. they turfed a couple of discs in the redzone early on, and we took advantage. we almost never made dumb choices in the redzone, and our efficiency demonstrated the wisdom that can only come after earning a high school diploma. bryson and henry had some big fucking skys in this game, joe had the usual nasty flick that we expect to see, and we never ever felt like it was a game we were going to lose. after rolling to half at 7-4, we closed out the game 13-10, cheered them: "what's the opposite of north? SOUTH!" and shook their hands. the best thing to do is to beat an opponent soundly and give them absolutely no reason to hate you. they all shared confused looks as i congratulated them on a well-played game and they struggled to find some new target for their aggression.
perhaps the biggest part of this win was the simple fact that it was the difference between our first round on sunday being at 10:40 or being at 9:00. way to take advantage of the extra sleep, berserk!
post-game saturdayafter the last game, we had a comfortable last-round bye. we thought it would be a great idea to get down to the showers on campus, warm up, get dressed, and return to the fields for the BBQ and the showcase game. we were finished before every other time, and we'd have the showers all to ourselves. but then, we ran into a problem:
"oh shit! where's the van key"
"didn't henry take the key so he could jump his car?"
"yeah, he did... fuck, he doesn't still have the key, does he?"
"well he didn't gave it to anyone."
"shit."
"shit shit shit."
i don't need to attribute any of these quotes to anyone in particular. i'm pretty sure we all said them at different points in time while we sat on the pavement next to the van, chatting up some PLU ladies and generally trying to unwind. at least it was sunny, and at least we were 4-0.
fortunately, henry had called his girlfriend from my phone last weekend, so i was able to call her up to get a hold of him. he arrived in seattle, called us back, and told us it would be 45 minutes before he could return to the fields. shitty for us, shittier for him? four of us got to go to the showers (we were the lucky ones with clothes in our possession), then made a stop at a QFC for some boat-racing supplies (bring it on LC!) and some light snacks. we returned to the field to find the start of the showcase game, a light drizzle, some shivering and stinky teammates, and LC waiting in anticipation.
boat race[6 players]
long story short, we got clobbered. this was probably the only point in the tournament where our numbers actually hurt us. we had three freshmen who had never really boat raced before, and bryson (who "has to play tomorrow! i don't want to drink!") decided that his body couldn't be bothered to finish a leg. so i started us off. and i finished us off. by the time we hit the anchor, we had been destroyed. on the day, LC: 2. Reed: 1. but we won the 1 that counted.
dinnerwe ate some thai food. it was really shitty. or at least, that was the opinion of russell and myself. then we returned to the sweet house where we were staying and crashed for the night, 9 winners and no losers, comfortable with the knowledge that we had a first round bye and would be playing quarterfinals in the morning.
plu bbq 2009: day 2we actually woke up before our alarms went off. can you remember the last time that this happened at a frisbee tournament? we didn't have to struggle to drag ourselves out of bed. instead, we had a nice and leisurely morning. we made a stop at a local coffee shop, grabbed some lattes and, in my case, a delicious cinnamon roll. we enjoyed our drive from the pretty part of tacoma to the shitty part of puyallup and as russell and i passed a local church (with rage against the machine blasting in the background), i asked the lord to hold back the winds and the rains if only for an afternoon. we would have to wait and see if he would oblige.
henry sent joe a message overnight saying that his knee had swelled and he'd be unable to join us for sunday. we arrived at the fields with just seven players, but game on met us there to make it 8. good. we'd have a sub. we took a quick look at the championship bracket, paying special attention to the wsu/whitworth game whose winner would be our quarterfinal foe. they took the game deep to 12-12, and whitworth pulled away with the 14-12 victory and the right to meet the berserk. most of us got ready by doing plyos. i just stood on the sideline and took notes on the whitworth game. they were fundamentally unbalanced. they had nice flicks but couldn't work the backhand, they threw a lot of deep looks and were able to out-athletic wsu in most cases. any open under cuts that wsu made which weren't hit immediately led to layout Ds by whitworth. if we could be solid and efficient, we could be victorious.
game 5: whitworth"who wants to sex mutombo?!!?" "FAT CHICKS NO SEX MUTOMBO!"
you know it's going to be a big game when we bust out the mutombo cheers. it started with plu bbq 2008, and it was time to resurrect it for 2009. we wagged our fingers (to the air, not to the other team--that would be a technical), and got on the line ready to pull to start the game.
whitworth jumped out early as we got a little lazy. their offense was indescribable. they crowded their stack so much that picks were frequent. they held two handlers back and had 5 down-field. they were big and agile athletes, but for the most part were unsure of themselves as ultimate players. when the game turned to 2-2, joe suggested that we start forcing backhand. so we did. and then things began to unravel for them. they didn't quite know that cutting for a backhand on the open side was similar to cutting for a flick on the open side. they repeatedly tried to break us with around flicks and were only ever successfu when our marks failed. they had no I/O backhand to speak of, so we clamped down appropriately.
at half, the score was 7-4, and we had every confidence that things would continue in our favor. the highlights of this game were a pretty sick layout d by tevon (which may not have been caught anyway, but was sweet nonetheless). his mom really appreciated his ability to get ho. game on left his feet a couple of times and ben got in on the scoring action. francis made aggressive and solid under cuts, and was a reliable cutter downfield. nipples was really effective as the offside handler when their marks started to clamp a bit on the open side, and did a good job of hitting the upline open cuts. i had a pretty filthy (maybe? i didn't see it?) bid on a huck that bryson threw me with a little too much juice, and i almost got pushed into a soccer goal's sidebar when receiving a deep huck from joe. whitworth got excited when they took the game up to 5, but we just kept on truckin' and won it 13-5, with plenty of time to chill out before semis.
game 6: plu[8 players]
not plu b, not plu x, not plu y. plu. for those of you who haven't been paying attention, this is their home tournament. family and friends lined the field. about fifty or sixty people watched this game. i always love playing in front of a crowd, and this really helped to raise the intensity of the game and made each play that much more exciting, and made each opportunity that much more nerve-wracking.
one of the best images of the entire weekend: at one end of the field was plu with their 25 strong, engaging in a breakmark throwing drill. they worked the disc back and forth with efficiency and quality throws. they had too many people in line for them to get a lot of reps, but they had conspicuously strong numbers and strong throws from top to bottom. at the other end of the field, 9 jackasses in rain coats running a shoddy box drill with nobody going about 60 or 70% exertion. lots of drops, lots of turns, lots of laughing, lots of bullshitting. anyone looking at this sight would have assumed it would be a slaughter. a finely tuned machine versus a bunch of dorky kids from reed. but shit man, that's why we play the game. to see who the real winner will be.
reed one the toss and elected to start on defense. plu seized the opportunity to use the wind and decided that they'd move downwind on the opening point. we made a deep pull, but came out in quad and struggled to find the right man. with confusion on our faces and swirling cuts from the opposition, they broke out with a deep look to my guy with another one of their men chasing the disc deep. i lost a step on him but gained ground with the disc in the air. as it floated to the back corner of the end zone with a lot of speed and then wind at its back, i made a flying leap at the shoulder-level of the receiver (some spectator will have to confirm the height)... and whiffed at the disc as he pulled it in with about two yards to spare. plu 1, reed 0 with plu pulling upwind.
the wind was gone from my chest but was still a huge factor in the game. they got an early turn on us and rammed the disc in the endzone heading upwind. we were down 2-0, they had scored the first break of the game, and we were staring into a stiff headwind heading back upfield.
they pulled to us and brought out a zone. this was the first time we had really seen a zone all weekend, and while i wouldn't say that we were flummoxed by its efficiency, i will say that it was quite unexpected. we didn't get poppers into position early enough and our handlers had nowhere to look. a tough swing was forced down by the wind and plu scored downwind to bring the score to 3-0.
timeout reed.
joe was pretty pissed. we were giving them this game. we were not making intelligent choices on offense and we were forgetting the simple things that made us stronger as we worked our way to semifinals. our defense was porous and unfaithful, and they found the holes and took advantage. i told the guys that i didn't care at all about the outcome of the game, just that we played efficient and mindful reed ultimate. we had one game to leave it out on the field. we did the same cheer we had done at every half, at every timeout: a quiet and solid "reed" for us. we stood on the line and prepared to receive the pull.
we hadn't given plu a reason to come down in man, and they didn't. we saw a zone, and this time we were ready for it. we efficiently swung the disc from side to side, gaining yards each time. the poppers saw the holes and we never saw a stall count work its way above 5. their zone was more of a wall than a cup, and we decided to go around the wall instead of breaking through it. about 75% of the way downfield, i threw one through the cup that had a little extra "zing" on it, and game on dropped it. but we got the disc back by clamping down on the marks immediately, forcing them to make tough swings across the field upwind. the disc hit the ground just in front of joe, and i yelled at him to pick it up quickly, cut upline, and we scored downwind to bring the score to 3-1.
but we had suffered a casuality. tevon had a hard impact on his knee and didn't think he would be able to make it back for the rest of the game. he went out mid-point and would return for one point in the second half, but largely sat the rest of the game.
[7 players]
pulling upwind, we had a renewed sense of confidence and faith in one another. say what you will about playing savage (it sucks), but at least you know what you're getting out of each player every time down the field. for the rest of our game, our defense was the same: joe, nipples and game on would cover the handlers in the quad, bryson and ben would cover the open-side cutters, and francis and i would play the break side cutters. every time we pulled, we knew our spots and we knew our roles. i think it worked to our advantage.
we pushed plu towards the flick side of the field, and the wind shifted a bit so that it was running diagonally from the backhand side of the upwind end zone to the flick side of the downwind end zone. they got a little bit careless and turned the disc over. i tried to make a fast break and ripped an upwind backhand to joe, who wasn't quite able to come down with it over a couple of players. it looked like a strip from my vantage point but joe later said he dropped it. plu got possession back and started pushing it downwind again, but ran into the same problem as before, this time throwing it out of bounds on the sideline. i calmly walked over, picked up the disc, asked for space downline, and this time ripped a much nicer throw to joe who reeled it in. upwind break? check. 3-2? check. heading back downwind with another break opportunity? you bet your sweet ass.
i made sure to keep the pull in bounds and ran down and covered a handler this time. with the disc pinned to the flick side and plu heading up wind, i clamped down really tight on the thrower. with the stall count approaching 7 and joe working the dump, the thrower tried to swing a backhand across the field. joe laid out around the handler and got the d. with only 5 yards to go. we swung the disc from side to side, eventually finding bryson (i was looking at ben, though) for the layout score, and a tie ballgame. the score was 3-3, we were back on serve, and plu had to call a timeout.
we pulled upwind and nipples, bryson and joe were back to their old tricks. down field, i was able to poach to the center of the field and take away their deep looks, as their break-side, offstage cutter was reluctant to make any moves. this stopped their deep game and forced their cutters under. bryson and the freshmen did a great job of stopping most of the under cuts, or at least making them iffy-choices to throw to. we got another turn really close to their end zone, and joe hit me for an upline cut on default as i toed the line. 4-3, reed.
at this point, things become blurry for me, as i remember a number of plays but am having a hard time putting them in order. we took half 7-6 and would receive heading downwind to start the 2nd half. somewhere in the first half was a pretty remarkable play: after plu turned it in our end zone heading upwind, they decided to put another zone on us. as i picked up the disc and walked it to the line, bryson made a brilliant decision. he recognized that the deep-deep had sucked in a little bit, and that he could blow right past him. i was probably 15 yards off the sideline and 5 yards short of the end zone when i saw him bust out. i ran to the line, ground checked the disc, and ripped a backhand. the throw went immediately out of bounds, never went higher than about 20 feet, rose and dipped with the help of the wind, narrowly avoiding the heads of spectators on the sideline, and came back into play on the sideline about a yard short of the end zone, right on the line. bryson held the disc as joe sprinted up the field, cutting upline for bryson who threw a high back hand to his leaping housemate. joe caught the disc and toed the line as he fell to the ground: he was in and there was no dispute. amazing sequence.
at half time, for the first time all weekend, we bust out one of our big cheers. we've hydrated and rested as much as possible, and as our hands meet in the circle, i look around at the other 8 people in the huddle and say, "there are a lot of people here. i don't think they know who we are." that's all that needs to be said, and on the count of three: "we are the men from reed..."
to start the second half, we decide that we should run play b, joe to fish. as i round the corner to head deep, i run right into my defender, feel my hamstring tighten up, and blow by him. joe puts up a perfect huck that i reel in with two hands, uncontested. i have to sit a point to massage my hammy and tevon comes back in for a point. he decides that's probably not a good idea, and i play the rest of the game with a knot in the back of my leg.
other plays of note: game on gets a layout d, nipples rides their top handler for the entire game, basically assaulting him sexually but putting on a fantastic mark (and not getting broken!), bryson gets a huge layout d on a down-wind huck which we end up scoring heading the other direction, ben cuts deep on an upwind backhand huck from joe for the score, joe catches a cross-field, downwind, blade from me in the back corner of the endzone, game on cuts deep and skies a fool for a downwind huck.
receiving on game point, and heading downwind, we decide to run play b one more time. bryson and i argue a bit about who cuts deep, but i give it up to him. we're gonna win this game with joe to bryson. the pull comes down to me, but we're a little slow getting the offense started. the downfield look to joe isn't there, so i have to swing to game on. joe adjusts his cut, receives from andrew, and rips the motherfucker as hard as he can as i yell "NO NO NO!" from the middle of the field. bryson has his defender beat by a couple of steps, but another guy from the far side of the field has poached over to the flick side and is at least 3 steps ahead of bryson, but off a little bit to the backhand side. bryson goes hard, and catches the disc with no bid and no jump, both defenders within a yard or two. ball game. i raise my arms and walk to the other end of the field to congratulate my teammates. what a fucking game!
to recap, plu got off to a 3-0 start, and we came back to take half at 7-6. then, we rolled on through, winning the second half 6-2. overall, we made a 13-5 run. we had less than 1/3 the number of people they did.
there was no way i was going to be able to play another game, especially against the plu alumni. as they got word that we'd be forefeiting the finals, they came over and gave us shit for about 15 seconds. then tad said "did you really beat them savage?" to which we responded, "yes." they all told us that they would much rather have been watching our game than playing their own semifinal, and i certainly noticed that every time the plu alumni were on the sidelines, they were watching our game instead of theirs. they were impressed. we were victorious.
i would be remiss if i didn't mention russell in all of this. the motherfucker spent the whole tournament watching from the sidelines, wishing he could be out there. his soul purpose (misspelling intentional) at this tournament was to pick us up and motivate us. rain or shine, russell supported his teammates by getting us water, by talking to us on the sidelines, and by offering a high five for every big play.
sure, it would have been nice to win the finals. but it would also have been nice to have more than six and a half people for that game. my favorite part about this tournament was that we made it all about us. we didn't give a shit who we were playing and what they were doing, thinking, or saying. our consistent half time cheer, the "reed" for us, was indicative of the fact that we were all that mattered at this tournament. we were there to support each other, to make each other better, to learn, and ultimately, to win. 6-0. savage 7 at the end. pride, baby. pride.
