A little late as usual I know, but what can you do?
Sorry to spoil the suspense of this post in the title, but Heads of State won Southern Regionals (which you probably already knew) (and they will be number 1 seed at Nationals!) (which you probably also already knew).
This was the 2nd tournament win for Hos (HoS won Junior Nats back in 2006)
Despite feeling quite sick before the tournie, personally this was one of my best tournies ever. Notable notes from the Weekend:
Play as a Team:
This was the best I have seen HoS play as a team. Somehow we realised early in the weekend that just hucking was not going to work on O, so we played some of the most effective O I have ever been involved in. Risky long shots were rarely taken and we were extremely patient on O. If we can replicate this at Nationals we will be hard to stop on O.
Use Your Body!
I cannot over emphasise how important it is to use your body to maintain position when going for the disc. If you are between your defender and the likely catchable endpoint of a throw – you should catch it every time. And if you do this well you can even catch it without having to jump - as a two handed pancake catch with both feet on the ground. I did this several times at Regionals and all it involves is NOT running as fast as you can to where the disc will be catchable (this only applies if you are ahead of your defender). As you get closer to the catchable point, slow down and don’t let your defender past you. Usually they are watching the disc, so will run right into you – brace for this contact – then – for me at least – they bounce backwards and I move closer to the disc where I catch it with ease. If this is confusing – don’t worry – I think I will make a whole post just about body positioning one day.
Toe The Line Part 2
They had tape for the lines which was quite interesting. Unfortunately they weren’t tight enough so sometimes the line moved a fair away in/out of bounds. I much preferred NOT having the endzone line taped though – I think it’s too risky that people could trip over it. Anyway, at one point against Chilly I toed the line on a throw that was going out the back and Wheelie called me out. I was confident that I had kept my toe down on the ground and his argument was that I had touched the tape BEFORE I had caught the disc. I obviously couldn’t tell which had happened first but was certain that the two events – catching the disc and touching the tape – had happened very close to each other. My discussion with Wheelie revolved around how he could tell what had happened first? As he was right next to me when I took the catch he couldn’t possibly have been looking at both my feet and the catch at the same time. Therefore I felt it was inconclusive and the disc should go back – which it did. From my previous experience with toeing the line (see Ultitalk profile pic) I knew that people are very bad at judging when a player catches it relative to when their foot crosses line (or moves for a travel call). Therefore I think it’s fair that in such close calls if no one was in a goes enough position to see both things AT THE SAME TIME – that the disc should go back. To Wheelies credit the discussion was had very amicable and was resolved quite well.
Definition of a Catch
Against Karma, K was going for a disc in the endzone right near the sideline. He attempted to do a greatest, but stuffed it up – his foot was down when he made contact with the disc – then he jumped and tried to throw the disc back infield but the disc went straight to the ground. Some Karma players claimed it was still a goal which I disputed. The rules define a catch as: “Sustained contact with, and control of, a non-spinning disc”. My feeling was that he didn’t actually have control of the disc, but Piers overruled me and it was deemed a goal (we were leading by a few goals at the time and were 1 point away from points cap).
Later I had a chat with Pottsy about it and his feeling was that it was actually a goal – so who am I to argue? What this means is that if you are making a tough catch in the endzone, as soon as you make ground contact after catching the disc – you can throw it away to avoid being ground stripped! And it’s still a goal!
IO Backhand
I threw my most memorable Inside Out Backhand ever. I had gotten the disc in power position on the right hand side and Doobie was cutting long between two defenders. I ripped this IO backhand with a lot of force that curled around perfectly for Doobie to run onto. As soon as I threw it I got that horrible feeling in my stomach that it was the wrong decision, but then he caught it and I felt fantastic! Anytime I needed to smile in the days following that tournie, all I had to do was think of that throw :-) That’s why I love this game.
Sorry to spoil the suspense of this post in the title, but Heads of State won Southern Regionals (which you probably already knew) (and they will be number 1 seed at Nationals!) (which you probably also already knew).
This was the 2nd tournament win for Hos (HoS won Junior Nats back in 2006)
Despite feeling quite sick before the tournie, personally this was one of my best tournies ever. Notable notes from the Weekend:
Play as a Team:
This was the best I have seen HoS play as a team. Somehow we realised early in the weekend that just hucking was not going to work on O, so we played some of the most effective O I have ever been involved in. Risky long shots were rarely taken and we were extremely patient on O. If we can replicate this at Nationals we will be hard to stop on O.
Use Your Body!
I cannot over emphasise how important it is to use your body to maintain position when going for the disc. If you are between your defender and the likely catchable endpoint of a throw – you should catch it every time. And if you do this well you can even catch it without having to jump - as a two handed pancake catch with both feet on the ground. I did this several times at Regionals and all it involves is NOT running as fast as you can to where the disc will be catchable (this only applies if you are ahead of your defender). As you get closer to the catchable point, slow down and don’t let your defender past you. Usually they are watching the disc, so will run right into you – brace for this contact – then – for me at least – they bounce backwards and I move closer to the disc where I catch it with ease. If this is confusing – don’t worry – I think I will make a whole post just about body positioning one day.
Toe The Line Part 2
They had tape for the lines which was quite interesting. Unfortunately they weren’t tight enough so sometimes the line moved a fair away in/out of bounds. I much preferred NOT having the endzone line taped though – I think it’s too risky that people could trip over it. Anyway, at one point against Chilly I toed the line on a throw that was going out the back and Wheelie called me out. I was confident that I had kept my toe down on the ground and his argument was that I had touched the tape BEFORE I had caught the disc. I obviously couldn’t tell which had happened first but was certain that the two events – catching the disc and touching the tape – had happened very close to each other. My discussion with Wheelie revolved around how he could tell what had happened first? As he was right next to me when I took the catch he couldn’t possibly have been looking at both my feet and the catch at the same time. Therefore I felt it was inconclusive and the disc should go back – which it did. From my previous experience with toeing the line (see Ultitalk profile pic) I knew that people are very bad at judging when a player catches it relative to when their foot crosses line (or moves for a travel call). Therefore I think it’s fair that in such close calls if no one was in a goes enough position to see both things AT THE SAME TIME – that the disc should go back. To Wheelies credit the discussion was had very amicable and was resolved quite well.
Definition of a Catch
Against Karma, K was going for a disc in the endzone right near the sideline. He attempted to do a greatest, but stuffed it up – his foot was down when he made contact with the disc – then he jumped and tried to throw the disc back infield but the disc went straight to the ground. Some Karma players claimed it was still a goal which I disputed. The rules define a catch as: “Sustained contact with, and control of, a non-spinning disc”. My feeling was that he didn’t actually have control of the disc, but Piers overruled me and it was deemed a goal (we were leading by a few goals at the time and were 1 point away from points cap).
Later I had a chat with Pottsy about it and his feeling was that it was actually a goal – so who am I to argue? What this means is that if you are making a tough catch in the endzone, as soon as you make ground contact after catching the disc – you can throw it away to avoid being ground stripped! And it’s still a goal!
IO Backhand
I threw my most memorable Inside Out Backhand ever. I had gotten the disc in power position on the right hand side and Doobie was cutting long between two defenders. I ripped this IO backhand with a lot of force that curled around perfectly for Doobie to run onto. As soon as I threw it I got that horrible feeling in my stomach that it was the wrong decision, but then he caught it and I felt fantastic! Anytime I needed to smile in the days following that tournie, all I had to do was think of that throw :-) That’s why I love this game.
D tussles
I had some nice man on man D tussles with Freise and John Liddi, neither time I got a block, but I’m certain I made their lives a lot harder. The reason I was able to play such hard D was mostly because of Owen heckling me from the sideline. He was yelling at me non stop and I just wanted to shut him up – but no matter how hard I thought I was running he kept yelling at me to run harder – so I did. This inspired me partly because Owen was one of the Worlds selectors and being better on D was one of the things I was told I needed to wok on. It was amazing how much difference it made though and I hope I keep getting hassled like that and performing, but also that I remember to hassle other people to get similar results from them.
