Revolver – USA Ultimate Club Championships – Day 3 (Saturday, October 29, 2011)
A drizzle greeted us at the fields and decided to stick around for a while. We hadn’t played as well as we’d liked over the first two days of the tournament, so today’s bracket games would test whether we really deserved to advance to our third consecutive final at Nationals. We woke up glad to see that the St. Louis Cardinals had won the World Series, since Revolver’s baseball fans had rallied around Bart Watson’s fandom, a native of St. Louis. We did not overlook the fact that the Cardinals had ended the playoff runs of both the Philadelphia and Texas baseball teams. First up today for Revolver: Philly, possibly followed by Texas.
Game 6 – 9:30a v. Southpaw (Philadelphia, PA) – Quarterfinal
The defensive intensity was clearly high as we forced seven breaks on only four turnovers by the D-line’s O (or D’s O, as we call it). Attesting to the physicality of this wet morning game, the observers TMF’d (team misconduct foul) both teams simultaneously early on. The O-line only turned over the disc once this game, but reacquired possession, taking care of their end with special efficiency and no breaks against. Pulling at 7-3, Jonathan Hester poached for a layout block on an upline dump pass. Sam Kanner lofted a bendy around backhand to Taylor Cascino, wide open for the break into half and 8-3 lead. Later, captain Martin Cochran notably dove for a two-handed goal and then slid a good ten yards in the slick grass. We wrapped up the game 15-7 and advanced to semis.
The rain ceased toward the end of the quarterfinal and the clouds wandered off for warm sunlight as our long bye loomed. Some of the team headed to watch the Wheelchair v. Beyondors semifinal in the Masters division, as we have a lot of former teammates and friends on both squads. The rest of the team drove to Applebee’s for air conditioning, ice cold water, and some appetizers.
Game 7 – 2:15p v. Doublewide (Austin, TX) – Semifinal
In this rematch of last year’s semifinal, Doublewide would need no extra motivation to avenge their defeat. Not much had changed from our scouting report: their offense revolves around the tandem of Florida transplants Brodie Smith and Kurt Gibson. They have some tall, fast downfield cutters in Jake Anderson and Kevin Richardson, plus stalwart handler David “Salad” Melancon, but Smith and Gibson make themselves the focal points. We assigned the lanky Mac Taylor and handler-defender specialist Taylor Cascino to hector Brodie and nominated Mark Sherwood and Ashlin Joye to make life difficult for Gibson.
The first point featured Austin’s best O-line and one of Revolver’s best D-lines, combining with a healthy dose of overexcitement that brought on a total of 11 turnovers on tough, tight throws against aggressive, physical defense by both squads. Eventually Tom James whipped an inside-out forehand that Martin Cochran snagged between two fingers for the layout goal (he said, “I have no idea how I caught that.”) We piled on with cleaner play and blocks from Russell Wynne and Nick Chapman to break twice more and race to a 3-0 lead, then a 5-1 lead on our fourth break. At this point the Doublewide O-line settled down for a while. Kurt Gibson tallied one of his three point-blocks this game against our handler Adam “Chicken” Simon for Doublewide’s first break back, to close the gap to 7-5. Out of halftime Doublewide sent out a tall zone in the breezy conditions and we dropped a short dish pass to allow them to close to 8-6. That would be as close as the Texans would get, though, as the teams traded for a while before Revolver grabbed a pair of upwind/downwind breaks and a 14-9 lead, including a shared goal as Cochran and Zach Travis grabbed a hanging disc over a Doublewide defender at the same time (Zach claims, “I caught it and Martin tried to steal it from me!”). Beau Kittredge showed that he can throw too as he distributed four assists. Revolver received going downwind up 14-10 and sent the disc to Robbie Cahill on the forehand sideline; meanwhile, Josh Wiseman was isolated as a cutter, backed by Doublewide by ten yards, but he double-faked and zoomed to the back corner for the game-winning goal.
Excited to return to the title game for our third straight season, we guzzled Endurox, Metabolol, and chocolate milk to recover quickly during the team stretch circle. Some folks visited Kristin at Sunni Bunni for smoothies, some headed back to the beach house for first crack at ice baths, and Coach Dutchy stuck around to meet about pre-game logistics for tomorrow’s game. Team dinner with family and friends at a new-to-us Italian restaurant, since our favorite Marie’s Italian Kitchen has sadly closed up shop. It’ll be an early night because we play Ironside in the morning round, which begins at 9:00a here in Florida (if you’d like to watch the action, click on links for Live Streaming at the USA Ultimate Facebook page). We’ll try to defend our title and reclaim the trophy for another sunset on the warm white beaches of Siesta Key.
Oh, and Ashlin somehow convinced the entire team to allow him to carve speed lines into hair or beards. The guy’s persuasive… and annoyingly persistent.