Strange Blue Tournament Report

Hello

Last weekend, February 26/27/28, SB went to UMIN in Glasgow. On the team were: Fatty Jon, Natman, Gary, Susanna, Megan, Sonja, Sandy, Chris A., Jassy and me (in a random order).

Getting to Glasgow was quite a trek.. On Friday it took us about 8 hours to get there, stopping in the middle for dinner. Also everyone (apart from Natman who was locked in Fatty's car) coincidentally met up at services somewhere which was a funny surprise. :) By 1 am Saturday morning we'd finally settled in our host's house and went straight to bed.

SATURDAY

Pool match #1: SB 9 - 5 Halcyon

This was the first match, after not much sleep, so we had to get used to the pitch and its size - very small - and wake up. Nonetheless, SB immediately took the lead and kept going. In the middle of the game our defense got a bit lazy but we picked it up and played some sweet ultimate with our isos working well. Fatty gave an awesome horizontal assist.

Pool match #2: SB 7 - 6

Bears The beginning of this game wasn't pretty, many long throws from endzone to endzone. But then we got ourselves together and SB managed to take the lead again. However the Bears came back to make it 6-6 so we had a tough last point but we took it in the end!

Pool match #3: SB 6 - 9

Aye Aye Aye Aye definitely loves high throws and we were finding it hard to stop them. Their speedy girls also didn't make things easier. We made a good comeback once we'd figured them out and got our D going but it wasn't enough to win unfortunately.

We had to lose by no more than 2 points to make it second in the pool - some believe we could have managed this if only Elaine had chucked the disc in the last few seconds of the game... So instead, we became third in our pool (although we were initially told we were first) and then had to play cross-overs.

Cross-over SB 6 - 9 UCL

The energy and enthusiasm just weren't really there. We got beaten up the line every single time and our offense was very panicky so they could easily force us into making mistakes. We still managed to score some nice point though, but it wasn't good enough.

Cross-over SB 8 - 6

Skunks We were back to SB-standard again. :) At some point SB was leading by 4 points and even though the Skunks made a good effort and managed to get closer to us, we beat them in a good game. Also I shouldn't forget Gary's brilliant stall-out score!

We were third again in the cross-overs, so we initially thought this was the end of UMIN for us! But fortunately the tournament organisation had again made a mistake, and we had another match to play. We really wanted to be in the top 8 so this time we completely went for it.

SB 8 - 5 Mohawks

Geared up and ready to play! The Mohawks played different D and O than we had seen before and they really, really wanted to win. So did we. Therefore everyone was quite tense but still we managed to get some good continuation going. Fatty made two (fair) calls that the other team didn't take well at all so we spent quite some time arguing on the pitch. All in all the atmosphere wasn't good but we were happy with the result and with the nice ultimate we had played. Top 8!

After a nice dinner in Glasgow's city centre (which is actually quite pretty!) we decided on going to the party in Glasgow's student union. The bar was hard to find but once we got there, SB totally dominated the party. We left early though and relaxed at our host's and got a kind of early night.

SUNDAY

SB 3 - 9 Aye Aye

Aye Aye had definitely slept better/more than we had. No-one was really awake so even though we knew exactly what to expect, they managed to pull their high-throws as our D was more or less non-existing. Disappointing start of the day.

SB 3 - 9 Too many pies

Pies are a good team and although we kept up with them for the first couple of points, with much better D than before, our O was still not very strong. Megan made some amazing cuts though! In the end we tried a zone on them which worked really well, but unfortunately we only discovered this very late in the game.

SB 2 - 13 Ro Sham Bo

Ro Sham Bo had been disappointed by their results this weekend and wanted to make up for it... which they did. They are a strong team anyway and they ran through everything! Their lay-out D's and quick sprints surprised us and we didn't react in time to make them stop. So they definitely deserved this win.

UMIN 2010 left SB at the 8th place. Sunday's games were not amazing.

Then there was the way back, which took us another good 8 hours. Our car took a nice scenery-route because the A1 was closed and we discovered that I spy still works in the dark. :) Finally, Fatty's Tebay services-cake-rating of the weekend: Coffee cake Chocolate cake Brownie.

I had a fantastic weekend and first SB tournament and I hope everyone else enjoyed it too! It's great to see so much good ultimate and have such a nice time with the team. SO much happened, I hope I haven't forgotten anything important. Thanks very much everyone!

Valentijn xxx