What is up with Mixed?

Things that were different to me:

- Pace of the game -> it is slower than club that is for sure. I think this should be fairly obvious, but more noticeable to me when you throw the open game nearby. I don't feel that you have to work as hard on O or D (Note: this does not mean it is always easier, there were plenty of times where I was covered or my man burned me, etc. Many people who could play in the open game @ natties, but not every guy on the field could.) It seemed before the point when the matchup became obvious, I would know how difficult it would be. If I was matched up against the "more known" players, it was a bit more difficult than if I did not recognize/know my opponent. This is true in open, for example more difficult to guard Chase on Sockeye than say #56 or something like that. BUT, the "7th" guy in open is better/more of a threat than say the #4 guy in coed. At least, that is my opinion.

- Isolating -> On D, it is much more isolating guarding your person downfield. In the open, you make a mistake or take a risk and jump something on defense. You, most likely, have someone else there to back you up. In mixed, you can't really overpursue or be too aggressive on the under, because you are the last man back a lot of the times. Really the only man back. And the ez score is not really worth it. Guarding the tall dude Mahoney as the only guy downfield is a lot of fun. Also, there is more of starting a man as a "handler" and taking off deep in terms of an iso cut. Again, no men to help out behind you, so if your person beats you early or you let it go for a couple steps, well it will be sent. It definitely makes you think about the position you are guarding the other man.

- Many Weird Throws -> maybe close to huck n hope, but definitely zany throws are encouraged. Part of this has to do with more 1-on-1 matchups downfield, so if you have an angle you just need to throw. Lord knows, I forced a couple deep shots to James when he was iso'd and had a good matchup. Knowing there is no last back to help out, makes it a bit more comforting as a thrower. So "less normal" throws are very effective and can be used for good. By less normal, I mean like anverts or crazy hammers or dying ducks to the breakside, etc. A strategy decision for sure that might getting d'd up more in open due to more guys on the field.

- College-ish -> the game reminds me of playing college, mainly b/c the O is not as efficient. There have been some good college O teams and not really good mixed ones as well. But there was not a team all year that I thought they would not give us the disc with a bit of pressure. Never did I feel, or crap we are down by XX, how the hell are we coming back. Again, not to seem like I am completely slamming coed, I mean Slow White played great to maintain a lead in the 2nd half against us. Tandem was effective, until the rain came. Shazam always maintain their huge leads. But, we still got the disc from them and could not convert. At times, it did not feel if we were going to get the d, but will we be able to score when we get it. Make sense? No real team that I would consider an automatic scoring machine.

- Women -> I feel there is a differernce in throwing the disc to a tightly covered man vs. tightly covered woman. I am more likely to throw to a man that is closely covered on an under then I am to throw to a woman that is tightly covered. I feel this was killing me earlier in the year and adjusted. On that note, women get much more open than men do on unders. So I still feel I throw to them. Also, the best teams utilize their women much more than the not as best teams do. Let's draw the line at 9th. Everyone above really good. Everyone below just good. We played most of the top 8 teams this year (dnp Barrio and Amp). The 6 teams we played had significant contribution from multiple women. Tandem used their women the least, probably, but they got a lot of the shorter women who was a cutter. The couple of teams we played below, our women kind of had free reign. Maybe not so much on O (but our women did score more goals in those games), but really on d it was obvious. Not that we just shut their women down, it was more of a lot more poaching/looking for ways to get involved in d.

- Zone -> this is where I thought of the gender difference the most. For example, I played deep d quite a bit. And I really pushed the yardage gap between myself and a woman deep. I would say 30 + yards at times. I do not think I got beat by a woman deep, but found I got beat if I played to deep on a woman and a man slid in between myself and the short deep or wing. In an attempt to stop this, I tried to always adjust to where the deep man was and kind of let the thrower think about putting something deep/crazy/bladey to the woman. (Whereas as an "open deep deep" I would only really account for the wind and most likely throw as a "coed deep deep" I searched for the deep men on the opposing team and relied on the sidelines to keep track of the deep women). I am sure this is not rocket science to everyone and most people who are confident to play deep deep would do this, but I was definitely reading to facial expressions/looks of the thrower a bit more. I felt I could tell if the throwers were confident enough in their woman receiver a couple of throws into the zone point. I got a d late in the tandem game in zone on the above mentioned shorter woman who was an excellent cutter. I mean, I am close to a foot taller than her. But I could tell that this team was willing to put a lot of stuff to her, so I was a little more cautious in terms of where she was. In our later games, I was not so worried. Also, when I was popping or handling in the zone o, I looked to attack where the woman was upfield (most teams had a woman as wing). Basically, I searched for the man guarded by woman match-up. And I tried not to throw to a woman on the sideline as much. Most coed zones invovled a man marking and looking to trap (see below comment on marking).

- Marking -> definitely teams look to get ds and really get excited when women have the disc near the trap sideline (including our team). It kind of makes sense, because many teams don't have 3 experienced throwing women on the field. That is fine. I would try to get our team to press the men on the trap sideline more. This is a big reason for Shazam's success (I think). I feel they pressured the men as much as the women. A constant pressure no matter who had the disc. Whereas all other teams, I did not ever get the feeling of this huge pressure from the opposing team's defense. Now, I have motivated all coed teams to improve their man on man defense... Seriously though, if all 7 people all playing hard defense, I think you can force things a bit more.

Coke, Pepto Bismo, 9th Place, and I hate dwarves

Well, the start of my nationals journey began the Sunday before. That is the morning I woke up and T was sick. Not like ugh I have a cold sick. Like ummm sick sick.

Eventually she felt better, Monday came and went and she was feeling better. More importantly, I was feeling ok. That turned for the worse ~1 am. That is when I visited the bathroom for an hour or so. Couple that with the fact that our oldest daughter also got sick. So I was sick on the couch trying to sleep. And T had to stay up all nite with LT, so she was not really able to recover. Couple that with the fact we were driving to Spokane (4 h) that nite.

Luckily, I was feeling a bit better by the evening. We drove. Stayed in a hotel and woke up early to fly to Tampa. The flight was not too bad. The kids behaved. And I was not sick. Although I did not eat much. We eventually got to Sarasota. Publix was closed by the time we got there. Which would make the morning even earlier, great.

Thursday, we woke up early and got the kids got up early. They were not happy, but that was the way it had to be. Stopped by Publix and then McDonald's. I felt hungry for the first time since Monday. I was psyched. I pulled into the Polo Fields. And then I started to focus on one thing. The port-a-pottie. That is never a good sign to start nationals.

As the team was warming up, I was in there (port-a-thingy) or on a jog up until gametime. Evenutally, 9:30 came and we had to play Black Molly first. I did not know anything about this team. I was struggling to continue on long points early (I learned this on the very first point as we turned it over twice. And by we, I mean Markie). We score it. Trade points for a bit, but then take half 8-4. The O worked well, especially James deep. I don't recall much more than that. They made a little run, but the O corrected the ship. And the d was able to get a couple breaks back. Final something like 15-11ish. I played only O, threw a goal or two. And caught at least one goal deep. But still, I did not feel great. And no signs of improvement. At this point, I felt like drinking a coke. That helped a bit and so I kept up with that.

Oh, a sidenote is that Forch's brother played on this team. That is not that important, except they fake their backhand the exact same way. I mean exactly, it was weird.

Second game was Bad Larry from Colorado. At least I had played against a couple of these guys, Beebe and Flock and Pokey. And this game was almost a replay of the first game. We trade back and forth a bit. Then go on a little run to take half 8-4. The second half was again the same as the first game. They make a short run, but the d gets everything back. We win 15-11ish. I played almost all the O points and also added my first d point of the weekend. Again, I do not remember the details that much. I do recall the women on our team, Em, Megac, and Sky scoring a fair # of goals. And T uncorking a long backhand that Kerr made a nice grab on the sideline.

2-0 and so was Slow White. That meant we were in the power pool no matter what. Thank you very much. That was my basic goal for Day 1, get to the power pool and find a way to get better soon.

So our last game was against Slow White. We came up playing some zone and it worked early, getting a couple breaks early. The O started out clicking, but unfortunately I think I stopped our momentum. A 2 goal lead would end up with us being down 6-8 at half. Unfortunately, I had 3 turns to swap this lead. The first was a throw behind Kerr near the endzone. A simple throw that was a step behind him and his guy d'd. The 2nd was an open deep throw to Johnny that was way too far. All I had to do was put it on a shelf for him to run to. But my forehand flew by him. The 3rd was another throw to Kerr where I tried to go around the defender and to Kerr. And it was way too short. This throw is where I started to feel like I was out of it.

Coming out of half, I was not sure it would be best for me to play. I felt horrible, the kids were a bit cranky at this point. I definitely was not helping the O, so I sat and played with the kids. I say this b/c many people were giving me props for being a good dad. When really, I was killing our team and that is why I rested. Although the kids helped me relax and take my mind of the game for a bit.

Slow White was still in control by a couple. I definitely was not playing O early. After a couple of trading points, I went in on D to try and see if I could help out there. We did get the disc at least 3 times. Probably more than that. And they same story that plagued us in the first half, trying to score to fast. A force into the endzone to Sky was d'd. Another bad huck. My 4th turn was making eye contact with Will and I thought he was going upline. I lost sight of him and put it upline to where I thought he was going. Unfortunately, it fell harmlessly to the ground. Ugh.

We had our opportunities, but never converted. I thought we had a great D by Ryan, but his apparent handblock was called back by a foul. I thought it was clean, but you can never be sure. (Oh and I called a stall later in this point. But that was contested to. My man even suggested it was a retribution call, which I do not think it was). They would get another break before the end. I played our last O point and caught a huck from Markie to make it 12-14. But we were unable to do anything else after that, 12-15.

So anyway, 2-1. That means we are 0-1 in our new pool. Great, that means we play Shazam because surely they won their pool. Hmmmm, Rival beat them. What? OK, now things are interesting.

Thursday nite we made pasta at our place. I ate it successfully, but I would not consider myself hungry. The kids went to bed early and after some tv we went down too.

Friday, more of the same. The weather had been as good as ever on Thursday, not too hot. Not too windy. Friday showed more of the same, although sunnier and a bit windier. We played Rival from Atlanta early.

I had a bit more spring to my step, but still not completel there. But a big improvement from Thursday. The reason? Pepto Bismo, it did wonders (the second time this year Bismuth had helped me out. The first is a chemistry story. The paper is in progress, but this is not a chem blog).

After a couple of trades early, the d goes on a monster run. 3 or 4 in a row. They score one and we close out the half on d. I think 8-3 and it was a quick half. Very efficient by us. Will, Johnny, Sky, Jen, and Em all had big halves. They utilized the women near the disc more than most teams and our women responded on man-to-man. Throw in the fact our zone was good, and they were in trouble. The second half came and went, and we were basically in control the whole time. They had one 3-0 run on us, but our d still got a couple of breaks, so we pulled it out 15-9. That was a great game for us and it seemed like just maybe we had some good mojo going into our next round with Shazam. My favorite point of the game was a stopped disc and Emily had it on the sidline. I called Matt out of the stack to cut. He went deep, she threw it, goal, looked at me, and yelled "IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED?!?!?!?" Pretty funny. We were definitely in the right state of mind for this game.

Meanwhile, Shazam took down Slow White and we had the ugly all 1-1 power pool. If you win your next game, you are either #1 or #2. If you lose, you hope the team you beat lost too. If not, hello prequarters.

So now it was time for Shazam, that beat us handily at ECC. And then again at Regionals, although we were up on them at halftime there. I felt like we had a chance, but what came next was ugly.

We pull to them, they turn it over at least 3 times, but we fail to convert. I did not like the look of our team on this point. Although we got the disc 3 times or so, we looked like a team not ready to score it. Eventually, they go up 1-0.

We receive and it stayed ugly. I believe this was another long point with a couple of turns on each side, long story short, they go up 2-0. Again, we were not moving the disc well. Whether that was their pressure or what, I don't know. We looked like a different team then just 1 hour ago.

Interesting beginning to a funny story involving me. After our 2nd turn (their guy walks it up to the line), I am guarding the dump. He calls a play and I immediately began to watch his foot. His foot definitely slid off the endzone line on the huck. So I call travel. I immediately get criticism from the sideline and the thrower and my man. The thrower recants a bit, but the sideline keeps it up. And my guy is really mad at me. At one point, he tells me to go back to the open game. Anyway, stays with the thrower. A couple of throws later, the disc is still near the sideline, Aron is cutting in. The disc floats over his head a bit and he runs out of bounds. The disc is hanging there and he turns to go back and get it. He does catch it, but he left from out of bounds. Meaning, he is out of bounds and the disc goes back to where it went out of bounds (make sense?). As our guy gets the disc, I make sure that he walks it to te appropriate spot. My man, the guy who told me to go back to the open game, gets even more upset with me. Telling me I need to stop getting involved in the play. I try to tell him to relax and that I want us to get the disc where it is supposed to be (probably not so calmly, mind you). Anyway, he reiterates his desire for me to play open.... They still score that point. I think he got a d on a throw to me later in the point on a high stall throw. Not that is relevant to the argument, just that, I want all the facts of this point out there. Trust me, more later.

We receive again, in this direction we were going slighlty upwind. Not a horrible wind, but still a wind. Maybe not upwind/downwind exclusively, as there was a bit of a crosswind as always. Anyway, this was the harder direction to go. And we get trapped in the back of the endzone. High stall hammer. Callahan goal Shazam.

Hmmm, 3-0, and it keeps going down. It ends up like 8-2 at the first half. We are playing awful (they deserve some of the credit), but we deserve plenty of the blame. At this point, the goal is just to play better. I think you can't talk about winning the game, you just have to try to play better. Most importantly, because there was a chance we would playing a pre-quarters game. Sidenote: the score was Slow White 8 Rival 3, so it looked good that we would be playing in the quarters at that point.

Halftime we take our time, relax. I have some more Pepto and some more Coke. And that helped a ton. And most importantly, we did start to play better. Not that I ever felt we were going to win this game, but the O got cleaner. And the d was better. 8-4 after we score on the first o point and then convert a break. Again, just getting some mo' is huge. I think they may have taken it back to 10-4. But we got at least one more break in the half, we lose 15-9. The o seemed to get better and not so stagnant. We tried to readjust the handlers a bit to help move the disc from side to side. Again, all with the eye on improving for future games (either prequarters or quarters). It seemed to work. And I left the Shazam game in a much better mood than when we started. I thought we were at least a quarters team, we just had a bad half. Hopefully, that would be the last.

Oh, before we end this game and start on my slow white bashing, let me give you another funny story. We were on O and the guy who wants me to play open was back on me. We were marching up the field and a call stopped the play. Either a pick/foul/something called. I don't really remember and I was ~15 yards from the play. Apparently, my man saw the play better than me and starting saying something about the call. So I, sarcastically, say "Oh, so you get to be involved in the play and I don't". He immediately explains that it is completely different and that he has video footage of me being involved in every call at regionals (i don't think that it is true, but there is a chance it is true). I try to tell him that is not relevant and he is doing exactly what he does not want me to do (express my opinion/interpretation of the call). And the only difference is it is him and not me. He does not like this, tells me "You think you are better than us". I loved that quote. I am pretty sure he was saying that I think I am better than all of coed males, not just Shazam. It was said with whine to it, it made my day. This is also funny b/c they have several people who used to be in Open that now play on their team. And they are key to their team, so not all open players our bad.

Oh, I really burned him on the next cut and tried to milk it into the endzone, because I really wanted to spike it. Really bad. But it did not happen, so I did not get to really show that I am in fact an ass. Oh well, we got second in the spirit rankings. That probably would not have helped.

Anyway, while we finished out our Shazam game, something happened. Rival came back. And tied it up at 12s. And 13s. Slow White received going upwind. Pull out of bounds. Guy picks up the disc. Invert backhand to break mark. Turf. Rival scores in 2 throws. Pre-quarters, here we come. Ugh.

Screw you Slow White, I never liked you anyway. You guys smell. Ok, ok, that is not fair, we would eventually have 3 chances to make quarters ( a win against them OR shazam OR Tandem puts us in the quarters). But I have to blame someone right? So it is you. What kind of name is Slow White anyway? It does not make sense.

(Please take the above paragraph as a bitter, bitter joke)

Not much left to do, excpet regroup, drink some Coke, and get ready to take the pre-quarters. We played Tandem, a rematch of 06. The weather was beginning to worsen and would eventually get to a downpour, but the beginning started overcast, a bit windy, not terrible.

We receive, they zone. We march it up 1-0. They come right back and tie it up 1-1. From there, the wheels fell off, except even worse than that. I thought the worst was the Shazam first half, I was wrong. I can count 7 drops in the first halfs. I will not mention names as it is not like I played perfect. Although I had a hand in our other 3 goals of the first half, I had 2 turns a deep-ish backhand to Kerr that did not stay up in the wind. And then at 4-2 and on D, I had a chance to bomb it to a wide open, streaking Johnny. I tried to launch a inside-out backhand deep to him. I pulled up a bit and caused the disc not to go as far to the outside as I would have liked. Thus, it went over Johnny head on the opposite sideline. Maybe 5 yards uncatchable. Ug. 8-4 Tandem up at half.

I did not know what to do. Our team looked horrible. Not only the drops (I mean drops against a zone). We played horrible defense. At least 3 of their goals, they just walked it up on the open sideline. We were not challenging them. I am not a fire-and-brimstone motivator. Nor am I one of the people on the team that had a lot of investment on the team. Sure I practiced most of the time and traveled to some tourneys, but this was not my team. I was a player and I feel a good teammate, but this was the first time in this siuation where I could not really lead the team well. I thought I was playing ok and energetic, but the spark had to come from somewhere else. I am not sure if that was the wrong feeling or just a poor excuse. But we were "against the wall" and I felt helpless. That is an unusual feeling for me. With magnum and zero, I had poured a lot of my energy and took ultimate way too seriously. I felt I was part of the core of the team. Here, I was a player expected to contribute. Maybe it was b/c I was new. I don't know. But it was a helpless feeling.

Anyway, back to the game. The 2nd half did not look too promising. Our d picked up a little bit, but nothing was there. In fact, I think they got another break. I think they even got up 13-7. The lowpoint for me was 12-7 receiving the pull. I was so worried about keeping the disc off the line, that I was offsides. On OFFENSE!!! So we had to start 10 yards deep in our own endzone. To cap it off, we are working it up and I turn it over by trying to throw a blade to James for the goal. I hung it up too much, turn over. They score. 13-7.

I was also covering Mahoney a bit this game. He is tall, so trying to make him gets under early. He did get me deep once, but really I could have d'd it. Unfortunately, he was more aggressive going after the disc. Bummer.

We score 13-8.

On the next pull, their guy, literally, knocks it down with 2 hands. One throw later, 13-9. Ok, a little mojo. That was easy, plus it is rainy a bit harder.

We pull, they score, after 1 d, 14-9 bad guys.

They pull, we score somewhat easily, 14-10.

We pull, we get another d, 3 throws later, me to someone for the goal, 14-11.

We pull, 2 throws, my man gets the disc, I get a foot block near the endzone. I throw another goal 14-12. Sweet. The rain was really coming down here. Complete downpour. Unfortunately, people mistook my footblock for lightning and the game was called for 30 minutes. I went back to the van to see the fam and attempt to dry off.

We get back on the field, we are pulling to them on game point. Very weird feeling. After a couple of dumps, they swing it to my man on the break side. It hangs a bit and I begin to believe I have a chance. I laid out and went after it near the sideline, close, but close is not good enough. Especially if you are on the breakmark side. Not only did I not d it (I think I was close, but not sure how close), now my man has the disc with me on the ground for an ez invert. An invert that would not have happened had I not gone for the disc and just marked my man. An invert that would not have lead to the last goal on the break mark side, basically screwing the Sky as her person was able to score the game winning goal. Ugly.

If you lay out for a d on the break mark side, you have got get the d.

And there it was, down in the 9th place bracket. Where else should I end up?

We played Bashing Pinatas and Poodle Club. We beat them both, maybe I will comment more on that later, but I am tired and rethinking about the last 2 games on Friday reminds me that stunk.

It was a fun weekend of frisbee, although disappointing. I think we thought we would be in the quarters. And eventually we have to prove it against one of those big boys to show we are at least a quarterfinal team. And it did not happen. Personally, I feel like crap for, well, feeling like crap down there. Thursday (esp the Slow White game) was awful for me. Friday was better, but still running on Coke and Gu is not a good thing. It is disappointing to get in shape, practice hard, and pay the $$ to get down there only to field like that. Couple T and my sickness with basically losing Will in the Shazam game and losing Daph to start the tourney (she played Friday, but not @ 100%). It was a pretty good tourney. Everyone has injuries to overcome, that is true. But this is my blog, we won't discuss the other injuries.

But what are you going to do? T and I played through it as best we could. I am pleased with the effort we all gave, just not the results. I really do not think it was the effort that should be faulted. There are things that we need to overcome and maybe I will go into that someday, but it was step in the right direction. I think this year was a good year for the FLycoons, but it was not a big step. Just a small step... there is always next year, right?