Strange Blue Tournament Report

Uni Indoor Regionals - SB2

Strange Blue sent two teams to Nottingham for Uni Indoor Regionals this weekend and this is the tale of the seconds. Consisting of Brittany, Chris, Jassy, Natman, Pem, Sam, Sarah, Shih-Han and Taylor we had little indoor experience and even less at playing together.

24 teams took part in the competition, which started with 4 pools of 6 teams and 17 minute matches on the 1st day, I'm not quite sure why this rather random time limit was chosen. I will now try to recap the main points from our matches over the weekend although it is highly likely that I will forget exact scores in what follows.

Our first game was against the top seeds in our pool, the old enemy Ow!. We had to do without Sarah as Magic had managed to make a slight detour into the verge on his journey here. After a fairly tight beginning to the match we ended solidly by making 5 scores on the trot in the last few minutes of the game. SB2 9 - 5 Ow!

Our next match saw us take on Bears 2, and knowing the rivalry between the respective 1st teams, this was looking like it could be a good match. Unfortunately we never really got a foot in the match, as our O play slowly became more frantic as the gap in the scores widened. However we did manage to put some awesome D up against them and kept them working all the way to the bitter end. SB2 3 - 12 Bears2.

We then took on TNT in our 3rd match and again it was an uphill task. They put a zone on us throughout the match, which was made the more effective by their liberal take on the rules concerning double teaming. That said they had a great offence all game, threatening to score every time they got the disc and slowly racked up the points against us. SB2 2 - 11 TNT.

After the disappointment of two big losses we took on BUF and played some of our best Frisbee of the day to give the team a much needed boost. We kept on at them throughout with a devastating version of huck and D and it was only in the dying minutes that they made the game safe. SB2 7 - 12 BUF.

Our last match of the day was an important one against UBU2, as the winner would join the top 16 and the loser the bottom 8. After some dominant play we made it to 4-1 up with about 5 minutes gone. We then had a ridiculous point that lasted almost half the length of the entire match and when we eventually lost it, we became slightly demoralised and let them score a couple of quick points to tie the match and relegate us to the lower end of the draw due to our worse points difference. SB2 5- 5 UBU2

We left for our host's house but while following behind him in convoy, he took a ridiculously late turnoff to leave us lost on a dual carriageway heading into central Nottingham. We eventually managed to contact him only to find out he didn't really know where he lived in relation to anywhere else and only after going round the same roundabout eight times and taking a ridiculously convoluted route through the university campus were we eventually able to find his house. After much indecision as a team it was eventually decided we should go to the local Wetherspoons for dinner. Customer satisfaction is a concept that hasn't quite reached Nottingham yet and this allowed Taylor an opportunity to release all his pent up aggression on the serving staff after they responded to this complaint about the order being wrong by just picking up the food off his plate.

Sunday rolled round and Shih-Han was able to celebrate his 21st birthday with his favourite pastime, messing up his legs while committing for every disc that went near him. He also bought a rather nice chocolate cake with him, which very quickly won him friends from any team within earshot.

We started our attempt to win the wooden spoon against tournament organisers Random Fling3. Our first and only match on the show court we handled the added attention like seasoned professionals, running our opponents ragged as they looked for an elusive D. SB2 5 - 2 Random Fling3

Our Spoon semi saw us take on BUF2 and after our performance against their 1st team we felt confident, unfortunately it was Bears2 all over again as we panicked when the score got to 4-1 and never regained our composure enough to offer a significant challenge. SB2 4 - 12 BUF2

Some familiar opposition in the form of Ow! awaited us in our last match of the weekend and we were playing to keep our seeding of 19th for the tournament. Ow! had strengthened their team with the addition of a player-manager but it seemed to do nothing for them as some ridiculously chilly O saw us build up a lead of 6. However Ow! came back at us from nowhere and forced us to fight hard to hang onto our lead. SB2 7 - 5 Ow!

So we were able to look back on a successful tournament for us where we retained our seeding and beat Oxford twice. Except for Pem who was somehow convinced that we had lost our last match even after circling up at the end. Special thanks must go to Jassy for organising our calls and to Taylor for generally playing awesomely all weekend and deservedly being our MVP.

Lastly thanks to Magic for organising it so we could send a second team, Simon for coaching us throughout and also Tom C and Hammad for driving us there and back.

It was a really fun weekend and I'm sure everyone on the team enjoyed it as much as I did, bring on outdoor regionals.

Natman