How Did We Win it All?

The quick answer to that question is that Goat and Furious George weren’t there. That answer also takes away from our accomplishment which isn’t the point of this post. I want to describe our moment of glory in all it’s…. glory.

Going into the tournament we knew that we wouldn’t be ranked as high as we wanted to be meaning we would have a slightly tougher road. That was until we realized that being under ranked was actually a good place to be. We would play a strong team on the first day but the rest of the way we would actually have easier games than most other teams. Here’s to the path of least resistance.

Our first game on Thursday was against Toronto’s third team, Roy. We played relatively clean ultimate and took it to them hard 15-2 (sorry Rahil). Our next game was against an unknown team from Saskatoon called Tommy Douglas Dream Machine. They looked like your typical inexperienced team with a mix of athletic players and they had just given Winnipeg’s General Strike a tougher game than they probably expected. They put up a bit more of a fight but we dispatched them 15-6.

By this point in the day the mercury was ready to explode out the top of the thermometer and shade was a hard commodity to come by. Not being used to this weather due to the abnormally mild and wet summer we have had in Montreal meant that even though we did well to conserve our energy in our two wins, it would be a challenge to muster the strength to play the last game of the day.

The game against General Strike started well enough for us but quickly degenerated as yours truly made a few errors that put us in a two point hole at the mid point of the first half. Our D line did a great job of climbing out of that hole and it was 8-7 at half. We kept battling through the second half but were never able to put our errors aside and just pull away. We were up 12-11 in a game to 13 and just couldn’t close the deal. We missed a chance to end the game on a D point by missing a huck by mere inches and at 12-12 thought that our O line would be able to seal the deal. We had some good disc movement but an unfortunate slip by Nico meant that he wasn’t able to get to Shag’s pass on an in cut despite getting his fingertips on the disc while lying on the ground. Strike almost gave it back to us but they managed to have the game of inches go in their favour as it took a huge layout grab for them to seal the win.

So we had a 2-1 record after day one and took a 1-1 record with us into the power pool. The best part was that no one on Mephisto was worried about the loss. To a man you could see that everyone knew that we just under performed and that 9 times out of 10 we win that game; it just happened that this time was the exception.

Day two would be important to setup the matchups for the elimination rounds. Thanks to Thursday’s loss, our first game of the day would be our big challenge. We wanted to come out strong and set the tone for the rest of the day but instead we came out like a bunch of sissies and spotted Calgary’s Invictus a 5-1 lead. Apparently someone woke up our team as at that point we reeled of 7 straight points and took half 8-5. An 11-2 run by us meant that Invictus’ good start was all for naught and we took the game 12-7. I’m still not sure what lit the fire under our behinds but it worked.

We then had two easier games against our development team, Demon, and a team from BC called Sofa Kings. Demon brought a lot of fight to our game. They just weren’t good enough to match us and we won handily but both teams exerted more energy than either should have. We went through the motions against Sofa Kings while resting some almost injured players and still won 15-6.

At that point we heard that Invictus had defeated General Strike giving some players hope that we would actually get first place thanks to point differential but alas it was not to be as we had previously heard that Tommy Douglas upset Invictus so no matter the outcome of our game against Sofa Kings, we would be second in the pool.

Trying to figure out who our quarterfinal was going to be against was an exercise in futility as there were so many upsets and ties in the other pool that we had no idea who was going to end up in what position. In the end we were just glad that we didn’t have Blackfish or Phoenix.

Saturday morning started with a bang… of thunder. We got to fields in time to find out that we were going to be playing against Mangina and in time to get some good seats in the beer tent where we could wait out the rain and lightning delay. At times the rain seemed to be so hard that we thought we would be better served building an ark. Eventually we got the call that games would be starting in 45 minutes. The Mephisto leadership toyed with the idea of only sending 12 players out for the game just to make sure that we didn’t have too many players standing in the rain getting cold. It’s a strategy that has worked for us before in rainy weather. Thankfully the rain let up and we were able to play a full roster. We cruised to a 10-7 win in a game that was a bit closer than it needed to be but at least we got the job done.

After that it was back to the relative dryness and warmth of the beer tent. The rain had turned into a drizzle by the time we had to get ready for our semi-final against Calgary. While we were warming up I kept thinking to myself that I wasn’t ready for the semis. I never like having that feeling because I never know if it means that I’m really nervous or if I have the right amount of nervous energy for the game. On the other hand it is a better feeling than when I feel too comfortable before a game; that usually means my body is too relaxed and I have trouble getting going.

The game started out as a muddy battle between what seemed like two evenly matched teams. We got an early break but it was back and forth until our O line scored to make it 5-3. I’m not sure what happened after that Invictus crumbled under our pressure and we managed to keep pouring it on like I’ve never seen us do it before. We won the game 15-3; Calgary just couldn’t do anything but it wasn’t that they were being inept, our guys just kept making big plays. Every point saw us make big play after big play and it wasn’t just a few guys, it was everyone. I had the good fortune of making probably the biggest play of the game when I scored a layout Callahan goal to make it 8-3 and take the game to half. After every point our boys were rushing the field and the Calgary guys were just slumped over in the mud wondering what they could do to complete a pass, forget about score a goal. It was probably the most comprehensive victory that Mephisto has ever had. We didn’t just beat Calgary, it was a slaughter.

Well that set us up for a finals showdown against Phoenix on Sunday.

This has taken up a lot of keystrokes so contrary to the title of the post, I’m going to take a break here and my next post will finish off on the theme of “how did we win it all”. Next post will cover how we prepared for the final and how the final went down. I might even give you a glimpse into our post-final celebrations which may have gotten a bit… sloppy.

DF