Revolver – Emerald City Classic – Day 1 (Friday, July 12, 2011)
The whole squad traveled to Seattle last night except Eric Greenwood, who is presently in Iceland. The injured reserve includes Taylor Cascino (hamstring) and Eric Halverson (back). The questionable, Russell Wynne (ankle) and Beau Kittredge (foot), both played after testing it out in warm-ups. The captains handed down 2011 wingmen assignments before the first game, leading to much high-fiving, chest bumping, and general celebration.
Game 1 – 2:30p v. Ring of Fire (North Carolina)
Notable in the first five points, both Mark Sherwood and rookie Zach Travis tallied two impressive layout Ds apiece. After scoring on O to make it 5-4, the D-line earned two breaks after Ring turned over two dump passes near the endzone on catch blocks by Mark Sherwood and Jon Levy. The D-line’s offense was sloppy in the first half, but we managed to take an 8-5 lead into the break as Josh Wiseman cut deep totally uncovered against a poachy man D and Bart Watson launched an easy IO flick huck for the score. Our man defense was more aggressive and impressive in the second half. Bart Watson skied for Ds on two hucks to salvage offensive points. For Ring, athletic #00 Ken Porter tossed his body around as usual, including two tough layout attempts that led to brief injury timeouts. In the end, Robbie Cahill shot an up the line backhand huck to Beau Kittredge for a 15-10 win.
Game 2 – 7:30p v. Bunka Shutter Buzz Bullets (Japan)
We love these guys. To both teams’ delight, Mark Sherwood had roamed their sidelines earlier in the day in full a full blue Buzz kit that he had traded for last season in Prague. Neither team played their prettiest this evening, though. Sam Kanner had a giant sky of their superstar Masahiro, only to lazily throw a lefty backhand behind a wide-open Martin Cochran to miss the goal. Oops! The crowd gasped for that one…. Ashlin Joye had a great layout catch block outside of the endzone to prevent a sure goal. Our game plan had included stopping the give-go but Buzz continued to get the jump on us. Revolver broke to take half 8-4 on a short pass from Russell Wynne to Nick Chapman, who had also made a superb layout block on an under cut by Masahiro. In the second half the offense had several miscommunications and Buzz capitalized to close the gap to 10-9, but not before Jonathan Hester had a beautiful backhand huck away and across the field, a la Steve Dugan, to Josh Wiseman to salvage another O point. We pulled back away and broke twice to win 15-11 on a goal from Mark Sherwood to Ashlin Joye.
