Immediately apparent to us as soon as we arrive at the fields this morning is: wind. There is a lot. Much heavier than in past days, it has a serious intensity and makes a loud whistling noise as it passes through all the netting and fencing at the field complex. The orientation is much more up-wind/down-wind than in previous days, making the games ugly and much more position oriented than normal ultimate. Frankly, this weather makes for terrible ultimate and teams just have to abandon the clean games of good weather and get dirty with the turnovers. Before we get started, two major upsets with huge wind factors have completed – with favorites Australia and Japan both losing to underdogs and we are hoping not to be next. On to play Finland.
Finland, 17-7 [Stats]
We know in advance we must play a field position game, and we do so trading yardage for possession for the first several points. At 3-2 we earn an upwind break only to have Finland hold coming right back (a great speed possession for them, punctuated by a strong backhand huck to a laying out cutter). We finally break upwind again at 7-5, following a fantastic pull from Russel Wynne that leads to a short field going up wind, which Russel converts for the score. Now we’ve figured out how to work the disc against this wind, and we use the backhand hucking game (and Beaufort Kittredge in the deep position) to gain 3 more upwind goals before Finland stop the bleeding at 12-6. Their heart is a bit out of it and we continue to play well, picking up more than our fair share of 50-50 discs until we get to 17-7. The Finland team up to 5-5 played very well, but we gained momentum with some upwind breaks and we never gave it back. On to semi-finals against Canada. No better word for it than: big.