2001 East New England Div. II Club Sectionals

Date - September 23, 2001
Where - Seekonk, MA
Official Site - http://www.upa.org/events/championships/championship_results/2001_fall_results/sectionals_open_eastnewengland.shtml
Pictures - Here
Team Members - Evan, Zack, Steve, Jay, Mark, Kate, Nina, Dan, Nate, Austin, Aman, Rufus, Staples, Lefty, Drew

The Rundown
As the first tournament of the year, this was going to be more of a learning experience than anything else.  At least that's what we'd tell ourselves after it was over.  The team we brought was 100% veterans, so we all knew each other and we all knew how to play.  We just weren't able to pull it together.  The day started out all wrong with Dan sleeping in and missing the bus, and having to drive his own ass down there, and with Jay forgetting his cleats on the bus and running around frantically trying to get them back.  Lambda Chi boys Rufus and Staples show up late, which had us worried for a bit.  But everything ended up OK before the first game even started.  Everyone showed up and Jay even got his cleats back.

The first game was against Wreckage, a team made up of a whole bunch of old fat guys.  These guys were seeded first in the tournament, so we knew we were going to lose this game.  They may be old and fat but they've got skills we can only dream about.  We only managed to score a couple points, but we weren't too discouraged.  Since we had no expectations to win, it wasn't that big of a let down.  And historically, we usually do poorly in the first game of a tournament, we figured it would be good to get the guaranteed loss out of the way.

Next up was Stoned Clown from Bowdoin College, 2nd seed in the pool and 8th overall.  Unfortunately, our whole plan of using the first game to get all of our shit play out of us didn't quite work.  In fact it may well have backfired.  This game should have been closer than the first game, much closer.  We didn't have much of a chance of winning, but it was there.  To be blunt, we played terribly.  What should have been a good game ended up being a complete blowout.  We only scored a point as we fell 15-1, which sucked, but shit happens.  We moved on.

The third game of the day was against Brown B.  They were seeded 3rd in our pool and 9th overall.  A relatively tough opponent.  We knew this could be a good game, and after the last game's disappointment, we were hungry for a victory.  We pulled out quickly, outscoring Brown to the half.  They may have only been the Brown's B team, but we played them as hard as if they were the national championship team.  Typical for our team, we faltered in the second half.  Brown caught up with us and by the time we had 10 points they were keeping up with us score for score.  They took the lead briefly, but we responded with a quick score.  Tie game.  Time cap called...the longest point of the day.  We worked it up the field and made a bid for the endzone.  Dan's defender was still on him, so it was going to be close.  Then what the hell was this?  Dan that nut misread the fucking disc!  As he rushes too far forward at least his defender went with him, because as he turned around he saw Jay run and grab the errant disc to save his ass from certain ridicule.  Celebrations were had by all, and we thanked Brown for a great game.  It was intense.

The final game was against Tufts B.  They were seeded 4th in the pool and 16th overall, just one ahead of us.  So we knew that we had a great chance of beating them, especially after our win over Brown.  The only problem was our Brown game had run very late, and Tufts was coming off a bye.  They had little desire to wait for our poor asses to rest, so we got going basically right away.  We kept up with them for the most part, but after half never came within 3 or 4 points of them.  They were a good game and a good bunch of guys, but we just didn't have anything left in us.

Overall it was a decent day.  We were seeded last in our pool and 17th overall, and finished 4th in the pool and tied for 13th overall, so we exceeded the expectations of the tournament organizers at least.  We were all a little disappointed, as we all knew we could have finished 3rd in the pool, or maybe even 2nd, which really would have showed the world we were a team to contend with.  

Results (1-3)
Game 1 - Loss to Wreckage
Game 2 - Loss to Bowdoin Stoned Clown
Game 3 - Win against Brown B
Game 4 - Loss to Tufts B