Return to the Official History
(Note: this is more or less just a copy of an e-mail that I sent to a bunch of alumni, it is by no means meant to be a literary work.)
Here is the story, we made Nationals, yeah!!!!!!!!!!!
At sectionals last weekend (4/17-18), we ended up playing OU in the finals (imagine that, Oberlin v OU in the Sectional finals) OU beat Dayton to get there, Dayton was seeded first, because they had a really high ranking and had beaten Michigan earlier in the season.
We beat OU by a couple, in another classic, great game, hard fought and clean. We even took a group photo at the end of both the teams. And there will probably be an Oberlin/OU team at poultry days, and because we won, we get to run our offense. And Dayton beat OSU to take 3rd (OSU is decent now). Anyway, that got us a 3rd seed at regionals, behind Michigan and Illinois, because Illinois beat us earlier this year. Seeding is pretty important, because Regionals is only a 16 team double elimination format from the start, no pool play.
Now for the game by game.
SATURDAY
So in the first round we drew Indiana. They were a decent team, but got their choke on at Sectionals and thus were seeded low. As usual we started out slow, but eventually picked it up and put them away about 15-7.
Then we got Dayton, they are an intense athletic team, whose offense consists of their captain (Kevin) hucking to the tall guy. It took us a couple of points to figure out that that was all that they did. Then I shut down their captain, and other people tried to huck and they got nothing for a long while. (Also, four people got point blocks against Kevin) we were up 13-6, then let up and eventually won 15-12.
That put us in the semis vs Illinois. They are a good team, and had beaten us earlier this year minus Sandy, Q, and Nick. We were very confident going into this game. It was close and neither team ever led by more than 2. It was not a very physical game, but they are talking smack about this game on rec.sport.disc, but they are just being sore losers. (When we were shaking hands, their captain, the infamous Ryan Fernbacher, said "Don't worry green, we're still going to nationals", and as John Fedota later said, "They may be going to Nationals, but there're not going to have a lot of games when they get there." Don't worry he didn't say that to them, and it was after we had already made Nationals)
I only know of two fouls, that they might possible be bitching about. One was where Jamie tried to layout around a guy cutting in, he got the disc, but he also clipped the guy as he went by him. Foul, contest, observer agreed with the foul call, why they are whining about this, I don't know. The other foul was my fault, they like to run the up-the-line cut for distance, so I poached off, and went for the disc and I collided with one of their captains, no one was hurt, he caught it called a foul, I apologized and didn't contest. I think they scored after that anyway. But if you run the widowmaker cut...they bitched about this to the observer after the game about us "not letting up on our d bids", and John shut them up with "we won't defend your up-the-line cuts, if you don't defend our dumps". (John just posted a nice response on rec.sport.disc, taking the moral high ground.)
Anyway, that put us in the finals on Sunday morning against Michigan, who had just blanked OU in the other semi.
SUNDAY
The back door semis were first, Dayton beat OU by 2 or 3, those teams played close at Sectionals also. Notre dame beat Illinois, but I don't think it was real close. Then we played the finals against Michigan, they are very good, they are the only other team that had any kind of depth. They are fast, with solid throws, and they don't turn it over. Their d might be a bit questionable, but they are real athletic. They definitely deserved to win. They also threw the only point of zone that we saw all weekend, we ripped it up, about a hundred passes. Easy score. We didn't play any zone d all weekend.
Then the back door final part one took place, Dayton v Notre dame. neither team was real deep, but both were pretty even Dayton won 15-13 and were very tired. We were very psyched to play.
We all remembered an Oberlin v Colorado game, except this time we were Colorado... Both teams were sloppy early, our d forced a lot of turns, three forced turns on the first point, but we were unable to capitalize. They pulled out to an early led at 3-6. John called a time-out, we settled down. And went on a 5 point run to take half, we took half on a huck to me from Jamie.
At that point, there was no doubt that we were not going to win. We came out of half very intense, and ran off 5 more points. We went on a 10 point run essentially. They finally scored again at 13-6, then we scored (14-7), then they scored (14-8), the o team came on and hucked to Todd (q to Todd), it was d'ed, they came right back with a huck and Q had an enormous d on their best long. we came back and Glide hucked to Marvel (a rookie, and that's his last name, not a nickname). he made a nice grab. And that is how the Horsecows made Nationals.
LINEUPS
Some of you may know this but some of you don't, last year we actually started subbing, and this year, we actually used and o and a d team. That is why we sucked early. We are playing a lot of kids. Of those of you who care, here are the teams that we used. Yes, it is right, I am a long on the d team.
|
O
|
||
|
name
|
position
|
year
|
| q |
h
|
4
|
| monkey |
h
|
4
|
| glide |
3rd h
|
2
|
| podin |
l
|
4
|
| todd |
l
|
3
|
| kristian |
l
|
2
|
| marvel |
l
|
1
|
|
D
|
||
|
name
|
position
|
year
|
| dog |
h
|
3
|
| jame |
h
|
2
|
| inky |
3rd h
|
1
|
| jim |
l
|
5
|
| grubb |
l
|
4
|
| chunk |
l
|
2
|
| nick |
l
|
2
|
Notice we are only losing 5 people, and there are a lot of freshmen and sophomores playing...
OBSERVATIONS
This must be the longest e-mail I have every written. I hope you enjoyed this.
Love,
Jim