Strange Blue Tournament Report
Uni Indoor Regionals - SB1
Like the second team, the first team started the tournament short on numbers. Our first game was against Jesters and with only five on our team it was a close battle. Jon M and myself filled in at the back while Tom, Jon P and Hammad did all the work upfield. Being the first indoor tournament of the season it was a low scoring game as both teams adjusted to playing indoors. With about a minute on the clock, SB were a point up and held on to the disc to take the win.
With the arrival of Dave, Danny and Chris we were now at full strength. Chris took over handling duties and Dave made an immediate impact in the endzone with some huge grabs. Our next three games saw comfortable wins against Haze 2, Aye-Aye 2 and Fling 4. We tried out a few different offense structures, a zone defense and tried to figure out what worked best. Some smooth iso's, lots of wobbly scubas and lots of 50-50 grabs from our deeps led to most of our scores.
Our final game of the day, and the one to decide who topped the group, was against UBU. Knowing this would be our toughest game of the day, we came out hard and gave them very little space on D. Once we were ahead we kept the pressure on and closed out the game to win the group and set up a semi final against Haze 1.
Moving onto Sunday morning, our games were about to get a lot more intense. We had watched Haze 1 play and they like to break and score quickly.We thought the defense we had developed, to force the underneath throw and take away any deep threat would contain them well. We were evenly matched throughout but SB went into the last minute a point up and when Haze dropped in the endzone we managed to hold onto the disc for an 8-7 win. That put us through to the final against Bears.
The final brought more of the same from SB. We knew a solid start was important, came out hard and hit the ground running. A mixture of iso and stack offense and tight man D kept us trading a point up and we went into the sudden death point receiving the pull. With no time pressure we didn't play with the same urgency but moved the disc around at the back waiting for the easy upfield pass. Eventually we turned over and a point block by Tom didn't stop Bears converting and taking the top spot.
This put us in the 2-3 qualification game and a rematch with Haze 1. We talked about what had worked in the previous game, we knew what to expect and after the perfect start we were up 8-4 with about 6 minutes to go. Haze kept piling on the pressure and we responded by trying to slow the game down and keep possession rather than force the score. This allowed them back in the game and they forced a sudden death point with us once more receiving the pull. A poor long option led to the turn and Haze converted, took second place and put us in the 3-4 show game.
After starting well in the previous three games we were unable to do the same in our last game against Aye-Aye. We went down three or four points very early. Aye-Aye played very structured offense and were efficient in converting whenever we turned over. From 10-5 down we got a couple of late scores to finish the game 10-7. A disappointing day in terms of results put us in 4th position (and gave us a spot at Nationals Division 2) but some very strong performances proved what we are capable of. Congratulations to Jon M whose clinical endzone play and commitment on D earned earned him the show game MVP prize. Well done to everyone on the team and thanks to SB 2 for lots of support during our close games. Lets get back outside and prepare to dominate the region outdoors.
Simon