Beloit Ultimate Frisbee Family

First tournament this weekend. Beloit’s first ever placement as a one seed in pool play? Let’s get some.

Sunday Update:

So, obviously still decompressing and evaluating all this. Lots to work on, but I think all the captains agree this was one of the best tournaments we’ve ever played, and a really promising beginning to the year.

Saturday we opened with an easy win over Wisconsin-Stout 13-5. The O-line was clicking against a really new Stout team that seemed just happy to be there. Everyone agreed the D-line needed to pick up the intensity. Good first game to get the rookies going.

Next up was Macalester. The O didn’t look as good, but our defense showed up and started reminding us that its the reason we can hang with anyone when we’re playing well. Macalester didn’t have many subs (maybe one or two) so the game plan was simple: run them into the ground. The game plan worked, and despite a ton of drops and poor decisions we rolled to a 13-6 win.

The final pool play game of the day was against Madison Memorial. Having seen them play a little we knew it was going to be the toughest game of the day. We were clicking at first, going up a few breaks early. Memorial wanted to win and started playing a ratio of four coaches (a Ho-dag, Pimp-dags and old people) to three highschoolers every point. The game quickly became a back and forth battle, and in the end we made too many stupid decisions for our great D to overcome, losing 13-11.

Our pre-quarter was against a Michigan Tech team that clearly knew how to have fun. Determined not to end the day without another win, we easily rolled 13-5. The highlights of the game were probably Tech’s opening cheer and when Joe tackled someone on a dare, started stalling him, got a handblock, scored the bookend, and then was tackled himself. Probably our best offensive game, our deep looks were really getting open.

Sunday: because we finished second in our pool thanks to our loss to memorial our first game of Sunday was against Wisconsin-Stevens-Point, the tournaments #1 seed. This was a huge deal to the returning players who had to deal with two losses to them last season, mostly thanks to the well over six footness of The Guy (or Calves). Well, Calves was gone, but we still couldn’t seem to get it done against SP losing a heartbreaking game on universe point 14-13. This was the best game of ultimate Beloit has ever been a part of. Down by four after half we stormed back to take a 13-12 lead, but couldn’t cash in our last offensive point against Homegrown. Parker was an absolute animal on O and D getting nasty layouts everywhere and generally making everyone else look stupid. Tommy showed up in a big day in only his fourth game ever with some huge layout D’s himself. We still weren’t clicking as much as we wanted on O, but overall everyone played great.

Next up was a chippy, annoying and generally terrible game against Wisconsin TIE. We had left everything on the field in our Stevens Point defeat, and didn’t have a lot left mentally for the TIE game. We beat them 15-0 at sectionals last year, but this game was a lot closer, 15-10, basically all tied up at half. It got ugly with lots of calls by both teams, but in the end we adjusted our offense to account for their junk D and figured out how to completely shut down their deep game and the game was essentially over at around 7-7. A necessary win.

Finally, a rematch with Memorial for 5th place. Memorial was late (for the second time this weekend) and we agreed we would only play a game to ten. Memorial mostly played their highschoolers this time and we stomped them 10-5. The mantra hammers win games was true in this one as my hammer to money shot breakside in the endzone ended a great tournament on a strong note.

All in all it was a great time and we came out stronger and better. The rookies know what level they need to step up to, the veterans know what we need to make better, and the whole team knows that we can hang with anyone this season.

-Henry