Post-Centex!

Whoops. Must have dropped the ball on blogging about Nashville.. but on to the next

CENTEX! Wow. So pool play we saw UCF (won in universe), UCLA (lost in universe) then UNC (who won out.. we were all in our own heads during that game sheesh). Appreciated all the sideline love and just sorry we didn't gel better Saturday. Didn't have to play the crossover D2 game.

SUNDAY (today) was magical. We had a rough start this morning, not quite awake enough to beat UCSB (13-11) at 8:15 am. When we were on, we were on- and our offense looked worlds better than Saturday. We were happy to find out they ended up in the finals.. if someone had to knock us out they sure as heck better make it count

Then we saw Colorado College- happy to see someone else from the region (I see that Wash U and A&M, despite some losses won out after their morning games too). Beat them solidly. Enjoyed their positive energy, and I found their coach particularly pleasant.

Then, Carleton College. Our old pals from Pres Day! They're an aggressive, fit team but we had the energy and the chemistry and had another sold win there by a few. Our coaches don't keep us too informed on the score. I enjoyed my matchup on one of their captains and another handler in particular. Lots of calls, but generally spirited.

Finally, Stanford! It's been years since I've played Stanford but I thought they were a pretty fit team. We were on again though and finished 13-9 over them after easing off our intensity some after being up 8-4 at half. 

Moral of the story- a LOT of the elite teams are in it. No one is a lock for finals at nationals. I maintain a lot can happen between now and the end of May. Melee's in agreement we have not peaked. I can't wait to see what we're capable of. We've got our regionals flights booked and I'm hoping for Boulder baby. 

I housed UCF this weekend.. hadn't seen them since losing to them at CCC in the fall but they're a sweet team with a love of ultimate.

Got to see my buddy Christy from Kansas and enjoyed their Centex dance (among others) during Danceoff. 

Gaps & the Iowa State ladies found themselves our Centex champs! We will see what changes in the coming weeks but I think they're another highly athletic team.

Fitness and drive are two of the big factors common amongst the majority of the top 12 or so teams in it in my mind right now. The women's division is wide open. Therefore, it's ours for the taking if we work for it :) 

Sad to see my last Centex come and go. Our Centex Board dinner tonight was delicious and I can't wait to take on a bigger admin/day-of role post-eligibility alongside Michelle next year- shoutout to TOOL. i love her. you love her. she's changing women's ultimate as we know it

xoxo 
Libs

WOW PRES DAY.

Three days in California with great weather (as opposed to all the UT chums at mardi gras over the weekend).. wow is all i can say. 

We were missing alexe this weekend with an ear infection and amy made the trip out there sat-sun but we really had a fantastic weekend, despite missing Tina the whole time!

We went 3-1 saturday. beating Humboldt, Claremont and UCLA then losing to UCSB. Red zone conversion and de-line offense was the name of that game and we've got a lot to improve on but what we saw was so promising! Hannah was out with a concussion and I pulled my hamstring.
Sunday we went 2-1 beating UCSD and Colorado with a good point diff. losing 11-12 to Sonoma. I wasn't concussed but sat out a while so can't say much about the middle of the game, but we finished strong and know what we need to work on.
Monday (today) we beat Humboldt again first thing then went 12-9 over Carleton (after they got a forfit in to our game). It was awesome! 7-2 finish on the weekend. A lot of amazing plays by everyone and a lot of things we know we can improve on :)


This weekend made me appreciate my health.. antibiotics kicked in and new inhaler worked wonders. I am looking forward to playing my next tournament NOT after having to go a week without cardio.


Melee. Is love. And this weekend was mindblowing to witness. Five years in the program and this is chemistry like I've never seen. Can't wait to play some more! But grad school and a shower are calling my name. 


This blog was rushed. But it was fun to return home to emails about Centex.. and a lot of teams cheering "See you at Centex" has everyone's energy high!


xo

Weekend Accomplished!

So, we return from Houston Anti-Freeze 7-0 victors! :)

This tournament was a sectionals-esque competition (with Rice, A&M, UTA, UNT, Texas-B, OU and Tulane) hosted at Rice. 

Saturday pool play we saw UTA (13-1), UNT (13-1) and OU (13-4) (whose captain is a chum of mine and it was great to see her playing fantastic!) and our crossover at the end of the day was against Rice (the one seed on the other side of the bracket so I guess they just did that formatting for fun) who we were down 7-6 at half to and came back with a vengeance scoring 7 in a row in the second half to finish it 13-7. We heard a rumor that Tulane had beat Rice in Universe point earlier in the morning and we had just seen Rice finish 13-6 over A&M. Interesting.

Sunday morning "quarters" were against pre-assigned teams so we saw our B-team buddies who played great, learned a lot, and scored one on us by skying one of our players downfield before throwing the score :) 

Semis we played Tulane (though I still don't understand why we didn't play A&M here) whose captain does a great job organizing her team and playing balls out and they put up 4 points against us.

Finals against Rice (after they again beat A&M 13-6) we scored the first break to start the game, but gave it right back to them a couple points later. We traded then started to pull away toward the end of the half. Second half they scored two or three on us but we still managed to finish the game 13-7 again.

The "tournament prize" mentioned on the web site were delicious iced sugar cookies.


Takeaways from the weekend:
nice fields, though their placement and setup may not have been as logical as one would think.
good sat night dinner burritos and i ate four donuts. yes four.
it's nice to stay for free at tournaments!
it would have been nice to see a&m with their full squad so it'll be good to play them sooner rather than later if possible.
winning a tournament with even subbing feels really good- and EVERYONE gets a chance to make truly standout plays.
thanks to Tool for putting on the skills clinic, the B-team girls especially got to learn a lot to apply towards their Sunday play.
it was good to see some friends that came to watch us: shoutout to Whitney and her husband, Ash, Erin and Lynn!
maybe it's just because i'm old and wise but de seems a lot more natural this season!
and running all our new defenses was really great for getting our team communicating and keeping the sideline engaged. lots of hand signals whoo!


that's all. gotta get back to grad school/clinic/life kicking my butt til practice tonight and do it all again


Frisbee Love-
Libs

Hello 2012!

Okayyyy so 2012 is here. Thus, the last couple months of college ultimate for me have arrived. buttt there's a lot to be happy about!

We had our first practice back tonight, Tina (of showdown) and Amy K (of happy hour) were there to coach us during our newly-lengthened practice for the evening! 

The B team had 14 girls and both their coaches made it out so that was great to see too!  We did some fitness and cooled down together so I'm glad we got some bonding time in.

We did some work on zone since it was windy as heck and cold as all get out. But it was a good time!  Good to see everyone (or most everyone) kept up with the winter workouts and were able to make it through everything in one piece :) 

Both teams are gearing up for a fun sectionals-level competition tournament in the form of Houston Anti-Freeze in two weekends.

We've also got a mini camp this weekend! So, we will be back in frisbee mode in no time.

I've got a wedding and a luncheon this weekend sadly after the mini camp dates got changed so i HATE missing saturday after being so excited to spend as much time as possible with my team but guess i can deal!

Really fun to see all the frisbee ladies again. Truly an amazing group of women. Love them. endlessly.

xo


Libs


this post is kind of pointless but hey, can't win them all

The Fall is Ending

Well, the final semester of college ultimate is fast-approaching (for me, not the world..)

This semester Melee played Harvest Moon, where we ended up going 3-1 on Saturday (we had a brain freeze/inability to de blady throws).  Then, lost a close one to A&M first thing Sunday knocking us out of the (poorly designed) single elim. championship bracket.. SO i constructed my own consolation bracket for the knocked out championship bracket teams on sunday where we won out and finished approximately fifth overall. good times can always be had in costume :) 

we went as zoo animals.. i was a penguin of course! they're the best.


We also played at CCC in Conyers, GA (nice to not have to drive all the way out to athens!!!) and the weather was good (ended up in short sleeves both days and tight-less).


We went 2-1 on Saturday, solidfying our appearance in the Championship bracket and crushing our "9th seed" coming in.  After our loss to Michigan we learned you have to finish games. Being down two after half getting to start on O we were perfectly poised to strike back. I like knowing what we were able to do against last year's Nationals finalists. We lost first thing Sunday to a Florida team who I will concede caught ALL their stall nine bailout hucks. Props.  Came back from being down 8-4 in our second game Sunday to win it 15-11? It was fantastic! Then, lost by a few in the 5th place game to Virginia with no legs left. 


Playing with even subbing was an important part of the Fall season for our team.  Finishing 6th at CCC this year given we were the only ones doing even subbing in the champ bracket is totally fine with me. We grew a lot. Everyone learned they have a role to fill. Not to mention, all 17 people that went out to the tournament had one (or more) ridiculously sick plays. These include: hand blocks, layout hammer catches, skies, etc.


We need to nurse our injuries and take better care of our bodies. Our team as a whole does a poor job of that. We need to up our fitness yet again.. winter break is the time to kick it up NOT slack off. Our winter workouts will probably be killer again this year, like always.


We've got the last week of class then our finals week. then December 13th I reclaim my sanity from grad school briefly and throw myself in to travels and fitness for the five weeks I don't have to be learning. wahoo. 


I hope everyone throws a lot, runs a lot, and gives themselves the opportunity to recover both mentally and physically. We've also upped the number of hours we spend practicing in the hopes it will put us back where we need to be nationally.


This Spring is so important to me, since it's my lost shot at college nationals. I hope Melee accomplishes all it's capable of and that we don't fall short of the prize this year.  From what I saw at CCC this will be another one of those seasons where the teams in the finals have worked hard and pushed through but there's no clearly dominant force. I think it'll be up for grabs again like last year. 


College ultimate is an experience you only get once. I hope no one takes it for granted. Having captained on the coed club level, it's completely different. The women we play with in college are friends for life. I hate every time they graduate, and I'm about to join their ranks. 

Melee Love XO
Libs


ps the B team this year is a smaller group than it has been the past couple of years but they're dedicated and that's all it takes. I hope they have some success recruiting going in to next semester and that the number that stay on in to next year is bigger than from last year. The depth of a program is really important for the development of both the A and the B team.

"The Beginning of the End"< as suggested by Turtle, who acknowledges its clicheness

I cannot believe I am about to undertake my final season of college ultimate as a player. WAAAAH. Well, I intend to make the most of it. I'm living with Julie (fellow fifth year Melee-er) and former TX Ultimate player Petey.  Despite the likely stress of my first year of grad school I plan to have a good time :)

I've been bad about blogging (sorry Tool and whomever else this has hurt), but will try to keep up again when anything major happens.

Last weekend my coed club team won Texas Twofinger in Dallas and that was a good time. I just completed our roster and am looking forward to all the shenanigans to be had with them.

I got a text last night that someone had directed their friend's little sister to my email for information on playing with the women's team at UT this year and that made me immensely happy! From what I can tell we have at minimum four high school female players and three grad students from out of state planning to join our ranks. I love the growth of women's ultimate (especially for the south)! This will probably the first year with a strong freshman showing of girls coming in with frisbee experience. Takes me back to my high school days!




Classes start up next Wednesday (though I will be grad schooling starting this Thursday unofficially) so May-Lee will be kicking in to high gear very soon! Under the leadership of Janel and Sharon and a very capable though somewhat uncertain GB we will have a fantastic Fall of frisbee.

Club Sectionals at the end of September here in Austin is the next thing on my mind, but tryouts and training the girls will be the high point of the coming month!

Frisbee Lovin. XO- Libs

Season Reflection

Well, guess I fell off the blogging wagon somewhere between Sectionals and Regionals.

I will attempt to catch you up- as painful as this trip down memory lane may be

Regionals Day One we pulled an "upset" against the higher seeded A&M, but it wasn't enough to win the pool after a pretty substantial point diff loss to Colorado College first game. We had to come out completely strong, but it didn't pan out. We were happy to right our wrong in the within-Section battle, though.
One of the worst parts about Day One was game one losing our captain/MVP Whitney "Titty" Miller. Her wrist got smushed and I got to accompany her on her subsequent trip to the ER. She is entertaining on vicodine though.

Day Two we had our final pool play game then on to a game against Kali, who were also at Nationals last year. They had been let in to the tournament after Missouri State withdrew and had nothing to lose and everything to prove. They had thrown their pool play game that morning to focus on beating us (good strategy coaches).
We had an 8-3 lead on them at half with our upwinders against their zone driving a nail in to the coffin. Me and the other veteran handlers were really proud of what we were accomplishing and could see the win. Unfortunately, second half (despite our lead) we were unable to score the easier downwind points and let Kali back in to the game until it came to a hard cap loss. Really disappointing finish and crushing of all our Nationals dreams.

Looking back, I think we had all the tools and talent to have done major major damage at Nattys (few teams could argue that) but we didn't put in the work. We came in to the season all oriented and committed but didn't convert. The time in practice and out have to be 100%. Keeping 20plus girls all on the same level is tough, and one that any team in the finals at Nattys will have overcome.

I write this post from a roadtrip to National Parks (currently in Montana), while a lot of my teammates are spectating at Nattys and supporting our men's team.

This was a crazy season for women's ultimate. Victory is out there for the taking. I'd call UCSB in the finals.. and Colorado College seems to be doing some damage so I could see them making semis. I haven't seen any highlights or know any results since I've had such limited internet on the road but am about to go check that out now..

I want to say-- play a fifth year of ultimate if you can. I am so thankful for that opportunity next season and turned down Wisconsin and Colorado to stay and put my heart and soul in to one final go with Melee. I love them. I love ultimate. And everyone should play for those two reasons.