We're Back! {and have been for a while}

Ghetto Force enthusiasts! I have great news! I decided to stop being a lazy dummy and bless everyone with a new post.  Now, I know its been a while since this blog has been updated last, so there will be a lot to go over.  So I guess there's no better place to start than the beginning.

4,600,000,000 Years ago...

This is where the story of Ghetto Force Ultimate begins.  During this time known as the Hadean Eon (thanks wikipedia) a young planet forms called Earth.  It's basically a large rock in outer space.  It forms an orbit around a sphere of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields known as the sun.  Under these circumstances, notably the distance between the Earth and the Sun as well as the Earth's atmosphere, the conditions for life were possible.  Complex organic molecules were just introduced to Earth at this time.  The ingredients for intelligent life were all there.  I can guess you know what happens next.

FAST FORWARD
(a bunch of pointless stuff happens)

Late August 2014...

We'll pick the story back up here.  I'll briefly paraphrase the most important events that occurred  between 4.6 Billion years ago and August 2014:

• Earliest known humans begin to walk upright
• Discovery of fire
• Agricultural practices commence
• Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Shakespeare
• European settlers discover America
• United States is formed
• Orville and Wilber Wright take first flight
• Frisbee is invented
• Gangnam Style becomes popular
• Alan Huels gets on TV (link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuxbPAuOG-Y

Now that we're all caught up, I'll cover more recent events.  Tryouts took place on a late August evening on beautiful Stuart field.  Veterans were able to catch up with one another while the frosh were able to enjoy the excitement of not knowing anybody around them or what the heck was going on.  We had two tryout sessions for everyone to show what they had been working on all summer.

Most of the freshman at tryouts

The tryouts went well (from what I can remember).  There were a lot of guys there, as there are most years, but only the true men stayed around to join the team.

After tryouts our regular practice sessions began.  For about 3 weeks we introduced everyone to the basic fundamentals and strategies of the game.  Most of the rookies seemed to pick the game up quite quickly.  We looked prepared for our first tournament.

Before our first actual tournament we had a scrimmage planned for Parents Weekend.  Normally this is when we would play against the Get Old Force, but unfortunately this was the same weekend as Club Sectionals which many of our Alum were competing in.  So instead we split X/Y and played a split Cedarville squad.  Both teams competed well.  I believe Jack's squad went 1-1 and Jordan's team went 2-0.  It was a valuable opportunity for new players to get in-game experience and show out for their parents.

Some action from the game against Cedarville

The following weekend we packed up and headed out to our first real tournament.  Wright State's "Wright Wing Conspiracy" we attended the tournament X/Y with Dayton X lead by Jordan "Drunk Team Pony Team Thor Team Swag Team" Manke and Dayton Y lean by Alan "Seagrams Lover" Huels.  Both teams came out firing with early wins.  Dayton X went 3-0 on Day 1 (mostly because they were playing some pretty easy teams and were stacked with vets.) and Dayton Y went 1-2 but would end up taking the #2 seed in the pool due to point diff.  On this day the "Dayton X to Nationals" campaign was born.  Check out our twitter and you'll know what I mean.



Preview of 2015 College Nationals Championship Bracket

Day 2 of Wright Wing was good for both teams.  I know Dayton Y opened up with a very dominant win over Bowling Green Y with the final score being 13-5.  During this game Doug "Dom" Leyden had a bid for a score.  I don't anticipate this ever happening again because Doug's pretty smarmy.  Dayton X won too I guess but I don't know who they played because I wasn't on that team and its not on scorereport.net Dayton Y then played a pretty skilled Kentucky X.  The game was back and forth and but Ghetto Y prevailed 13-10. Dayton X won too i guess. Who cares.  By this time both Dayton squads were in the semi-finals.  Dayton X took on a full squad MiamiU.  From what I saw when I wasn't playing, Miami was pretty douchey, but that's to be expected.  Dayton Y was taking on Wright State's Alumni.  I'd rather not speak about that game so I'll just talk about Dayton X more.  I believe X took half at 7-6 but Miami had the momentum going in to half.  Coming out of half X fought hard, but our lack of experience showed on some plays and Miami was able to get to 13 points first.  Overall it was a great first tournament experience for our rookies and a great way to shake off the rust.

Skip forward about a month to the weekend of 10/18-10/19.

This past weekend we attended 4th annual Illinois Invite in RAAAAAANTOUL, Illinois hosted by the University of Illinois. Illinois.  Its about a 4 hour drive so we left midday on Friday and stayed in an abandoned hotel in walking distance to the fields.


Hotel we stayed at in Rantoul

This tournament we were again split X/Y with the Dayton X team lead Jack "fruitcake" Hanson and Conner "C" Haenszel (me).  Dayton Y was lead by Alan "Highlight Reel" Huels.  Day 1 didn't really go well for either team.  Dayton X had the only win on the day for either team (suck it Alan). There was a strong wind for most of the day and our zone D was unpracticed and unpolished. The field consisted of quite a few Alumni teams and some full squads. There was a $1000 cash prize for 1st place so that could explain that.  It could have been worse, but the sun actually never showed up for the first day like the Weather Channel promised.  Here are some pics from Day 1



Steve Moore doing the most

Schubert hucks are the best hucks

Rookie Evan Wethington handles goodish

Doug and Matt pose game strong

Jack jumps as high as he can in this picture

This is why he's a fruitcake

Probably one of Jack's hucks :(

The biggest takeaway from Day 1 of Illinois was the new team catchphrase "SUCK IT, NERDS!" created by Steve "Rage Monster" Moore when he scored against one of the alumni teams.  It was great to witness.  Luckily for Dayton X, Mr. and Mrs. Hanson brought us lunch during our Bye round (not the round against an alumni team named "BYE". Assholes had us thinking we had 2 byes)



Just Alan killin' that hat

Me being mad decent

Rookie Ethan Steinmetz with the nice zone D

Der Hund

Tommy Tappel holding it down

Tommy doesn't look like a lesbian in this one

Staying warm during a bye

Rookie Caleb "Air Caleb" Negron 

Day 2 was a little better.  The sun actually showed up on this day and the wind was significantly less.  Through some sort of scheduling wizardry, Dayton X was granted a first round bye in the consolation bracket for getting 4th place in pool C.  Dayton Y on the other hand had to wake up and be at the fields at 8am (suck it again Alan).  Dayton Y took on Purdue X in its first game.  They came out strong.  By the time Dayton X got to the fields,  Dayton Y was leading 9-6.  It looked like a sure win, but then the improbable happened.  Purdue started to come back. A lot of bad plays happened.  Purdue won on universe.  It was definitely a disappointment because had Dayton Y won, their opponent would have been none other than Dayton X.  So Dayton X took on the exact same Purdue squad and yielded almost the exact same result.  Lots of drops, lots of rage, and not a lot of defense.  After, both teams took on cupcake opponents.  Both teams ended the tournament with a win.  It was the icing on the shitcake.  All jokes aside, it was a growing experience for everyone involved.  Rookies got to face some good competition, see what it was like to play under adverse conditions, and have some fun bonding with team mates in the process.



Schubert's always happy when he's on the field :)



"SUCK IT NERDS"



Casual



The Doug Pull #rare



Kevin Lavoy bids inbounds



The Evan Pull #lessrare



We liked guarding this guy I guess



The "Angry Sky" by Alan

*wrote this part last Friday*
That sort of brings us to now.  As I write this, Ghetto Force alum from far and wide are probably making their way to Mecca a.k.a the University of Dayton.  The annual Alumni Scrimmage takes place tomorrow at 4:30p.  Its gonna be a blood bath.  Alan really wants to win.

*Update*
Thanks for all the Get Old Force members who were able to make the game and the Hat Tournament hosted by UD Kraken.  Though the results weren't in our favor this year, everyone enjoyed the opportunity of playing with past Ghetto Force all-stars (even though one of them hasn't graduated yet)

All pictures in this blog are courtesy of Ryan Schubert who was awesome enough to take pictures of this Illinois Invite.  If you want to see the full albums then check out his Facebook page.  Here's the link to his photos.  https://www.facebook.com/ryan.schubert.73/photos

Until next time.
C.