Mixed Tour 1:Recap

Herd 1

 We had a mixed weekend. We won 2 and lost 4, dropping 4 seeds from 6th to 10th. We beat Meeple and Scarecrew; teams who we have beaten relatively consistently in past games, but who have the players to push us into tough fought contests. We lost to one of the GB world games teams, which I predicted we would lose to, however we did go 5-2 up against. We also lost to Bristol who were my underdog of the tournament, and who, after a very strong first three games lost a tough contest to the eventual highest finishing club team Black Eagles to drop out of the top 4. We also lost twice to Cambridge; in the first game I feel they started stronger than us and we weren't able to close the gap on the lead they gained and in the second game we should have won but personal errors cost us throughout and we couldn't close it out.
Personal errors seemed to be a theme for the weekend for our team and I have no doubt that it cost us a lot of points and probably some games as well. These errors meant that, whilst we might have had runs of good points in games, we weren't ever able to put together that one consistent game where we played to the best of our abilities throughout, that could have been a turning point on the weekend or a statement of intent for the season. Even when we went 8-0 up against Shiny Happy Meeple, we allowed them to get themselves back in the game and when you give teams like the GB world games team, Bristol and Cambridge the disc over and over they are going to take games from you.

The top 10 (and an observation on each team):

1. GB World Games B: won the final 15-5 and from those I spoke to looked the stronger team of the two all weekend
2. GB World Games A:
3. Black Eagles: After losing to DED in their group, Black Eagles went on a great run started by beating Bristol in a tight quarter final and finishing with them taking the top club spot behind the two GB teams by outlasting Brighton in the 3v4.
4. Brighton: Coming into the tournament with only 13(ish) players and also notching 1 win and 2 losses in their group were able to come top of a 3 way tie and beat DED to grab a top 4 spot. After Brighton lost their first two games they went into the rest of the weekend with a relaxed attitude and a "give it our best shot and see how it goes" outlook, which completely complemented their players and play style. Brighton and the two GB squads show that Quality will top quantity a lot of the time, however they did run out of legs in the 3v4 against Black Eagles.
5. Bear Cavalry 1: Bear Cavalry went into this season having lost 2 games in the Mixed Tour in the last 2 seasons, and had not entered a Mixed Tour or National competition that they didn't win. They were without two of their best players and three games into Saturday they had lost as many games as they had in the last two seasons. Coming second in a three way tie means that they weren't able to cross back into the top 4 but they finished as highly as they could by the end of the tournament and will be looking to get back to winning ways in their goal of winning Europeans and competing at Worlds.
6. Royal Goaltimate Society: They came 3rd in their group behind DED and Black Eagles, only losing in Sudden death to DED. But they got their revenge by absolutely spanking them in the 5-8 bracket semi final. This team doesn't train but features strong players of both gender and they appeared to have found their rhythm after their first tournament.
7. DED: Won their group with their only close game coming against RGS, but couldn't contain Brighton in the quarter final. Beat [PEEPS/SCARECREW] to stay top 8 and Bristol to finish 7th, but like Bear Cavalry, DED will be looking to rebound in Mixed Tours 2 and 3.
8. Bristol 1: Climbing from 13th to 1st after 3 games was a great achievement, unfortunately for Bristol they couldn't stop Black Eagles in their Quarter and, after beating the Herd to stay in the top 8, couldn't notch any more wins. Climbing 5 places is still a strong start to the season for Bristol 1.
9. Cambridge 1: A strong team who had to face GB World games A in the group and the stronger GB world games B team to break into the top 4 and couldn't manage a win in either game. They also lost to a RGS team on their way to 5th place, but finished top of the 9-12 bracket.
10. Herd 1: Rounding out the top ten with a slightly disappointing weekend that could've been dramatically altered by a couple less drops.

Good/Bad Personal points:

+ I had no aching legs on Monday after running hard all weekend and this being the first two day tournament of the year.
- I did, however, have a slightly aching throwing shoulder (feeling fine on Wednesday).
+ I thought I personally had a good weekend playing wise, and had serious fun shredding a couple of teams zones throughout the weekend.
- I did however throw a couple of turnovers against zones showing that, whilst most of the time my zone offense is solid, I occasionally make mistakes against it. I have confidence in my zone offense abilities but can still be better.
+ My defense was pretty strong all weekend, I don't recall getting scored on at all, I created turnovers on defense and even got 2 point blocks
- However, I didn't get any layout blocks despite getting close a couple of times. Still something to work on with defense then.