UPAs Day 2

Strangely enough, of all the days I was UPAs day two is the one that I remember the least about. I’m not sure if it is because my recollection of events across all days is starting to blend together. It probably also has a bit to do with the fact that I felt like day two was the day that I had the least impact on the outcome of the results.

Like each day at UPAs the weather channel was calling for a high probability of thunder showers. Like each day at the tournament the weather looked pretty good on the morning of day two. Our first game, in the blazing sun, was against Boneyard from North Carolina. They had a few ex-Ring of Fire players that everyone seemed to be worried about. I never felt like they were a threat to us and we cruised to a comfortable 15-9 win. I played a handful of points throughout the game, mostly early on, but don’t recall anything spectacular. That was probably because I was more concerned with making sure that my calf was no worse for wear following the cramp I had at the end of day one. Thankfully it wasn’t too sore; after a good warm up I barely felt it and by the end of the day I had forgotten it had even been an issue. This was one of the few games that we would get all weekend to open up some playing time to some of the other guys on our 31 man roster and I wasn’t about to complain about that. I do recall the game ending rather quickly and having to search for a patch of shade to claim as my own to seek some relief from the sun. Thankfully the temperature was just in the mid twenties (Celsius) because the November sun in Florida is really, really hot. It wouldn’t be too long before we would all be wishing for the warm sun.

Game two was to be our last pool play game and we had already locked up first place in pool A. Mileage beat Troubled Past in a tight game to start Friday and claimed second, Troubled was guaranteed third and Surly was safely ensconced in the last playoff bound spot. Boneyard and Ironwood were respectively locked in the fifth and sixth position. With the top four spots coming out of pool A already set before the last game it made things interesting as game plans came down to balancing resting the top players for the quarterfinals while not losing to a team ranked lower. We seemed to get the balance right. Our last game was against Surly, the Minneapolis based team. Dave Brown, DoG’s D captain, told me that depending on how things were going, he was going to try to “shut me down” early on. It was one of the few small moments that made my weekend, knowing that I was worth saving for the more important games. I don’t know if I’ve ever been benched to save me for a big game before. It was a pretty cool feeling and I’m pretty sure I let out a noticeable smile that Jeff picked up on. I played two of the first three points, we started to pull away and that was it; I was shut down for the game, being rested for the quarterfinal! We won the game 15-8 and I recall being a force on the sidelines. I do recall thinking to myself after the game that I felt Boneyard was a better team than Surly. I guess Surly was also resting their big players because they did a good job of proving that thought of mine wrong as the tournament progressed.

I could go into detail about how the other pool shook down but that would require another few blog entries alone. Suffice it to say that going into the last game only one team was out of the running; Miami, OLD SAG, A&B and Big Sky were all fighting for the last three spots in quarters with Old and in the Way having locked up first place. In the end A&B got screwed over by Old and in the Way’s decision to roll over against Miami. Miami got in and A&B went to drink “loser beer” from the truck. More on loser beer later.

Once the craziness of pool B settled itself we found out that we would be taking on OLD SAG and their 37 man roster in the quarters. That was one mess of a sideline 31 guys sporting DoG jerseys and 37 wearing OLD SAG colours. Of course masters players come with a certain amount of baggage; wives and kids. Once you added that all up there were well over a hundred people on the sidelines. The sidelines actually played quite a role in this game as it turned into a battle of whose sideline was louder more consistently. Early in the game OLD SAG was doing a better job but our sideline brought our team back to life after half and helped carry us to victory. This win truly did belong to the voices on the sideline more so then any other game I’ve ever been involved in.

You would think that a roster of 37 players versus 31 would be an advantage but in the end I think we used more guys than they did. The one advantage they did have was youth. On average I would say that they were quite a bit younger than we were. The tempo of the game was much quicker than any of the previous games of the tournament. It wasn’t going to be as easy as it had been for me to get “impressive” blocks in this game as it had been up to this point. I felt like our defense wasn’t getting as many chances to score as we had in other games and our efficiency was also a bit off. When we did get the disc OLD SAG brought a lot of pressure on us. I recall one point where I had the disc on the sideline and I didn’t have very many options except for Jeff Brown, who was completely across the field. I tried a big break force cross field flick knowing full well that I was going to get bumped. Sure enough as I released I was pushed backwards onto my butt and was able to call foul and reset the count (the throw that came out was also a piece of crap). If they just would have maintained the pressure but stopped committing the unintentional but dumb fouls they would have been able to really cause us some problems. Our O line was also having a bit of trouble with their pressure and we ended up down 8-6 at the break. We were playing mostly man on D and we weren’t doing much to stop them.

This was the first time all weekend that I was really worried that things weren’t going to go our way. The weather was playing it’s part as well by becoming much more ominous. You could tell that there were some major storms not too far off and at some point in the game the rains came. Thankfully with it came some wind; advantage old Boston guys. We switched to zone and clawed back into the game. Some of the guys will say that was the key to the turnaround but I still think the inspirational key were the two lesbians from the Philly women’s team who were making out on the sidelines in the rain. It looked like they were huddling together to stay warm and things got a bit too hot. Most probably our turnaround was due partly to our sidelines picking up the volume, our defense playing some stronger zone and the 45 minute lightning delay.

At about 12-11 there was some lightning in the area and we were all herded into our cars to wait it out. This must have been hell on families and friends back home who were trying to follow the games by refreshing the UPA score reporter website every five seconds.
The break was just long enough to let every muscle in my body tighten up. I don’t know if it was the cold rain but I hadn’t been feeling tight or sore until I had to start warming up after the rain delay. I was having so much trouble getting moving again that I was worried that I would be done for the day. After trying jogging and a dynamic warmup, I decided that the easiest way to deal would be to just jump into the game without warming up. Thankfully the first point was a D point so I got a chance to get out there right away. It was pretty tough getting the legs going to chase down the pull but once I beat inertia’s grip on me everything was fine.

I didn’t realize how close we were to the end of the game and was surprised when we scored to win the game 15-13. I was still feeling mentally out of the game near the end until Marshall came up to me, helped me focus a bit and told me to take charge out there. The next point, which turned out to be game point, was a pretty good one for me. I picked up my play on D and managed to get in the way of a receiver on a huck causing him to lose focus and drop the disc. Unfortunately we turned the disc over but I was able to block the ensuing huck that came up. Again we turned the disc over and OLD SAG hucked it once again into my hands. We finally managed to work the disc upfield and I forced my legs to get me open enough to be quite involved in the offensive flow of the point. We finally managed to punch the disc in for the win. I was getting ready to walk back to the line for another point but everyone around my started to shake hands. While I’m thinking this is a weird thing to do when the score is only 13-12 a few of my team mates were nice enough to indicate that we had already reached 15 and DoG was still alive in it’s quest for glory.

Thanks to the weather delay it was already pretty late when we were done and once again we made it back to the condos after the sunset; no swimming again. Instead I went with Mark, Eric and Val for a lovely dinner at Capt Brian’s. It was the best seafood that I have ever had and was not to be confused with the crap I ingested at Capt Curt’s. Back at the condo’s after an interesting conversation with Alex, Marshall, Jim, white-trash Tory and her two year old son Gino (don’t even ask about those two) it was time to go to bed and get ready for what was looking to be a big day three. More on that later.

DF