Strange Blue Tournament Report

University Women's Indoors Nationals

This weekend your SB ladies made the long journey across the country to deepest, darkest Cardiff to face the best teams in the country at the University Women's Indoor Nationals.
Big congratulations must go to all the ladies who played:

Kelly Hogan
Hannah Williams
Jassy Drakulic
Natalie Lewis
Lindsay Todman
Sasha Krol
Brittany Welner
Sonja Abhyankar
Susanna Bidgood

The team was in high spirits throughout and gelled more and more as the weekend went on. We started at 14th seed. We narrowly missed moving up to 5th and into the top 8 by one point in our Saturday morning cross-over match. From there 9th position and the plate was the best we could get. Unfortunately, in an extremely short plate final due to an injury and the previous match going into sudden death, our opponents put a couple of points in ahead of us and we rapidly ran out of time for a come back. So we finished at 10th satisfied that we had all played hard and having had a lot of fun!

Jassy was however the fastest doughnut-eating girl at the tournament so don't worry, we did come back with one prize... another doughnut!

The Match results:

Skunks v Strange Blue: SB lose 7-1

We started the tournament at the bottom of a hard pool. Our first match against Skunks who had won the final of the Southern regional tournament 13-2! It was a closer match than the score reflects however we were still finding our feet in a the smallness of an indoors pitch while they, as a well drilled team, put more and more points on the board.

Cardiff Angels v Strange Blue: SB win 6-7

We completely ruled this game until about 2 minutes before the end when we let them have a come back from four points behind. This was mainly due to lazy marking but we were saved by the whistle and came away from the game a little shaken and determined not to let that happen again!

DCU v Strange Blue: SB lose 9-5

DCU went onto be the champions of the tournament. This was a fun game. The Irish girls played fast ultimate but we battled back. None of the points were easy for either team and we were pleased with the way we performed against this top team. Our D play had taken a huge improvement from the game before.

Picnickers v Strange Blue: SB win 8-3

Now we entered a second pool round and first up was a game against the girls from Plymouth. They came out initially with a zone defence but the ease at which we worked the disc around them and scored the first point meant that they never tried this D again! We certainly learnt something at regionals! Picnickers were a bit weaker than our opponents up to this point so we started to pull out some more risky throws playing a lot of long discs and hammers. As we started using more over the head throws so did they, although with somewhat less accuracy! This proved to our advantage; however there was a point where the game just looked like a hammer competition. We re-evaluated our play and decided to start playing chillier ultimate. This was effective and soon the points started to rack up on the board. There was some beautiful home-girl style play during this game.

Mojo v Strange Blue: SB lose 2-8

Our final game for Saturday and we knew it would be tough. Although, again it was a harder fought match than the score shows, they stopped our attempts to score repeatedly and put the point instead.

Far Flung v Strange Blue: SB lose 7-6

Now seeded 12th this first match of Sunday morning was out 5th-12th crossover and our opportunity to move up to the top 8. Far Flung played with a similar style to Mojo so our match the evening before was good preparation. This was an incredibly close match. We started ahead and then they had a come back which left us two points behind. The whistle blew as we battled to put in the equalising point. We were disappointed to lose a top 8 position by so little but that's how it goes sometimes.

Squaws v Strange Blue: SB win 8-3

Now permanently in the bottom 8 we were determined to the get as high up in the bottom 8 as we possibly could. This match was my personal favourite. Squaws played mainly an iso style offence and put up a lot of high discs, however our D was solid! It worked because every member of the team played their role. We had point-blocks, we skied a few and had many run-through Ds. Once we had possession point scoring was painless.

Picnickers v Strange Blue: SB win 10-3

The start of this match was intense. The Picnickers were defending the plate position from us and they really wanted revenge for earlier in the tournament! They also seemed to have brought most of Plymouth with them for support which was a little intimidating. All credit to the SB girls, even under the pressure everyone kept their focus and after an initial trading of points we took ownership of the game.

Plate Final: Shimmy v Strange Blue: SB lose 4-7

We had made it to where we wanted to be, a final for some silverware. Unfortunately the game before us over ran and so we started about 10mins late. The Shimmy girls were very quick and had put a couple of points in before we had noticed. We realized this was going to be a battle and were starting to fight back when the girl I was marking layed-out in the end zone for a disc. Her head hit the concrete floor and so was in need for a trip to A&E. This clearly held up the match a bit.

When play restarted Shimmy were more focused than us and they continued to score mainly with break-side hammers. We were just beginning to close down their O and put some points in ourselves when the whistle blew. The match felt so short, but Shimmy had won the game in the time there was and so were the deserving plate winners.

We ended at 10th having upped our seeding from the start of the tournament. The MVP for the weekend was the whole team, EVERYONE had moments of greatness!

Many thanks to: Magic for coming as coach Hannah and Kelly for completing the epic drive there and back! Our faithful supporters Nick and Captain Dani for much cheering and cookies!

Bring on the outdoor season!!

Susanna