When Sockeye and Furious play crap teams at sectionals, do they bring the same intensity and urgency that they do when they play each other? If they do, how they mentally maintain that high level for an entire tournament?
We had sectionals this weekend, and we played the first two games on Saturday fairly easily. Then in our last game of pool play, we played Bucknell. It was to win the pool and be in the championship bracket on Sunday morning. We were down by two points somewhere around half time, then we went on a run and ended up winning the game. Won our pool.
Next day - we know if we win our first game against Edinboro we are a lock to go to regionals. We play hard, bring the high intensity, but we don't win. All our big players made mistakes in the first half, and they capitalized and took the lead. I think we traded points in the second half, but they win. So know we are in the backdoor games. We play CMU and we know we have to win to keep going. We play hard, get an upwind break in the beginning of the game and keep that lead the whole time. We win, securing ourselves a bid to regionals.
So the next game is against Bucknell again, and it is for seeding at regionals. We know it's important, but I don't think we brought the same do-or-die sense of urgency that we had in the earlier games to go. Bucknell got the first upwind break, and essentially kept the same lead to start. We had our chances, but couldn't break back. Is this our fault? Of course it is, but how do we bring our play up to the same intensity we had in the two other games? We were still playing hard, but something was different. I'm not entirely sure what it was, or how to fix it though.
Personally, I guess the question will be answered for me if we bring our best playing to regionals, where every game will matter.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
weather
I'm going to say that the main defining reason for teams from the ME, NE, not doing well at nationals is that the weather here sucks. Look at the weather for West Penn sectionals this weekend - low of 31 degrees F and rain/snow showers. That is horrendous.
The weather at Spring Phling that we (PSU) hosted last weekend was the first time in my three years that it hasn't been cold and rainy or worse. My first year it was terrible, we got suspended and didn't have it the next year, and again last year we cancelled play after 1 round on Sunday. Even this year we had to use backup fields.
We can't practice outdoors in this weather at all. The school won't give us fields and it would be miserable anyway. We have a total of two weeks of outdoor practice before sectionals. Any school from warm climes (Florida, Georgia, Texas, NC, California) has the great advantage of being to practice outdoors all year round. When people discuss why those teams are good, I think they underestimate how useful it is to play outdoors all the time.
When I studied abroad in tropical Australia, being able to throw around outside year round was one of the main reasons for my skills improving drastically.
Of course, this doesn't fully explain some anomalies like Wisconsin which has terrible winters. But maybe their school likes them and gives them plenty of indoor practice time in the winter, rather than 2 hours a week in a basketball gym.
Ironic that a farmer would talk about weather, hey?
The weather at Spring Phling that we (PSU) hosted last weekend was the first time in my three years that it hasn't been cold and rainy or worse. My first year it was terrible, we got suspended and didn't have it the next year, and again last year we cancelled play after 1 round on Sunday. Even this year we had to use backup fields.
We can't practice outdoors in this weather at all. The school won't give us fields and it would be miserable anyway. We have a total of two weeks of outdoor practice before sectionals. Any school from warm climes (Florida, Georgia, Texas, NC, California) has the great advantage of being to practice outdoors all year round. When people discuss why those teams are good, I think they underestimate how useful it is to play outdoors all the time.
When I studied abroad in tropical Australia, being able to throw around outside year round was one of the main reasons for my skills improving drastically.
Of course, this doesn't fully explain some anomalies like Wisconsin which has terrible winters. But maybe their school likes them and gives them plenty of indoor practice time in the winter, rather than 2 hours a week in a basketball gym.
Ironic that a farmer would talk about weather, hey?
Friday, April 4, 2008
A distinction on layouts
Here is where I am on layouts
"I will layout if it is the only way I will catch the disc"
Here is where I need to be
" I will layout to catch the disc before my opponent does."
A small distinction I guess, probably rather obvious to D-machines who think about it, but important. As it is, I layout on deep throws, on throws that are to the side of me, but hardly ever on direct in cuts. Because on direct in-cuts, I know I am going to intersect the flight path eventually. I need to get to the point of laying out around people, to get to it sooner and increase my odds of getting a D.
"I will layout if it is the only way I will catch the disc"
Here is where I need to be
" I will layout to catch the disc before my opponent does."
A small distinction I guess, probably rather obvious to D-machines who think about it, but important. As it is, I layout on deep throws, on throws that are to the side of me, but hardly ever on direct in cuts. Because on direct in-cuts, I know I am going to intersect the flight path eventually. I need to get to the point of laying out around people, to get to it sooner and increase my odds of getting a D.
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