Strange Blue Tournament Report

University Womens Indoor Nationals

Hello

for those who want to know how we got on at the weekend

Tournament report for University Women's Indoor Nationals 2007, Nottingham 24th/25th February

Squad:

Sarah
Kelly
Hayley
Susanna
Dan
Lucy F
Emma


2 weekends ago saw the Strange Blue women's team head off to Nationals with high hopes as the underdogs, of playing some awesome ultimate and taking the other teams by surprise. For once this didn't mean a ridiculously early start and we were all pleasantly surprised to find it light outside as we made our way to the tournament (in cars, obviously).

We started the tournament with what was to be the hardest match of the tournament. We played the eventual finalists Ro Sham Bo, and despite some spirited plays and plenty of possession, we failed to capitalize on it and lost. Armed with toilet paper Sarah declared afterwards that she had an idea for a call - God knows what any passers-by must have thought as two teams raced to tie up Dani and a Ro Sham Bo girl in toilet paper.

We then went on to play Shimmy, which was a highly paced, action- packed game and featured some great running and inspired passes from both teams. Despite seeming fairly equal to begin with, the tide of the match ultimately turned in the favour of the opposition and we lost. We went on to play Too Many Pies, which was again initially tightly fought, though they too eventually pulled away from us. Our next match against Random Fling, saw Strange Blue at a distinct height disadvantage as a mammoth of a girl stepped onto the starting line. We countered this with both hot D and chilly O but again the win slipped between our fingers much to everyone's bemusement and disappointment. Chichester were up next and to our frustration we realized the team depended on only 2 or 3 handlers that were uber-slippy, and we couldn't shut them down in time to stage a suitable come back. The last match of the day was against Kingperial and was the most tightly fought of the day eventually ending in a win for Kingperial,. That match featured some amazing D's from the entire team, it also saw us looking more cohesive than we had done all day, though we were exhausted by this stage!

That evening we cooked ourselves a humongous meal (and devoured it all) and then went to a party in town. Strange Blue could I think, safely say they were the boogie queens of the evening, but only after following much coercion from Hayley! Lucy also managed to injure herself that evening and not through the noble art of running from a mugger, instead she strained a muscle, dancing.

The next day we played our last pool match of the day against Jesters and lost, which meant we were seeded 16th going into the afternoon. We came up against Pies again, and following a much closer match than the day before, we narrowly lost. We then lost to Haze which meant the final match of the weekend was against Kingperial (again). This was our last match and so we went in there determined to put up a fierce fight. It was just that, with the buzzer going at 5-5 and sudden death being the decider. As the Frisbee went back and forth between the 2 teams it was a real nail- biter to watch and eventually a rather confusing Kingperial win was decided, after a few minutes discussion in the end-zone between both sides.

Whilst we didn't manage to alter our seeding, we did succeed in playing some wicked Frisbee and we became much stronger as a team as the weekend progressed. The score lines did not accurately reflect the caliber of any of the matches (as said by all opposition captains) and the women's Strange Blue team has much to be proud of. There were some truly inspired throws, some beautiful cuts and some amazing catches, but above all, it was an absolutely fantastic weekend!

Oh and for anyone wanting to know, the MVP was a 4-way split between Susanna, Hayley, Sarah and Dani!

Emma