The UPA is now "USA Ultimate"!!

The UPA is now "USA Ultimate"!!
The UPA has changed its name from the UPA(the Ultimate Players Association) to USA Ultimate

Friday, February 14, 2014

Turnt and Burnt

Day 1 has come and gone and I am glad to say that our merry band of 12 remains as such. We have suffered no major injuries. Our lovely team from the frozen north does now bear strange patches of sunburn though. If you took all the sunburnt patches from each person you could probably form a new person. We thought about trying this ritual but Dylan Corwin was not OK with donating his calves.

He already even has the correct catching form!
We got up at 7:00ish and went in teams down to the free continental breakfast. Outside, we walked into weather that has driven the local population to their knees. It was 50 degrees and sunny, most people I saw were wearing jeans and winter coats. Tim Willer started sweating just crossing the streets to the fields. Florida weather is awesome. The amount of times I mention that fact may be a psychological justification of effort after driving as long as I did.

It was probably 75 degrees when this picture was taken
At around 8:00 AM, South Florida's campus was deserted. I have yet to see people who look like college students on this campus. After we warmed up we had our first game of the day against Tulane.

Tulane is a surprisingly good team this year. They went to Santa Barbara a few weeks ago with only 7 people (they sympathized with our lack of players due to cancelled flights) and went 3 - 1 during pool play. This in mind, we came out and played like a team that hadn't played outside yet all year. Sloppily. Our defense was passive and best and we scored by throwing hucks to our tall people, Steve Moore and Alan. The score ended up 5 - 13 for the bad guys. However we weren't that upset, its hard to be upset about dang near anything when the sun is shining and it's a balmy 70 degrees out.

Carleton was our next game and we were most turnt indeed for this rematch. Last year at Florida Warm Up, our battered band of Ultimate brotatos played maybe one of the best games of UD's Ultimate's existence. Ghetto played a valiant game last year, losing only on hard cap by 1 point. It was the carrot that got us to make this ridiculous journey south yet again. Even without the 4 guys we lost to cancelled flights, we were ready for a great game. We started with the disc and walked right down the field and scored on a Mark Fed hammer to Steve Moore. It was a great statement to make to start the game. Carleton was not going to be able to sleep on us. We traded points for the first 4 points but eventually our legs started to give out some. Carleton took half ahead 4 - 7. But we did not roll over, we kept playing hard but we suffered from a lack of dudes. Carleton brought 27 people, we had 12. Carleton won 8 - 13.

The only college accredited in teaching this dance
Our last game of the day was against South Florida. Unfortunately, our previous loss followed by a long bye round took a lot of wind out of our sails. South Florida had come off playing a close game with Pitt, eventually losing a close game. We came out flat. Flatter than Kansas or an open can of Coke left in a car on a long hot summer day. South Florida, through a series of ridiculous catches/drops on our part. South Florida took half 1 - 7. This did not make us very happy so we actually started playing again and played our best Ultimate of the whole day. After a series of amazing points the game was brought back to 8 - 10. But the legs just gave out again and South Florida out hucked us 9 - 13.

All and all it was a good day. We played against some of the better teams in the entire College series in Tulane and Carleton. In no way are we discouraged by today, tomorrow is a new day and we're looking forward to spoil some other team's weekend while we soak up some rays.

No comments: