Great fun weekend just gone! I know it was indoors and I complain, but I can get into more than the partying at a tournament like Skunks Xmas when there's good competition there. I was playing for Team Champagne, made up of players from my University team, mostly established to have a laugh, but also play at a high quality. We usually only go to tournaments hosted in Southampton (for old times sake) to have a laugh and catch up!
Friday night was when it started, with a standard trip to the Hobbit and Jesters, staple drinking establishments from my time at Southampton University.
Saturday saw the group games, there were 20 teams which meant 4 pools of 5 teams. We knew if we topped our group we could leave early and finish no lower than top 8.
Our first game was against a team from Bournemouth, I think they were the Uni team, and as far as I could tell they weren't exclusively first team players. There was a pretty big mismatch in the skill levels between our two teams, slightly balanced out by Team Champagne's collective hangover, but we got the easy win to start the weekend.
Our second game was against "Southern Tekkers", a junior team made of college kids (16-17 years old). As they were pretty young and not hungover, we found it difficult keeping up with their youthful collective speed as a team. I don't know how long they have been playing, but it was obvious they had been taught well as they were good at decision making and had safe hands, but they couldn't keep up with our teams height or experience. We got our second win.
Our third game was against "Probably...", a Southampton based team with a huge wealth of ultimate experience. They came out strong and we came out flat and before we knew it we were down 5-1 with 10 minutes left. We knew we had to start getting blocks and stop giving away the disc cheaply and we did. Converting goal after goal we went ahead 6-5 with just over a minute left. Unfortunately we couldn't shut them down another time and they managed to draw level. 6-6 with under a minute left, and we couldn't get the buzzer beater to get the last second win. This meant that both Champagne and Probably were on 2 wins and a draw after 3 games. Fortunately, we were holding a 7 point better goal differential than them after the three games.
Our fourth game was against "Huck my life" another team made of ex/current Southampton Uni Skunks, like many of the teams at the tournament. We again started slow, but managed to create a lead at 4-3. After then we switched it on to take the game by a comfortable margin and take the goal differential for our team up to +26 after 4 games. Probably were on +13 after 3 games which meant that if they wanted to win the group, they would need to win their final game against "Southern Tekkers" by a score of 14-0 or 15-1 as there was a 15 point score cap. Southern Tekkers played a good game, and kept it close, only losing by a couple of points in the end which meant that Champagne avoided an end of the day crossover and got to leave early.
Being the rockstars we all are, we used this time to have a 2 hour nap to recharge our batteries for the Saturday night party. What was even better, was that before we left, we also learnt that the Tournament Directors had put back the morning games so that everyone could have a lie-in! Bonus!
Saturday night: Jesters again... Standard!
Sunday started with a quarter final for Champagne against "Dixie Wrecked", a Portsmouth/Southampton based team. We knew it would be tough, but somehow our team wasn't too hungover after two nights out in a row and started the day by playing our best game all weekend (up to that point) and taking the game.
Our Semi final was against "JizzMonkeys", who again are partly Southampton based but also mixed with players from Bristol. Again, a talented team fell to a Champagne team refusing to let their hedonistic ways catch up with them. The monkeys were unfortunately short on subs which meant that when we started pulling away they couldn't draw it back. We made some big plays in the air to maintain our lead and booked our place in the final over the monkeys who were runners up in last years Skunks Xmas tournament.
We then lounged around watching Manchester United v Manchester City for a couple of hours before meeting "Dyn-O-Mite" in the final. Dyn-O-Mite are based around the Southampton Uni Skunks first team from the last few years, in what has been the most successful run of results for the Skunks in a long time, with constant Division 1 National qualifications and top 4 finishes. They are well drilled and athletic and their average height is probably about 6 foot 3. We had some tall players on our team, but they definitely had the advantage.
We started playing strong but not too smart and went down a couple of points. We were giving them the disc and not getting it back, and they were too talented to give it up themselves. We got our heads in after a block and put in our first score. The thirty minute game (pretty long for indoors) meant that we could keep enough pressure on them and a 3 point lead wasn't as tough to overcome as it would usually be indoors. They tried to slow us down by playing a bit of zone, but we found the holes fairly easily enough and I don't think they got any blocks on us playing zone. Everyone on Champagne stepped up and when it came down to the last minute, Dyn-O-Mite were only up by a point. They threw away with 30 seconds left and put all but 1 of their players on the endzone line. We put our three tallest players in the end zone, which allowed our two handlers to work around the one chase. And with the clock down to 3 seconds another buzzer beater was put into the corner of the endzone to our tallest player. Unfortunately the combination of a small space to put the disc and strong pressure from the defender stopped our attempt to send it to Overtime and Sudden Death, but we all knew that we had played a good game against tough opposition.
In the end, we played some high quality ultimate in a tournament we enter each year for a laugh with mates before Xmas, and everyone left on a high, wishing only that the weekend had lasted a bit longer.
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