Nationals – Thursday

Revolver – USA Ultimate Club Championships – Day 1 (Thursday, October 27, 2011)

Breakfast: eggs and ground turkey.

Game 1 – 9:30a v. GOAT (Toronto) – Pool A
The D-line didn’t really get going for most of this game, but we led by a couple of points for most of the game until GOAT tied it up at 10-10, then 11-11 before we rattled off the last four points to win 15-11. Jon Levy notched two blocks in the last three points.

Game 2 – 12:15p v. Condors (Santa Barbara, CA) – Pool A
After lunching on honey-baked ham sandwiches we rushed out to an 8-3 halftime lead against the Condors, when Zach Travis rose above the fray to grab a floaty deep shot from Ashlin Joye. Out of half Tyler Bacon tossed a flick huck that forced Mark “The Arbiter” Elbogan into an impressive extension layout catch for the Condors. The second half was a little sloppier, including several drops, but we managed a 15-8 victory.

Game 3 – 3:00p v. Johnny Bravo (Boulder, CO) – Pool A
Johnny Bravo had just lost to GOAT, so they needed to beat us to have a chance of advancing to the upper power pools. They were ready to do just that as they ran up a 2-0 lead off a Joshua “Richter” Ackley layout comeback block, after which he crawled the couple of steps to the disc and tossed it to Jake Juszak for the break. We scrabbled back with a break to tie the score at 5-5, then got another to take a 7-6 lead after Sam Kanner called a timeout and hucked to Martin Cochran on the set play. We took an 8-7 halftime lead but Bravo broke immediately to level the score at 8-8, after which we traded to 11-11. The final score of 15-12 happened after Russell Wynne swallowed up an endzone pass by Bravo, after which we worked the disc back the other way and finished with a short pass from Nick Chapman to Jonathan Hester.

Tomorrow we will play in power pools against Machine and Ring of Fire. Tonight we take ice baths, dine on Italian cuisine, and check out game 6 of the World Series.

Cal States – Sunday

The weather held up nicely today as the teams reconvened on Sand Hill fields for more action.

Game 4 – Round robin – 9:00a vs Condors (Santa Barbara, CA)
The Condors jumped to a quick 2-0 lead as their deep game looked sharp early, but the Revolver pressure ratcheted up for a 15-9 victory. #2 Dan Bellinger had a swooping sky goal over a cluster of people waiting for a disc to drop down and Jacob Juszak played a solid deep game on both the throwing and receiving ends.

Game 5 – Round robin – 10:45a vs Renegade (Los Angeles, CA)
The young LA team brought excellent intensity to this match-up, but we wrapped things up to secure a spot in the finals against our only remaining round robin opponent…

…so we agreed to play one game for the title to 21 points, with three periods. One team would advantageously start the first and last periods on offense, so Boost Mobile suggested an alternative to the disc flip: a 70-yard footrace against their lanky speedster Ezra Schiff. The only rules: we couldn’t use Beau Kittredge, Nick Chapman, or Josh Wiseman. We cajoled the young UC Santa Cruz tryout, Devon Anderson, to clean the mud out of his cleats and race. Devon’s really fast.

Game 6 – Finals – 12:30p vs Boost Mobile (Palo Alto, CA)
We received to start and quickly built a 7-2 lead, then a 14-5 lead, and capped the day with a 21-7 finish. Boost is a dangerous team and will easily get better this season, maybe even making a run at Northwest Regionals in October like last year.

A great opening tournament for the 2011 campaign! The tryouts all played well this weekend, making for some difficult decisions. Thanks to the new guys for adding their best to the team.