The Regular Season

It's been a busy past month for Saucy Nancy. I, and much of the rest of the team, did not spend a weekend in Iowa City from the last in February through the first weekend of April. Five tournaments, 2-4 practices a week, extra long spring break, numerous physical therapy appointments, and countless hours in the car have left me with little time or energy to collect my thoughts. I've regret not writing about the past month of ultimate on a regular basis because it's been a very exciting one that I'm sure all of us saucies will never forget, but will want to remember in vivid detail. Fortunately, Robyn somehow has managed to keep up with tournament writeups on her blog . Now I'll try to summarize Saucy's regular season in one entry that will probably end up being ridiculously long from my own perspective - from the sideline. I was unlucky enough to break my leg & ankle and spent the past three months progressing from a cast to a boot to an ankle brace. It's been a rough three months to say the least, but in another light it's given me the opportunity to see our team and the sport of ultimate from another view. I've watched somewhere around 50 games of ultimate since late January, starting with our first games against competition at our indoor scrimmage tournament in the bubble.

I'm not going to lie, this tournament and our first couple weeks of practice after winter break were a little ugly to watch. Saucy seemed very rusty after break and it was frustrating to see girls dropping easily catchable discs. A couple weeks into February though it seemed like everything was suddenly starting to click, and just before our first tournament our team was really starting to come together. At the beginning of March we started our tour of without limits tournament with Midwest Throwdown in St. Louis. We came into this tournament seeded 5th behind Wisconsin, Northwestern, Wash U, and Colorado College. Saturday was a windy, muddy, and cold day with a few really long points. However, in the end Saucy managed to win our pool pretty handily.
8-1 over Saint Louis
15-0 over Wisc Eau Claire
10-5 over Northwestern

That night our team put into place a new routine different from what we've always done in the past - we didn't spend Saturday night partying, and instead spent the night hanging out, doing homework, and going to sleep early. I definitely think this has benefited our team in our Sunday game play. Saucy has continuously started out fairly sluggish during our first games on both Saturday and Sunday, and I think it's been a regular problem for us to take awhile to bring focus and high energy to the first game. (See me last semester at MLC after staying up until 2 and then throwing a bunch of stupid turnovers in our first game of bracket play). This semester there's been significant improvement with starting out strong in our first game, especially on Sundays. We've won our first games on Sundays pretty easily at every tournament this season which is important because a big win in pre-quarters gives us a push of positivity and momentum to take through to the next few harder games.
That being said, we won our first game of bracket play against Carleton B, then moved onto quarters against Iowa State. Iowa State was one of the few games I bothered to take stats during, and the stats I took excited me because it showed how much depth we have on our team. 10 different girls scored points during this game, and a number of different handlers and cutters got assists with very few errors. Next was semis against Colorado. This game against Colorado was important to us because it was our chance to get redemption for a tough loss last semester at MLC (7-13 in semis). We started out very strong and racked up a lot of points at the beginning, not letting their zone stifle us as much as it had in Missouri. We took half 7-0, but they fought back and scored some more toward the end. Saucy had built up a solid lead, though, and made it into the finals. The finals game was a very emotional and intense one for both teams. Wisconsin came out strong and Saucy went down for the first time 0-2. This game Saucy also struggled with a trend we've seen throughout the season - injuries. At each tournament at least 2 girls have been out at some point due to shin, back, knee, ankle, foot, shoulder, etc. problems... the list goes on. At least 2 cutters (Audrey and Timko) were out for this game Fortunately though the remaining girls managed to rally some energy and boost up their intensity, which resulted in saucy taking half 7-6. After half it was a battle for the game, with only 2 points scored post-half. During the 7-7 point the observer got in the way of a could-have-been score by Bella. Hardcap went on, and after we called a timeout on our endzone Chelsea finished the game with a score, getting us first place at Midwest Throwdown.

11-4 over Carleton B

13-4 over Iowa State

10-6 over Colorado

8-7 over Wisonsin

At this tournament Saucy got a little bit of publicity on a local St. Louis news channel by being named "Little Cesars Team of the Week". I love the footage they got of our team because it shows how valuable every girl on the field is... there's so many different touches in the points they taped. Check it out - http://tinyurl.com/6jyc554

The following week Saucy headed to Wilmington for Easterns, coming into the tournament seeded 3rd.

Day one we won all three games of pool play. Although Michigan started out slow against us, we went up 5-0 at first, they definitely ended up showing us that they are some tough competition and foreshadowed a harder game to come at Centex. We were also reminded in the Harvard game that there is little time to lose focus. We came into this game a little drained after the Michigan game and were somewhat complacent for the first few points, which resulted in them going up at first 2-4 and us taking a close half. However during half we regained focus and came out to win the game definitively.

13-4 over North Carolina State

13-10 over Michigan

13-7 over Harvard

The next day we started out against Iowa State in quarters, then played UNC in semis. Without a doubt this was my favorite game to watch and be apart of on the sidelines all season. Although UNC came into the tournament seeded above us, we came into this game really fired up and ready to bring it. There were a number of long points, but Saucy was really on top of things this game and took half 8-3. The sideline energy was high and the on field chemistry was peaking with awesome hammers and hucks. Saucy won the game and met up with Wisconsin in the finals again, giving us the chance to prove our win at Throwdown wasn't just an observer fluke. The sun was out during this game and girls were starting to look pretty tired. The game started out close, with our teams trading points and bringing the score to 6-5. However with a few nicely placed hucks from Twohig we managed to break away into half 8-5 and then took the game 13-7, giving us our second tournament win.

13-6 over Iowa State

13-7 over UNC

13-7 over Wisconsin

After easterns, some of the girls went back to Iowa City while 15 of us headed to Georgia to meet up and camp with our guys team and compete as a girls team in the High Tide spring break tournament. The three sanctioned tournaments we attended this season all had fairly high level competition, especially during bracket play, so Mikey called lines during every game and at times they were pretty tight. We played open lines and fairly laidback at high tide, giving new players a lot of playing time and older players the opportunity to try new things like the hammer they hadn't yet mastered in game situations. The few days spent in Georgia were a nice break from high pressure games to gain more experience for the five rookies who came and for all of us to bond more as a team. I definitely think an ultimate spring break is a necessary part of the college ultimate experience.

Five days after getting back from the 18 hour drive from Georgia, we packed back up and headed to Austin, TX for Centex. This tournament was especially exciting and important because it'd give us the chance to play west coast teams that we hadn't yet had the opportunity to play. We arrived Friday afternoon and spent the evening getting tatted up and practicing our dance for the following night, then slept in our mansion of a hotel. Our first game of the morning was against Washington. This game started out close, with us trading points but trailing 5-6. They took half 8-5 and we struggled to keep up with them the rest of the game. Our main problem was execution, there were a lot more unforced errors in this game than in the following games. Washington won the game, ending our 13-0 run. Our next game was a lot cleaner, which earned us a solid win over Northwestern. The final game of the day was against UCLA. This game the rookies really stepped it up and I could see a lot of confidence and improvement since playing the previous week at High Tide. We won the game and clinched second placed in our pool, meaning we wouldn't have to play a crossover game that evening. That night we showed off our dance moves in the annual centex dance-off. We danced to a song we've used to boost ourselves in games throughout the season- Rasputin, and with our secret weapon of a fire-baton twirling golden girl we managed to win second place.

7-12 Washington over Saucy

15-6 over Northwestern

15-9 over UCLA

First game of Sunday was pre-quarters against Cal. Our zone defense was working it and our offense was clean and efficient. Next up we played Michigan in quarters. This was probably the most stressful game for me to watch all season. Winning the game would mean we'd at least hold seed but losing the game would mean we'd be out of the championship bracket. We had already beat Michigan once, but this time they came out fired up from the very beginning. We traded points throughout the game with both teams playing a lot of zone. There was a lot of incidences of well-run offense by both teams only to end up turning it over in the endzone. The game came down to universe point on hardcap. Saucy came out of a time out near our endzone with a very tight zone d from Michigan. Our handlers stayed calm and worked the disc until Bekah saw an opening to Katie for the score. After winning the game against Michigan, we headed to Semis to play UNCW. Saucy started out strong in this game, taking the lead from the beginning. Katie really stood out in this game, she got a lot of exciting scores and was all over the place on defense. But then Seaweed battled back and brought the game closer. There was a lot of scrappy playing and aggressive defense from both teams during this game, and it could have gone either way. In the end though, UNCW won on universe point. After this game we moved on to play Tufts for the third place finish. Once again, we started out strong but Tufts caught up and took half 8-6. Our energy was starting to look pretty low during this game, but Saucy continued to fight - Audrey was especially bringing it in this game with her run through defense. We brought the score to universe point for the third game in a row, but couldn't capitalize for the score.

12-7 over California

9-8 over Michigan

11-12 UNCW over Saucy

12-13 Tufts over Saucy

Saucy finished 4th place at Centex against the toughest competition in the country. We were very happy with this finish and not too disappointed with our three losses during the weekend because none of them were a shut out and all could have gone differently.
Going into the series we're feeling confident and looking forward to the improvement we'll see in the next few weeks of practice leading up to regionals.