Strange Blue Tournament Report

Hey Camdisc,

Last weekend the SB women went to Durham to play UWON and came 2nd! Woooop! The team: Anna, Ellie, Emily, Jess, Megan, Lauren, Pri, Veronika and me.
(Sideline: Mike)

Firstly, Jess brought her camera (of course) and has uploaded some great photos, here's the link

Two carfuls of us headed to Durham on Friday - it's further away than you might think! We were staying with the lovely Brown player Alex Merson. The other car went earlier and had fun in Durham, while we went up post-dinner and sang the Sound of Music. (Yes, all of it.)

We were seeded 2nd - which we thought was surprising but turned out to be exactly right :) - and in a pool with Sussex Squaws, Newcastle Pies, York and DUF (Durham). This proved to be a very strong pool, all teams in the top 4 were in it! It was terribly windy both days, with strong crosspitch gusts: tough for offence, but great for zoning!

DUF 6 - 5 SB

Our first match Saturday morning was against the hosts. We lost in sudden death, 6-5 I think? We were still getting into game mode, and still working out our offence. Although our zone D worked pretty well on them, we kept being beaten on the open side on man. Nevertheless it left everyone thinking "That was fun, let's play more, and better!"

SB win - lose York

So we did. We won this match quite comfortably, although I can't remember the exact scores and many details... But our handling and cutting got more confident and we were much more focused than in the first game. They were a really fun and friendly team to play who introduced us to an amazing lemon-call afterwards.

Squaws 6 - 2 SB

We'd seen them play and were a bit intimidated. Maybe too much, considering we would play them again in the final... So they won this match by a long way, 6-2 or something? Even though we had many almost-goals which we didn't quite pull of because of unlucky discs/drops. They played mainly through their two awesome handlers, one of whom boosted the disc a lot, off which they scored heaps. Also their quick give-and-go play meant they worked our zone pretty well, whereas we were struggling to do the same when they zoned us. They weren't that well-spirited though, which was a shame.

Pies win - lose SB

We were expecting a close game, and it was, again a sudden death that we lost! It being our fourth match today didn't help either for our offence flow. Their open side undercuts proved very hard for us to stop. However we still played well, our D hot as ever. Everyone had their heads in the game and like in the other matches today we were there for each other, backups being especially useful when the wind played tricks on us. This team also had Lauren's nemesis on it: a girl who played *exactly* like her, interesting enough!

Saturday left us with mixed feelings. We'd played really well and had a lot of fun, but still managed to end up 8th seed! So it didn't feel like our scores reflected our performance, which was a bit frustrating. Still, we were happy about how we were gelling together as a team, with our iso and 3-4 plays working better and better, and our zone getting tighter and tighter. Many teams said they struggled against it!

After a ridiculously long queue for the showers we went back and explored Durham, a really nice and scenic student town. Post-pubfood, none of us really felt like partying anymore (apart from Jess, sorry Jess!)... so we just went back and had an early-ish night.

SB win - lose Halcyenne

1v8 Just for this match alone the whole weekend was worth it. We came out not expecting too much, I mean, which team wins a 1v8? Well, we did! Massively! When we scored the 1st point without any turnovers, through the cleanest offence ever - great up the line cuts from Lauren and Ellie especially, a combination which worked brilliantly many times over the weekend - everyone suddenly realised that we could make this our match. Everyone played so well, both individually and as a team, it was a joy both to play and to watch. The crowd went crazy (at least we did) as Pri did a perfect layout to score the last point. Woooo! :)

SB win - lose Pies

semis Just like at UWIN, we played Pies twice. And just like at UWIN, the second time round we won. Nice. We were a lot more confident and psyched than on Saturday. Our one-way force in zoning trapped them on the line quite a lot. One of their handlers had joined them on Sunday but our zone managed to pressure even her into throwing lots of discs away. Can't remember the score... But who cares, we made it to the final!

Squaws 7 - 5 SB

Over the weekend I think we improved massively, from not being sure what we were doing to a perfectly clicking team were everyone played their part. There are many amazing things that happened some time in the weekend: Megan's ceaseless deep cutting and huge endzone D, Anna's first run through D (yay!), several pointblocks and allround great handling, together with Emily, who at times would suddenly run deep and take the point, like that one time were 5 women were up for the disc and Emily emerged out of the chaos, having scored the point... Jess always being there, either as a dump (well done for handling for the first time!) or a cutter, Veronika's & Pri's deep play where they used their tallness and speediness to their full potential, Ellie who you could always trust to make the perfect cuts, either up the line or through the centre of a diamond, and who D'd so many times I lost count, Lauren who got MVP for basically making most of our offence work, as well has throwing some huge forehand hucks just when we needed it... Awesome work everyone! Finally I loved how every time we did call a time out at the endzone and set up again, we immediately scored a perfect goal: talking helps a lot. :)

Thanks to the whole team for being so amazing, I'm very proud of you all and had a great weekend! Valentijn xxx