Another early morning and another day of stiff wind to face – Thursday pool play Saturday quarter- and semi-finals saw us matching up against Chicago Machine and Raleigh Ring of Fire with seasons on the line. We spent Friday evening reviewing our game plan for Machine and planning our strategy for Sockeye in case they advanced out of their quarters versus Ring, then got to bed early (no baseball tonight).
Quarterfinals vs. Chicago Machine (15-8)
We had already matched up against Chicago two days earlier and knew a few things to look out for on defense – but the real task for us was to keep up the intensity we had displayed on Friday versus Doublewide and continue to flow in the wind. Machine, like Doublewide, elected to come out on defense and challenge our offense to work it upwind. We did just that, with Cassidy Rasmussen getting the disc back with a point block after we dropped a pass and working in the score. Our defense paid them back with the downwind break, and after two downwind trades we got our first upwinder with Mark Sherwood hitting Russell Wynne deep. We sealed the pair as John Levy caught a tipped huck and swung it for the goal. We would get another upwind/downwind pair to take half with a commanding 8-2 lead.
With Machine on offense upwind out of the half, we had a great chance to continue the breaks, but they held and again it was on our offense to do the same. They continued to come up strong, punching it in and allowing the defense to get the downwinder on the next point. We had a short lull, trading to 12-6, at which point Machine fired back with an upwind break of their own. The offense again held upwind on their next point, however, and the defense earned back the break before trading out for the last points, 15-8. Despite the let-up in the second half, we were happy with the poise our offense displayed working upwind and the effectiveness of our d-line in getting those valuable breaks (we also again got into TMF trouble this game, with three more being received during this game and two in semis for marking/sideline infractions, something we need to be aware of both to keep our games spirited and to avoid yardage penalties…)
Semifinals vs. Raleigh Ring of Fire (15-9)
The seeding suggested we would be meeting Sockeye in the semis, but as we finished our quarterfinals, Ring of Fire was on the verge of knocking them out of the bracket to set up another Pool B rematch. Again, we started on offense working upwind and held, with Beau going deep to set up the short field goal. Again, our defense got the next downwinder to take an early lead in breaks. The d-line followed up with an upwind score off a huck from Ashlin Joye to Wynne, and then worked in the downwind point for a 4-0 lead. Their offense scored and Ring threatened to break on the next possession before Mac and Bart combined for a block on a high hammer and Mac found Beau downwind for a full-field huck goal. With the defense back out, Martin Cochran played heroically, with a layout d on an in-cut and a huge sky d deep – but unfortunately we couldn’t convert upwind and Ring scored to make it 5-2. We scored downwind and then nabbed another upwind break, 7-2.
Going into half and after the break, the story was our offense working it patiently against the wind as Ring worked to do the same against our defense. We missed the opportunity to grab the downwinder for half (there was an unfortunate injury at 7-3 which saw a Ring cutter go down with a knee injury after Kittredge caught his back leg on a bid), yet our offense was unfazed and took half 8-3. Out of half, we had the downwind chance on D again but it took us until 10-5 to finally capitalize. After a long defensive stand featuring layout blocks by Sam Kanner, Zach Travis and Pat Baylis, we finally punched in the vital goal. After Ashlin Joye had an unfortunate drop on the next upwinder, Ring had a few chances to get back at us upwind, but Nick Schlag had a great layout point block to thwart them and keep our offense unbroken. With a bunch of breaks in hand, we traded out to 15-9 for the bid to finals. Great game from Ring, and a special shout-out to Dave Snoke for his play and spirit in both our matchups.
One more game to play and another rematch in the cards – Doublewide taking down Ironside in the other semifinal. We’ve taken it to them once, but they just proved how dangerous they are and no doubt they’ll be a different team come tomorrow afternoon – 2:30pm (eastern) – be sure to watch…