University Women's Outdoor Nationals
Early on a Saturday morning, eight Strange Blue ladies plus a Haze tag-along hopped on a minibus to nationals. Due to a lack of scrutinisation of the schedule from the captain, we arrived 1hr 40mins early. Thankfully the team didn't mind at all about our 6am departure time.
With a small team and the potential to place anywhere within the 25 team-tournament, we had to use our Cambridge wiles to place as high as we could. We set out with an original aim to go out hard on Saturday and did not give too much thought for the following day. We went on to surprise even ourselves with our competitiveness and fought to finish a respectable 11th place. While we may not have won any beauty contests with our style, we were a steady workhorse that got the job done.
SB 8-1 Herriott-Watt (with Flatball pick-ups to make FlatWatt)
An easy win against a newly formed team. Strange Blue ladies seemed to have already gelled from the first point of the game.
SB 8-1 York
Seeded one place below us and with similar numbers, we set out to prove that our semi-iron woman team was better than theirs.
SB 8-3 Cardiff/Bristol
Man for man, they had better players than us. However, their combination team just had too many handler-cutter miscommunications and we capitalised on their turnovers.
SB 2-3 Bears (Warwick)
Ugrh Bears! This was not a pretty game. We were completely gutted to lose this on sudden-death. We thought we had them at some points.
SB 0-11 Squaws (Sussex)
If we had to get bageled by a team, at least it was Squaws.
SB 7-1 StarFlung (Dundee/Glasgow)
First match of the day on Sunday and we were all looking surprisingly spritely apart from Diane who got hit by food-poisoning. Despite her repeated attempts to let us take a sub and the temptation that a tactical vomit on the opponent might be an effective form of defense, we all agreed that she was not fit for Ultimate. Cue an awesome day of iron-woman.
SB 5-4 Cardiff/Bristol
Our quarter-finals for the 9-16 group was a rematch from the previous day and Bra-diff were looking much more coherent this time around. We were 2-4 down at time. However, we did not accept our rematch fate and brought it back to sudden death at 4-4, with an up-wind universe point for the win. Things were looking hairy during the middle of our comeback when Lina's knee failed her. With our options limited by our currently iron-woman team, Diane excavated herself from her sick bed and managed not only to refrain from throwing up but also was a critical link in our zone offense. Eleanor #goldengirl scored the universe point.
SB 2-4 Bangor
Our zone offense struggled in the strong cross-wind conditions, forcing us to resort to a huck 'n' D strategy. Unfortunately we couldn't pull it out of the bag for this one. Our aspirations for plate had to be put to bed.
SB 6-4 Strathclyde (Glasgow)
Arguably the most fair-minded team we played this weekend, even offering to play sixes when Fran busted her knee for a score. Luckily we didn't need that, as Fran bounced back like a trooper. We got beaten long a few times, this team had deadly handlers who put up IO hucks from the middle of the pitch to their going-on-six-foot receiver. In the end, we just wanted it more. Kudos to Lina who couldn't actually run in this game and played every point, even managing to sky her opponent.
Final highlights-
Jess "So I'm first cut" Wong
Diane "Vomit 'n' catch it" Esson
Eadaoin "Where's my long" Harney
Lina "skying whilst injured" Dobnikar
Eleanor "golden girl" Nicholson
Aimee "Mr. Consistency" Hall
Megan "Finally tall" Davies-Wykes
Fran "the ulti-tasker" Kundel
Yours sincerely,
The collaborative reporting team from the Strange Blue minibus, eds D. Esson, E. Harney, J. Wong
