Student Open Outdoor Nationals 2008
The team: Millie, Joe, Trev, Sam, Tom, Alex, Ste, Edd G, Dave, Greg and Edd C.
A special thanks to Dave and Trev who drove the minibus and without them we could not have gone.
Nationals began with an early start meeting at 6.45am at Uni. We had a pretty good journey up with Dave trying to go through only one red light. During the journey we realised Greg was JTM (junior team member) and so the taunting began. Sam and I nearly cried with laughter when Ste shouted that he had found Madeleine McCann, but it was only Trev. We arrived in good time for a proper warm up. During which we learnt Greg's love of his life, Stacey (who kept sending filthy texts) had a 30 year old boyfriend which Greg could apparently "take on" if need be. Because some had dropped out, Division 2 only had 14 teams in it, meaning that we were in a pool of 5.
Game 1 v York
Theres not much to say about this game other than we were awesome. York had stepped in to play Nationals through people dropping out but we completely shut down everything they threw at us. Our zone stopped them moving up the field and we had a flawless offence. This game was really useful because it gave us time to test and practice our 3:4 and zone. We finished off this game well within time 13-0. This was when we realised we had a real chance in this tournament.
Game 2 v Thrown (King's College, London)
We were so fired up from not conceeding a point we attempted to carry on. Again we threw a zone, which was so effective we set it up both up and down wind. Our 3:4 offence really worked, it meant that with a few seconds of the handler being stalled the disc was already thrown to a cutter. After this first cut 3:4 went out the window, but whatever we did it worked. We didn’t really know what we were doing, we were just cutting using the whole pitch. The benefit of this was the defence had no idea what we were doing either and point after point we scored. Over half way through we were 9-0 up, meaning we had not conceded a point in Nationals for 22 points and a game and a half!!! Amazing. We next played man and they managed to get some flow going and got the disc to the edge of their endzone. Someone got broken and it was a point to them. Joe called the disc down (and it was) but the guy contested and what can you do when you're bagelling someone? They managed to get another one on man d with a looping sidearm to the back endzone. But they only scored two in total! 12-2 to us...not bad!!
Game 3 v Dark Horses (Strathclyde)
Again what can I say other than we were awesome? Our zone really shut them down again. The handlers were good but the winds prevented the zone being taken apart when anything went through the middle. Sam's parents were watching this game and he rocked out! He scored most points just being too quick for the defence. Ste pulled out some great grabs and cross pitch sidearms to Tom and Sam. We were playing sexy frisbee. Final score 13-2. So after 3 games we had scored 38 points and only conceded 4. Our hardest game of the day was next and we knew we would have to be even better.
Game 4 v Sublime (Portsmouth)
We started on D and put our zone on. But unlike the other teams these guys could really handle. They kept the cup running all the time with very short passes and long swings. Too much was going through the middle of the cup but once the cup reset they had to keep passing it, and each time it forced a turn. We used 3:4 but switched to stack because Sublime were so good at marking against the diamond cuts. This worked and we scored all of our downwind offence points but so did they. It was so intense both teams running hard and causing turns but not capitalising on them. Edd G called fast count which pursued into an argument to which he was accused of teaching his team to cheat. At this point we began to realise they were not the most spirited team. This inspired us because we could not lose to this horrible team. The game was so tight and the team with the first upwind point would have the advantage. It was their downwind o point and Joe got a point block on the captain (who plays for Fire and was a knob). We quickly turned and with flowing offence scored the upwind point. Oooyeah! We were then in the lead for some time, but a break through the middle of a cup went straight up the wing with passes up the line for an upwind score for Sublime. We got to the cap, was therefore a 5-5 game to 6, our downwind point. With a silly pass that was d'd they got possession. We set up zone again. The handlers kept swinging the disc side to side making the cup and chase run. This was an epic point lasting at least 10 minutes perhaps 15/20! Tom was chase and he just kept going, forcing them to make silly throws, also managing to get a sweet d on a ‘crash’ pass. We turned them but then they turned us again. We were all shattered and the cup couldn’t run much more and they broke through the middle, and up the line again. The cup was forcing on the far wing right next to the endzone, they swung it and the cup followed. They managed to get back out to the right wing and a pass into the endzone was caught by a layout catch from a Sublime player. They erupted in cheer but Joe called it out. Again it was out, but of course much contesting occurred. The guy had landed straddling the line and they took it back to the guy who had thrown it. They passed it back to the middle and fired it into the centre of the endzone but Talbott D’d it!!!!! This was our chance. We passed it down the pitch and got it to Joe. Joe did a cross pitch, half pitch length sidearm huck to trev. It was like slow motion Trev had ages to catch it and everyone held their breath but of course Trev got it. WE DID IT! This resulted in the captain shouting "the worst fucking game ever" what a nice guy. They were really gutted and we had just beaten the 3rd seeds. After some tense talks and no calls we headed to the showers knowing we were seeded 3rd in Div 2 for a whole night.
We found a Spoons for dinner where most of us had sickeningly big burgers except for Tom who had a rack of ribs that he kept complaining must of come from a piglet. He also managed to drop some on his jeans which resulted in a big red-brown stain he had to have for the rest of the night. Greg and Tom had a match of twister against two people from Bears and two from Scorpions. It was just a mass of bodies to which we believed would unravel and reveal Greg having pulled someone by just being there. Greg won... another Jesters victory to add to the day. We remained at the pub where Alex, Ste, Sam and Trev played the most ridiculously hard game of 21 ever. I can't even begin to describe the rules other than every number had to be something else and 10 was "Sublime are gay". Alex was the worst player ever and was trashed immediately. These guys and Tom went off the party while the rest of us went to get some sleep.
When they got back at 2am to a hall full of sleeping people they woke everyone up by laughing at anything. They said "Where is Talbott?" and he actually stupidly put his hand up so they all piled on him. Tom got back later and was talking to himself outside for 5 mins about finding and eating pizza. The rest of the night meant no sleep for anyone other than Trev because Aye Aye and Picnic kept everyone up. Sam went to the loo about 200 times, Trev snored and Sam farted in my face everytime I turned over.
Quarter Final v OW (Oxford)
At Regional’s the score was 13-1 to them so we knew it was going to be a tough crossover. We played zone which they ripped through. We should have switched earlier but it was so effective on the Saturday that we tried to stick with it. The score got to 7-2 to them. We just had turned up to this game, we all threw some rubbish and dropped really easy discs. After the half we switched to man which was much more effective. We worked so hard and played so much better. Edd G had some great pickups off the floor and Joe had layout ds. But this was just too late and the final score was 12-6. Still much better than Regionals but we were gutted because we could have won it. We gave everything in that game and in the second half it was the best Jesters have ever played. In 3 years I had not seen a team try so hard to win anything. This was another really unspirited game with their captain "Statto" causing many arguments through dodgy calls (Joe also got into an argument with him about how much of a twat he was). He also gave the worst after game speech including "we wanted to crush you and we did." We were now playing for 5th.
Semi Final v Skunks (Southampton)
From what we had heard we knew this was going to be a hard match as we were pretty evenly matched. The teams traded points, with them not being able to score upwind through our zone. We managed to get a brilliant upwind point which put them on the back foot for most of the game. But in the last ten minutes they managed to break our zone and get a point. Greg did an awesome layout catch score which he had denied because of a stall-out. At this stage we were all exhausted, we had such a big game against OW and Skunks were given money by their Uni to stay in a travel lodge! We went to a two point cap and all we had to do was keep our o points. But we couldn’t do it and we conceded another upwind point. We now had to score an upwind to win. They called a time out outsided the endzone but a pass was D’d by Joe. They reset and a break sent the disc to a free man. 10-8 Skunks. This was a gutting result because we were actually the better team and we all knew we should have won it. But nevermind we still had to play for Jesters usual 7th spot (usual not pertaining to the Nationals part though).
Final v Thrown (again)
This game was for 7th and 8th place. We knew they had improved because they lost only 12-7 to Bears. This time they worked around our zone much better but we played it up and downwind as they only scored on man during our previous game. Alex and Joe D’d so many discs in the endzone and without them the score would have been much closer. Trev did one of the most amazing layout takes I have ever seen to keep possession! A combination of our tiredness and their improvement meant they scored more than on Saturday but the final score was 12-5 to us. Still a comfortable win, and a great team to play to finish the tournament.
All I can say to the players is that you were all absolutely amazing and each of you were vital to the success we had over the weekend. The team really gelled to produce some great Ultimate to both play and watch. The effort everyone put in was inspiring and you could see it in the tiredness of everyone's faces and bodies on the way home. It was great to captain you guys, and to finish my captaincy on the best weekend of Frisbee I have ever had!
Millie