Philly Invite & my grandma

philly invite this weekend. actually in allentown, PA which is north and a bit east of philly. but whatever, it was an easier drive for me/us, since it did not require spending as much time on the NJ turnpike.

we went 4-0 the first day, beating delmarvelous (13-5), black molly (15-13), bashing (13-6), and germ circus (13-4). sunday morning finished out pool play beating anacosta all-stars (13-5) to take 1st in our pool. straight to semi's vs. rival, won 15-8. lost in the finals to AMP 14-12. we spotted them 3 points right off the bat (1-4 them), then traded 'til half (5-8 them). we closed within 1 at 7-8 and had a chance to convert the break, but didn't. a game of missed chances, untimely and uncharacteristic errors by many, and poor decisions by others.

this was, technically, our first tournament as a real team, although we were still trying out 2 people (both of whom ended up making the team). so it's not altogether unexpected and disappointing that we were still working some kinks out. also missing hammer, mello, dan, farina & spies, so some people were "forced" to step up into some unorthodox roles: rusty as handler, bird as primary cutter/deep, miles as handler, etc. also still figuring out where people fit in: nearly all the ladies played both O & D; mikeRo, tim, seth, miles, rusty notably played both O & D for the guys. we're also still adjusting to our new lefty handlers -- different looks, spaces, throws are present. would have liked to have won the tourney, but it wasn't a complete waste of a weekend. we could have easily lost to AMP by much more, so it's good we didn't just roll over.

personally, i played fairly well. rosie was putting me in on O, which messed with my head at first. i freaked out -- "O??? that means i can't turn it over!" which was/is also my mentality on D, once we got the turn, but for some reason it affected me differently on O. i had 1 turn (a drop) in the black molly game because of it, but after that i was fine. i regained my confidence as a cutter and as an upfield thrower, and never looked back. and my cutting on O was great at times. several points i was cutting and getting the disc alot -- more so when we were playing spread or "speical sauce" when there was more space for me to cut in. also did well on zone O points, stretching the field deep -- caught a couple of scores that way, and directly impacted another one by pulling the deep deep over. also had some nice grabs: several high, one low throw i was running directly at and had to lay out for (a break from Tim), one lay-out for a fading throw for the score (a huck from Miles).

D-wise, i played OK. no D's to speak of, but had a good mark in the rival game (taking away the I/O), and played decent shut-down D other times. a guess a future goal of mine could be to play both good O (cut aggressively) and good D (position, LAYOUT). one thing at a time...

throws: i was commended on my dump throws, so that goal was accomplished! (but of course i want to continue throwing dumps well). had a couple of nice backhand break throws, and several good flicks: one short lateral for a score to Kat, one 20-yard-ish straight upfield to Steve (downwind), and one bendy short upfield throw to MikeRo around a defender.

i can still make some mental adjustments when cutting on O -- one time i was wide open, steve hesitated to throw it to me, and when he finally did, my defender had caught up and i whiffed the catch because i thought she was going to D it -- never stand, if open & not thrown to, run at the thrower in the same lane.

future goals/things to work on:
1) work on cutting from the stack.
2) make more/better deep cuts.
3) LAYOUT on D even if i don't think i'm going to get the D.


in other, non-ultimate news, my grandma is in the ICU after 2 surgeries this weekend. one was scheduled: back surgery on 2 herniated discs in her back. she was having some complications from this surgery, when she started having abdominal pain. turns out a gastric ulcer had ruptured, and she was rushed to emergency surgery. 2 surgeries in 2 days is hard on a 75-year-old body. as of last night, she is stable, but not doing great. sometimes no news is good news, and as my dad used to say, you've got to stop getting worse before you can get better, but it's still weighing heavily on my mind. she's the only grandparent i have left, and the one i've known the best. so obviously it would suck to lose her. i feel like a selfish jerk for playing ultimate and enjoying myself all weekend and not thinking to check in with my parents about her before sunday night. but i guess there's nothing i could have done except worry.