As the D-town crew rolled in Friday night, along with James Madison University at the Red Roof Inn, it was an exciting feeling to have warm weather and outstanding competition on the agenda.
In short, Dayton took one on the chin, recording it's first win-less day in.....not even sure. But it's probably been a number of years. With a good tight start against Georgia, the 15-11 loss didn't seem too bad. The 15-13 East Carolina loss stung a bit, as it was easily a game that could have been won.
The loss that was really an issue came to Kennesaw State. As the Ghetto led most of the game, the energy was lacking and no sense of urgency was ever established. Not putting KSU Bidness away proved to be a valuable lesson, as we Ghetto got stung as the O-line choked up the universe point with several drops and numerous chances to win, with the final ringing in at 13-12. Wowzas.
The last game of Saturday seemed a bit predetermined. Williams was solid, top to bottom. They were rested, and had been rolling the whole day. By this point, Ghetto was gassed, morale was down, and a win seemed distant. Williams rolled, taking the game 15-8.
After some serious Hooters medication, everyone was relaxing and loosening up. The squad worked their ways back to the fields to see Addison Hoover and Travis Knight play in what was likely the sloppiest (perhaps boring-est?) All-Star Game in record. It's ok, the college kids just need some more time to read the Ed Mack Manual for All-Star Game Success. Luckilly, for everyone's sake, Addison and Trav utilized the manual's cribnotes and obliged, producing the best point of the game when Hoover tossed his new game jersey over his head and hit a 40 yard blind hammer to a streaking Middlebury cutter. Not to be outdone, Knight, in front of the D-town following, was led into the endzone, and produced one of the finest, and perhaps most gratuitous, layout grabs for the score. It was the highlight of the game.
As everyone popped some Advil and cozied up for bed, the squad went to sleep with thoughts of better things to come. As Sunday morning rolled around, things weren't looking so hot. Actually, things looked exactly like Sunday of Terminus.
Powerful rains. Lightning delays. Flooding fields.
It looked as though Ghetto was going to be heading home early, with no wins to show for their 11 hour trek. However, the TD and UNCW team kept everyone in the loop, and helped pull it all together. Albeit a tad late, with soaked fields, Ghetto hit the swamp, er, pitch, and began the tournament in the bracket for 13th place. As Ghetto's resiliency seems to improve all the time, a second shot was not to be wasted. It didn't hurt that Ghetto seems to only get better as conditions get crappier.
Let the steamrolling begin. Dayton pounded the boys from Appalachian State, 13-4, and recorded the first OATBAG of the season. Yummy. Next up was JMU, bringing the Battle for the Red Roof Inn to the front stage. Again, with Ghetto's tight zone-d, and J4 obnoxiously laying out into every puddle in the field, Ghetto was clicking and working the Hellfish over. It wasn't even close, with Ghetto wrapping up the game at 13-7. It can also be noted that one guy from JMU, who knows who he is, will likely never play UD again. There was literally cartoon steam protruding from his ears. He gave up a callahan on the third point of the game. Got layout d'ed a few times in the middle of the game. Then got rocked by Joe Bayer on another errant throw in the endzone he was trying to reel in. The icing on the cake, however, was when MacCorken's final grab for a score turned into a harmless "put a cork in it" spike, that landed near this dude. Without hesitation, this dude grabs the disc, and chucks it roughly 276 feet into the air. It wasn't this cat's day.
Last on the list was Chicago Junk, who, with much travling to go as well, agreed to an abbreviated game to 7. When Junk grabbed an upwind break, things seemed over when Ghetto was down 5-4. However, Corboy strapped up, took the windforced flick side, and was breaking up the Junk cup like it was a Jeff Giese relationship. Ghetto gets the upwinder, then breaks downwind to take the lead. Junk gets the downwinder, and next thing you know, Ghetto is receiving on universe for the win. After a couple solid in-cuts from The Show and T-Money, Trav rips in inverted major, IO backhand to a streaking (and not looking) Mark Anderson. A) Who knew Trav had that throw? B) How the hell did Anderson catch it? It was some Disc ESP or something crazy. Nonetheless, it was caught, game over. Ghetto rallies from a win-less day 1, to a perfect 3-0 day 2 record to break seed and take the 13th place bracket.
No speeding tickets were recorded en route back to Dayton.
For awesome photos of the weekend, check out Chad Borer's site!
