This past Friday, Saucy Nancy set off St. Louis bound for our second tournament of the semester- Midwest Throwdown. Dre’s car left first and spent the car ride discussing videogames and the prospect of buying our very own hedgehog for our house next year. After a stop at the Chesterfield mall for food and hedgehog shopping (the pet store didn’t have any) we made it to Kevin’s house. The other cars rolled in an hour later and after taking our turns in the hottub we went to bed to rest up for our games the next day.
Our first game started bright and early at 8 against St. Louis University. We started out a little slow but after Chelsea T showed what we were capable of getting at least 5 D’s on her own in one point, we managed to pick it up as a team and carry the momentum through the rest of the game finishing it off with a 13-4 win.
Next was our most evenly matched and toughest game all weekend against Northwestern. We traded points throughout the game until making it to universe point on hardcap. With seven of our strongest players on the line we got the score and finished the game 13-12. After the game, Northwestern gave Kristen their spirit disc for being all good, nice and Appley and we returned the compliment with one of ours because they were a lot of fun to play!
Our third game of the day was against Colorado Kali. This game was a great learning experience for us because they played a similar zone O but seemed to have had a little bit more practice with it than us. We played the game with awesome intensity… for instance Katie got two of the most beautiful skys ever one of which she sprinted out of nowhere to grab from 3 other people. Unfortunately we weren’t able to shut down their speed and experience and ended up losing the game 2-13. Kali gave KP a spirit disc for playing well and being funny, and we gave one to the short-haired girl because well… she was kind of awesome.
We had a short break before the next game during which Chelsea R, our Saucy golden girl, provided us with some baton twirling entertainment. Had there been a baton part to the competition this weekend we definitely would have won, however nobody was brave enough to challenge her.
The final game on Saturday was our crossover game against our Iowan friends, Iowa State. This was our fourth time playing them this year and the game showed how much our sprint workouts are paying off because we did a much better job keeping up with their speed. We had a lot of really long points, one of which was quite possibly the longest point ever which ISU ended up winning. There were also quite a few awesome plays, such as Sarah A’s sick layout D. It was a long and intense game, but in the end Woman Scorned won 13-5.
After finishing our last game we all went to different skills clinics put together by the tournament directors. At the clinics we were able to learn something new from some of the best women ultimate players in the country which was a really neat experience. Once the long day at the fields was over it was time to head back to the house for dinner. Mike and Cindy had a feast of pizza and pasta waiting for us which was delicious and we were very thankful for, then we went downstairs for toasts. Sarah A was awarded the saucy snuggie, which was well deserved because she caught approximately everything thrown to her, she was playing really aggressive defense (hello layout d), and she is always one of the first to finish the workouts at practice. Plus she’s a marathon runner so obviously she’s a beast. Next some people played beer pong while others went to bed… I don’t really know what most people were up to but I do know that Jen, Audrey, and I enjoyed ourselves playing card games with some TSU guys and ISU girls. Also I’m still mad at whoever jacked my sleeping bag and left me freezing on the floor, but I love Jen for “letting” me snuggle into hers.
Sunday morning we filled up on some more of Mike’s homemade muffins and headed back out to the fields. Our first game of the day was against Colorado State. It was much windier than the day before and we started off a little shaky. At half we were behind and were struggling to figure out what to change because we were playing smart and intensely but were having issues completing passes and working the disc down the field. During the second half we started to pick it up, especially on defense (Jen got two handblocks!) but unfortunately we couldn’t catch back up and lost the game 8-13.
The next game was against Luther. After warming up our throws between games we were able to adjust to the wind and started completing more upwind points. Chelsea T was especially doing a great job working her throws through their cup with awesome IO flicks to our poppers. Kristen also had some great throws during this game, especially that one point she decided to play handler for a second and completed a beautiful backhand huck for the score. Overall our playing was much more solid in this game and we won it 13-8.
Our final game of the tournament was against St. Louis University. Our zone defense was really working it during this game, the cup was doing an awesome job keeping the disc by our endzone and then Justine came from the wing position to catch her first CALLAHAN ever. Yay Justine! The next point right after that took forever and I almost scored another Callahan for us but it wasn’t in (fair enough) and finished the tournament with a break to Timko.
Once the tournament was over we piled back into our designated cars for the ride home. My car got lost for the fourth (?) time and with some navigational help from Jen we found our way through the square and inch by inch made it out of St. Louis and back to Iowa City.
This was a really fun weekend and tournament. It was a little disappointing that we got 9th since this was our first tournament all year where we didn’t break or hold seed, but overall I think we played really well. We did a very good job staying positive and keeping our intensity level up. This was our first windy tournament since playing inside/in a wind-proof bubble for 3 months. I thought we did an amazing job utilizing the wind to shut down the other teams with our zone defense. I also know I’m really excited for us to move back outside and start playing in actual weather again… the snow is almost gone! AND shout out to Carolyn for coming despite being injured, for taking stats for us, and for yelling your lungs out. I know how much it sucks to not be able to play and I know we missed having you on the field so I hope your knee gets better really, really soon!
Less than a week until 27 of us head down to Georgia for high tide ultimate and beach shenanigans and less than two weeks until Saucy plays at Chicago Invite! Let’s keep working hard, girls!
Also thanks once again to the Ryders for letting 20 girls stay at your house. The food was all delicious and it was really fun, I’m glad we followed through this time and didn’t all fall asleep at 7 again. Thanks so much for housing us!
-Alyx
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