WDYPU 9- it's been a while

The Greatest Weekend of my Ultimate Career

I wish we had video from this weekend, because it was the most important 2 days of my Ultimate life.

Haze rolled into Middletown, NY early friday night while watching Mighty Ducks on the bus. Quack quack quack mister ducksworth. The Hampton Inn was swanky as usual and I was happy with my room, however there was no hot tub (which is fine since all I take are ice baths now...) Both Haze and Femmes had their respective team meetings in their respective captains' rooms. To be brief, my speech quickly reviewed our goals for the weekend (no open unders, no breaks) and then I continued on to express how much confidence I had in every single one of our players. I told the guys how I honestly believed us to be the deepest, most talented, and hardest working team in our section (still believe it). This meeting of course concluded with me revealing I too would be joining the mohawk crew. Wes Wong got out the clippers and Paras hooked me up with a sweet hawk. We arrived early enough for some of us to watch D2 (dvd set!) in the Lu Wang room. Some of us got hungry so TGIF!!!!!!! Got myself some mozz sticks and mashed potatoes.

Saturday morning didn't come quickly enough as I could tell Haze was hungry for wins. I was glad to have a high seed and have 11am games:

First up: SUNY Purchase (W: 15-2): Almost bageled these guys, I was pretty angry we didn't. I caught a casual Callahan (my first ever), which was later followed by VP scoring a sick layout Callahan after baiting his man in. I of course put myself on the line after to try pulling and getting the callahan. Anyway, nothing important happened until I threw a huck to double covered Larry, who laid out out of bounds and was landed upon by an opponent and injured his arm....my fault. I take responsibility for such a crappy decision. I promised him under my breath I'd get it back for him by making regionals.

Ramapo (W: 15-6)

This game was scar for me because when we were up 7-4, I thought we were 4-7. This game shouldn't have been this close at all and I was pissed. Most of the weekend was pretty upwind-downwind, and so I'm happy with our wins and D-line who got breaks at will. D-Line Love. Ramapo was frustrating because they worked well thru one main player but after we shut him down with some Zone variations, they pretty much crumbled. After the game they were good spirited/cheered us and gave Chris Nelson a present.

Columbia (L: 8-10)

This game was great but of course had a shitty outcome. I wish we could have beaten these guys Saturday and had an easier road to regionals, but in the end I feel more accomplished battling through Sunday to take the 2nd bid. These guys are good. Kerry/Milo combination is frustrating to shut down and Izzy is frustrating because he's so quick and reads everything so well. Columbia was the one team I was not looking forward to play b/c I knew they'd pose problems for us. Kerry was great at drawing fouls on basically every one of my marks, and Milo has sick throws. There's only one guy I really disliked on their team, but overall I can't be too upset with how we played. All we needed was an early break upwind and we would have had this game. Oh well

Saturday night: ice baths, rented out a conference room and Anne's mom organized Pizza/pasta/wings/drinks/dips/chips to be delivered. Vurple Faze bonding time rocks.

Sunday:

I had 2 dreams Saturday night. One was of a rat biting me on the finger and me flinging it on the ground (I interpreted this as Columbia beating us and me being like "fuck that") and the 2nd dream was of me point blocking Alex Nord twice during a game against Sockeye. That felt great and I was so happy when I woke up. I knew that Sunday was going to be a good day. I knew that Haze was going to win.

Princeton (W 15-9): I was so happy going into this game against a team I never liked because I'm positive they're responsible for 5 of my lost discs this season alone. I made a shitty call against them, and retracted it (after waiting for Bergman to stop yelling at me). Adlai, #1 on their team, made me love him more by retracting a foul call on Lu, when Lu laid out into his back but Adlai decided it didn't stop him from making a play on the disc. What a stand up guy. I see him being a star on that team/in our section soon.

Rutgers (W 11-6):

We came out too friendly and the first few points took a good 10 minutes each (so it seemed). Way too many turns, granted their poachy endzone D was effective against our planned offense (so we switched to fast break plays and quick upline cuts by yours truly for scores). D-line generated breaks and O-line did their job.

TCNJ (backdoor finals) (W 15-8):

TCNJ, aka Greg Owens and #22, weren't enough to trouble Haze. This was the first game all weekend I lost the flip in and so we started going upwind on D. Finkel had a sick upwind pull and ran it down to catch the first pass, and the starting line scored upwind to start the game...this made our win so much easier...

I think the O-line only allowed 1 break upwind but we furiously broke back upwind right away and sealed the break after. D-line won this game for us though, with I think 3 breaks in a row before half? We came out of half with a quick score and continued to exchange downwind points (they hucked to Greg Owens, while we worked it downwind and took shots when we needed to or saw openings). In the end, TCNJ was gassed since they really worked thru 2 players who couldn't physically shut down our entire team.

This entire weekend, the team played as a unit. Both lines ran their asses off for each other. Individual plays were made, but were overshadowed by a true sense of teamwork. I will never forget this weekend and like I said to the guys in our final huddle, I cannot thank each of you enough for leaving your hearts out on the field and getting us to regionals. I'm so proud of each and every one of you and am not ashamed of the tears I shed on Sunday on that field.

Haze Love.

Regionals 2010

Haze Love.

2010

Every year around this time, I usually send out super long pump up emails to Haze about how we need to step it up this season or talk about individual players and how they're going to dominate this weekend or how this is our time to prove ourselves. I usually send out or post videos on my blog to get the team in the highlight making mindset or give some sort of advice to the team about what we're going to do exactly...
This year I have nothing to say. (of course "nothing to say" means this will be only "relatively shorter than years past)

I found myself in the same situation at this week's last practice, which I was happy to see deteriorate into fun and laughter, because that's what our sport should always be in the end. I had little to review or teach the new guys, who have shown so much heart on the D-line this year and likewise I had little to tell the O-line and rest of the team who have heard me repeat the same things for the past 4 years.

Of course I love winning. But I play this sport for the emotions, relationships, and memories I experience with all of you. I love to celebrate with all of you after a win and if that means destroying Columbia and Vassar this weekend, so be it.

Femmes, you're going to rock out this weekend, I know this for a fact. You have so much talent you don't even know and if you play with confidence this weekend, no one can stop you.

Haze, I've already told you all that we need to accomplish to be successful against any team in our region. You've heard me preach basically 3 things all season:
1) Do not allow any open side in-cuts.
2) Do not allow anyone to break your mark.
3) Have your teammates' backs: cut hard for each other, clear out for each other, communicate, rush the fucking field when they score for you, because if they score they're not doing it for themselves, they're playing for you.

Haze, if you all play with the belief that I have in every single one of you, we can do amazing things. A big part of me regrets going abroad last fall because this season has been the most fun I've had on any Vurple Faze family. I have all of your backs and I'm going to leave everything on the field for you this weekend.

I love you all.
Thank you.
Quinton Rampage Ma

Psychology

Read it, Haze.

A Video Interlude

After this weekend, I'm confident our O-line is Regionals/Nationals quality.

2nd place at Roll Call isn't enough for me.

More to come, once I decompress a little...and sleep? One thing is for sure, I will never forget this loss in the finals.