MT2 Reflections

Pretty disappointing weekend for Herd 1. 7th place, whilst not bad, was not our aim. Getting beaten by our 2nd team was also a pretty bad showing. We lost it by playing badly against a team playing really well, and they thoroughly deserved the win, but in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't have happened.
Games:
Tough game against Flump to start. We went down 3-0 and were behind for almost all the game. Sudden death at 10-10 and they had the disc just outside the endzone and almost took the win. We got the D and the final point. This served as a wake up call for our next game against Golden Ants.

We went out hard, went up early and controlled the game. Nothing spectacular but a good win. This put us top of our group with just a seeding game (1 v 3) to play left on Saturday against Brighton.

This game was a big low light for me. Sufficed to say, we started slow again going 3-0 down and they coped a lot better with the conditions than we did. I finished the day in a pretty bad mood, mostly due to getting point blocked three times by the same Brighton player, but also thinking that, even though we were in a pretty strong position at the end of the day, the struggles we had during the day meant that we probably weren't in the best position mentally going into Sunday.

Game 1 on Sunday was our quarter final against DED. We started slow AGAIN and never really threatened their lead until the end. I don't remember the final score, but we didn't play well enough to deserve a win in this game.

Game 2 was the 6 v 7 crossover against Herd 2. It really shows what a strong team they are to have gotten themselves into this position and they came into the game wanting it more. With a commanding lead when the hooter went, we staged a small comeback but not enough to draw close enough to truly challenge their lead and they finished us off. Again in this game we started slow.

So lastly, the 7 v 8 game against Peeps to finish the weekend. We knew we wanted to finally put in a good performance against Peeps and it turned into our best game of the weekend. It was also one of the best spirited games of Ultimate I have probably ever played. Finally earning a win, closing out the game against a Peeps resurgence was a good way to finish what had otherwise been a fairly disappointing weekend.

Personal aims: On defense I had a good number of lay-out bids and was close on a few but didn't get any. I did however get two run through Ds near the endzone line which were converted shortly after into points so quite good. Bit disappointed by getting scored on long a few times but overall fairly happy with my D.

On offense my movement of the disc through the handlers was pretty good, but a few of my hucks were still throwaways. This will still be a big aim moving forward. My dump cuts were better this weekend than at Mixed tour 1.

On the sideline I was still vocal but again showed my frustration too much. When I realised this I tried to change my attitude and from then I felt I was a positive voice.

Secondary Aims: I got one point block, so i'm happy with that. We didn't play much Zone defense this weekend, which I was a little surprised about due to the weather and I don't remember playing it very often so can't comment on my zone D aim. Zone O I thought I played well, distributing the disc well with only a few turnovers to my name.
Tertiary Aims: No injuries and the weather wasn't as horrible as predicted!

Hoping for a big showing at mixed tour 3! It really seems that when Herd start slow, we struggle, so we really need to get our heads in early in games in order to help our overall tour ranking for this season.