Monday, March 26, 2007

Lessons from Tourney 1

Torontula headed to Bowling Green State University home of Orel Hershiser and Rob Blake for our first tournament of the year (B!G Green). We played a number of reasonably strong teams that gave us early challenges that we soon overcame. Why?

Pictured Above: From Terminus 2007 courtesy of Chad Borer.

One of the reasons is we have a strong team with a mixture of vets and great young players, but I think another key factor is that we have depth in numbers. Many of the teams we were playing only had 10 or 12 guys, and in some cases were only playing 8 guys deep against us. After 10 points they were gassed. We, on the other hand, were playing with 17 guys and were about 13 deep while the remaining 4 guys are just on the cusp of developing into reliable players. We played all 17 guys until the finals, which meant were all strong.

A few other lessons I learned from this tournament were:
  • An early tournament is a great time to get out the rust in your game. Let's just say I made some interesting throws in my first game.
  • Duct tape is an important item to bring. It not only repaired my cleats, but it also fixed the van we drove up in.
  • Michigan Sectionals is on Easter weekend. Ridiculous!
  • A pack of cards should be added to the list of items to bring to a tournament.
  • College Open Ultimate is a highly spirited and competitive game that is lots of fun. I knew this already, but the weekend reminded me how much fun it is to play.
PJ

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

duct tape is a critical part of your ultimate kit. i was at a tournament where a guy forgot his cleats altogether and made shoes out of duct tape.

there are indeed many things that remind us why we play -- and not all of them are on the field.

lastly, have you folks seen ultimatefrisbee.com?

glad someone's on the ball. that things been a wreck for years.

Naven