Mens Lent 2019 Report
Mens Lent 2019 Report
Lent term 2019 was set up to be a busy term for the mens squad. Having won 2/2 games in the BUCS league the previous term and qualified to div 1 indoor nationals, there was a lot to play for.
The term began with our third BUCS match against Oxford. Armed with knowledge from Russell Petry, who had spent his previous years with the dark blues, spirits and confidence was up heading into the game. The Oxford team had left a few of their bigger threats back at home and after being point-blocked, big shooter Jeff Sload retired himself due to injury. Old-man Jonny put his hips on the line with a nice layout D and JR skied a couple people. Returning from injury, Mo Razzaq slipped straight back into his homeboy-style handler offence to tear up the Oxford defence. Not satisfied with his assists, Mo also took to skying Fisher in the end zone for a score. Traffic was pretty one-way with SB cruising to a 15-2 win and securing a place at div 1 outdoor nationals.
Later that week we returned to Coldhams Common for our penultimate league match against Lincoln. Lincoln had graduated from the lower division the previous year and were struggling to keep up in the top division. Despite us not calling their dropped pull they still struggled to make progress upfield against the huge blocks of Marton-Mar-Ton-Erdos, who received the inaugural performance of his chant for his efforts. The game ended with a messy hammer across the end-zone to Russ, who had been moaning all game about not yet scoring. Despite an easy 15-1 win there was clearly improvement to be made. This was especially highlighted by JR making the only completed huck. Taking two BUCS victories in a week SB went on to win the Cambridge University sports team of the week (with some help from a resident compsci in the online voting).
On the 9-10th of February 10 of us headed to Nottingham for the top division of men's indoor nationals. The squad was Henry Mattinson, Perry Hong, Noah Betz-Richman, James Richardson, Jonny Slaughter, Alex Jones, Russell Petry, Mo Razzaq, Eero Raty, and Niall Jackson. Mo who had been injured at regionals and Niall Jackson joined the regionals squad. Our pool consisted of Glasgow, St Andrews, Sheffield and Surrey with Cambridge occupying the bottom seed of the group. We started the weekend being comfortably outclassed by a strong Glasgow team. Intent on proving our worth above our seeding, we went into the St Andrews game hyped and ready to upset. The game remained close throughout despite Perry deciding that scubas should be thrown from around knee height. After an incredibly fun and well spirited game we persevered on universe point to take the game 10-9. We next faced Sheffield, a team seeded above St Andrews, and another team we believed we could beat. The game swayed in both teams favours with both taking numerous breaks and looking like they could win it. Drawing into the closing minutes of the game, we were behind, and not quite appreciating that score difference could matter played slightly too aggressively at the end, conceding a final goal to lose 10-8. Hoping Sheffield would hold against St Andrews we head slightly downtrodden into a final game against Surrey. We quickly took a comfortable lead which we held out till the end of the game. We certainly should have won with a greater margin, but a few too many personal errors cropped up in the second half of the game. Later that evening Noah's life was changed by his introduction to the TV classic Pointless.
St Andrews beat Sheffield on universe point so sadly we finished bottom of a three way tie and 4th in the group with no chance of progressing to the higher bracket. St Andrews and Sheffield went on to finish 8th and 9th in a showing of what could have been. In our lower-bracket quarter we faced Bristol who were not expected to have featured so low in bracket play. We were blessed with another tight and well spirited game against Bristol who were leading 9-8 going into the final point. Taking possession we had the chance to tie it up to head into universe. Sadly we turned just before the buzzer and Bristol were able to close the game out. Next we faced Sussex. We managed to chip away a couple of breaks throughout the game and with a few minutes to go were up. After a slightly enthusiastic catch, sadly Mo picked up another injury. Rattled a little we conceded a break but were able to hold on to take the win. Our final game was against Manchester. In a fairly uneventful game we calmly worked our way to a 11-8 win against an unenthusiastic Manchester. After an unlucky 3 way tie and quarter draw, we finished 17/20, feeling a little hard done by, but happy to have had some quality games in the top division.
Having won all of our BUCS game to date, and with div 1 spots secured, we faced Birmingham for a winner takes all game for the league. With some crucial handler dropouts in the two days before the game we were only able to send 10 players to Birmingham. The game started with trading despite the numbers resulting in Henry and Russ frequenting the handler space. Birmingham took a couple of breaks to go up. We deployed the faithful clam zone and were able to take a break to catch up a little. With another break, Birmingham took half 8-5. Struggling with numbers we were unable to keep up with the athletic team in the second half and lost 14-8. We finished 2nd in the Midlands 1A league, a good performance. Having had two very easy games easier in the term, this was a good opportunity to identify what required work before nationals.
On the 23rd of February we hosted Oxford for Varsity. Despite a comfortable win earlier in the term we were aware that with a fit Jeff, Harry Mason, A-Star and Cambridge legend James Familton, this would be a different story. We also missed Mo and Russ due to injury, and Jonny due to age. The seconds comfortably dispatched the Oxford second team, captained by the (too big, too strong, too) TMarge. Not quite able to find our flow on offence the firsts went down a few of breaks going into half. Despite scoring two callahans in the second half, we were unable to stop the connections of the stronger Oxford players and catchup. We finished the game with 2 breaks, but were unable to make the third to tie it up for universe. On the Sunday the second again won comfortably indoors with a standout performance from Alan Sun. The mens game went to universe with Oxford prevailing for the victory.
This year UKU offered a warm-up tournament at the end of Lent term coinciding with womens outdoor regionals. Keen to give some newer players an outing and polish up our play for Nationals we sent a team. Most importantly this was also the debut of the new collection of sideline inflatables and pool woggles. We were seeded second behind Imperial. We started the weekend with a quick 11-3 win over Kent. Next we faced Surrey in a closer game where Harry King made many a highlight reel play including his high elevation extension layout score. After an 11-8 win we faced top seed Imperial at the end of Saturday. Defence was on-point as Imperial often struggled to get the disc away from their own endzone. After a 9-5 win we headed back to Cambridge confident of our chances the next day. After a slight squad reshuffle so injuries could be rested and more players given an opportunity to play, Sunday started against UEA against whom we'd had some close indoor games in the previous term. However, SB is an outdoors team. With a flawless performance SB closed out an 11-0 hardcap bagel win. After a long wait in which the first competition of "Disc in the inflatable zimmer frame" (See Mo Razzaq for full tournament report) was played, we drew Surrey in the final. In stronger wind, the proficiency of SB's disc skills showed in a 8-4 to win and earn the warm-up trophy.
On the 13th-14th of April SB headed to Nottingham for div 1 mens outdoor nationals. The squad was as follows: Henry Mattinson, James Richardson, Jonny Slaughter, Perry Hong, Tom Fisher, Noah Betz-Richman, Vincent Goodwin, Theo Chau, Harry King, Rajan Troll, Russell Petry, Niall Jackson, Thomas Marge. Sadly nationals fell at the end of the Easter holiday so there were a few cobwebs to remove in the first game as the team played together for the first time in a while. We first matched up against Exeter, the only team seeded below us in the pool so a game we needed to win to reach the higher bracket. With a little rust showing we worked our way into the game but sadly fell behind. With the buzzer gone, we started on D 6-8 down. After two outings of the clam zone we tied it up to an 8-8 universe. In the final point Exeter made the most of their superior deep shots to squeeze out a 9-8 win. Next we faced Edinburgh. Edinburgh were much better than us. We lost 12-5 in a reasonably uneventful, but fun game. Aware that this wasn't out game to win, it was a good opportunity to find our flow a little more and work our way towards the deep game we wanted to be able to play. Finally we played Sheffield. Sheffield had beat Exeter 10-7 meaning it was in our hands to bring ourselves top of a three-way tie to advance to top bracket play. Intensity was high, defence tough and offence tight. Jonny made some big up the line skies to help towards the SB win. We won the game 8-5, finishing top of the three-way tie and second in the group.
On the Sunday we faced Birmingham in our quarter final, this time with a stronger handler line-up than our BUCS fixture. Birmingham were even stronger than in the league and were above us in execution, athleticism and game IQ. Whilst our zone was easily picked apart, our man D wasn't overly successful either. Birmingham charged on to a 15-5 win on their way to the final. We immediately faced Sussex. We broke to start to go up 2-0. There were a few more breaks each way and we took half. As the wind picked up, the importance of an upwind break became apparent. Sussex took one to take the lead shortly before the buzzer went. We started the final point, universe, on D. After generating the turn we struggled to work it up in the wind and turned allowing Sussex to score. After this close loss we entered our final game against Loughborough for 7th place. In the final game with SB for a lot of the squad, we were lucky to have a very fun final game against the upbeat Loughborough squad. With tiredness showing, we weren't quite able to keep up, the final score 11-8 to Loughborough.
