Huck Finn 2010

Hey everyone,

Here is a re-cap of our past weekend in St. Louis for Cultimate's Huck Finn. This is the last tournament NUT will participate in before the official UPA series begins on April 17th.

Saturday:

Temperature: Mid 70s

Wind: 15 MPH

Despite the good weather, Saturday was a pretty rough day for the team finishing 1-3 for the day.

Wisconsin-Whitewater: 6-13 Loss. Not much to say besides this team was ready to play and we weren't. The game was never really close and the strong break throws from the Whitewater players presented a big problem for us.

Michigan: 6-13 Loss. Came out hot and took a 4-2 lead but gave away the lead with poor execution and decision making. Michigan took half 4-7 and easily rallied to take the win. Pretty disappointing loss that reminded the older players of our Regionals loss to Michigan the previous year.

Indiana: 10-9 Win against one of our sectional rivals. Both teams were quite sloppy but we managed to pull out the win after time expired. Not exactly the prettiest win but kept us from going winless in the A power-pool.

Wash U-Alums: 7-13 Loss in our cross over game against the mix of Wash U alums and random older players from St. Louis. Came out with no energy and quickly let the more experienced players dominate the game. Somewhat of an embarrassing loss as we let them walk all over us.

Sunday:

Temperature: High 70s, Low 80s

Wind: 25 MPH

Purdue: 13-6 Win against a sectional opponent that we had lost to twice already this year (though both times were not with full squads). Got some early breaks and played with a lot more energy than any of our Saturday games. Solid win to start out the Sunday championship bracket.

Michigan: 11-10 Win against the likely favorite to win the Great Lakes Region. Our level of intensity and energy was far superior to any game we'd played all season and the team played at an extremely high level. Our O-line scored its first 7 downwind points without committing a single turnover and the D-lines managed to generate turns on every point. Despite the close final score, we played much better than Michigan and had several break opportunities on their upwind goal line that we failed to convert. Huge win to bring some momentum into Sectionals.

Wisconsin-Whitewater: 12-13 Loss in a Saturday Rematch. NUT played much better than in our previous game and both teams traded the whole game. Featured several stellar defensive plays but missed opportunities on universe point led to us losing to Wisconsin-WW for the 2nd consecutive day.

Overall, the Sunday results made up for a very poor showing on Saturday. The weekend helped point out several of our weaknesses that we can hopefully workout before the UPA series begins. The Central Plains Sectionals are April 17th/18th in Naperville, IL-- we would greatly appreciate anyone who could come out an support us!

-Jenga

Centex 2010 Recap

Hey everyone,

I know it's been an extremely long time since our last post but here is a re-cap of our weekend at Centex (best college tournament of the year):

Saturday:

Temperature: Low 40s

Wind Speed: 25-30mph w/ constant gusts over 35mph (Upwind/Downwind direction on our fields)

Needless to say, the weather was pretty miserable all of Saturday. Thunderstorms pushed back our start to the afternoon and teams ended up having to drive up to San Antonio to use the Backup-Backup Fields.

UNC: 8-9 Loss against Denardis' team. Lost the flip and quickly went down a break due to some big backhands from the UNC throwers. Later got the break back but eventually lost on universe when they started w/ the disc going downwind. UNC went on to beat both Michigan and Carleton on Sunday and finished tied for 3rd/4th.

UCSD: 6-12 Loss. Didn't come out with much intensity and got broken several times during the first half, not much to say about a very one-sided game.

Texas: 12-9 Win against last year's Nationals semi-finalist (though they were clearly not as strong as last year). Lost the flip, but got an early upwind break to take the lead and maintained it with 2 huge upwind goal-line stands. Fairly good finish to a very cold, frustrating day.

Sunday:

Temperature: Low 70s

Wind Speed: 10-15 mph during the first game, 20-25 mph for the rest of the day (Crosswind on all fields)

The weather today was much better than Saturday, though still not quite the Texas warmth we expected. Games were played on the original Austin fields.

Texas State: 9-13 loss, went down 0-4 despite starting on offense due to poor overall play, finished half down 2-8. Stormed out of half by using a zone with an extremely tall cup and brought the score to 8-9, but Texas State adjusted well by punting the disc immediately after they received the pull. Took us a while to realized we should start bricking the pulls and ended up losing 9-13.

Arkansas: 11-6 win, rematch against a pretty athletic team that we beat at No Wisconsequences in the fall. It was clear they weren't ready to run with us and we came out very hot and shredded their several zone defenses (at point even started to play a box and one against us). They mounted a small comeback but we managed to pull our shit together and run away with the game after half.

Washington University: 9-10 Loss against a smaller team that had very solid wind throws. Went down a few breaks early, but managed to pull ahead with several breaks in a row. Later let them back in the game and the game got capped at 9-10. However, apparently our schedule was wrong and we finished 15-20 minutes before we were supposed to, keeping us from mounting another comeback.

University of Washington: 13-6 Win against a team that was the polar opposite of Wash U (not just their school names), featured many more athletes but fewer player who could throw effectively in the wind. Probably our best game of the weekend, worked the disc very well going both directions. Absolutely destroyed their zone during a point in the first half with over 50 throws (including several that were literally back and forth between Neal and myself)-- they played man the rest of the game. Younger players finished out the game very well by trading for the last few points of the weekend. Sketch's friend also has a big freaking head.

All in all, a pretty successful weekend. Came in seeded 25th and finished 19th at the best college tournament of the year. Getting ready for Huck Finn this upcoming weekend and then sectionals 2 weeks after that. Thanks for everyone's support and let me know if you have any questions

-Jenga