sMITe recent happenings

Practice attendance has been low last week and this week... probably due to midterms and other school-related stuff. Does this happen every year? Or just the years that I've been on sMITe?

• On Tuesday we had dinner together at Simmons. My first time with dorm food since undergrad. It wasn't too bad. I think we decided dorm food is generally overpriced but Simmons food was pretty good at least. :)
• Throwing clinics every Friday at 5pm on Killian! Come join us if you're around. Teach us how to throw! :)
  
• We started zone today but we only had 10 people so some of the boys + coaches had to fill in positions.
• We're hosting our own tournament this weekend - it's really a round robin with Harvard, Northeastern, and Wellesley. Sat Oct 25 from 9-2pm on Briggs Field. Come cheer us on!

Lemony Fresh

sMITe played savage on day 2 of Lemony Fresh and went 2-1. I hear the rookies are really excited about ultimate now :)

Other half of club regionals

We played Ambush on Sunday morning. There was still dew (and frost!) on the ground. Hatch started off on defense: one of the Ambush girls dropped the pull and we scored in one throw. Things got more difficult after that =P I don't know how other people on the team were feeling but I was feeling nervous and was throwing stupid crap that I shouldn't have thrown. Ambush had one main handler and one main receiver and they just kept sending it long. We weren't able to stop their breaks and their deep looks and Ambush took half at 8-3. Hatch kept up the intensity through the second half and did better, with the final score at 15-8 Ambush.

Our next game was against Middlebury. It should've been an easy game but we were being dumb. I think the score was 2-5 at some point. Our O-line scored easily: catch to hitch, to in-cut, dish, then huck to Doris/Jenny deep (almost every point). Then our D-line would not cover their deep looks so Middlebury just kept sending it. It was a pretty messy/ugly game with lots of turnovers and not being able to convert Ds to scores. I'm not blaming one line or the other because I played both but it was a much more tiring game than it needed to be. A couple people got injured this game: Doris getting kneed in the jaw (again), Michelle and Jenny colliding full-force into each other to get a D. We won 15-10 but it was definitely the most frustrating game of the day.

Next game against Sugar Shack was ok. I think we played pretty well but we weren't able to pull it together. I actually don't remember much from this game. But I feel like I should because it was a pretty important game. The game to the game to go? Anyway, Sugar Shack won 12-8.

After the game we circled up and Gretchen pulled out two bottles of champagne. We were sitting around and drinking and then MissCONNduct told us that we had another game (for 6th place). We settled on a shortened game to 11. So we played fun lines: all handlers, birthdays in the first half of the year, all college players + oldest player, etc. Btw our all-handler line *almost* scored... and then we turned it at our endzone and MissCONNduct won the point. Anyway, with 4-5 people injured and not playing this game, and our crazy lines, I was almost certain that we were going to lose this game. We found ourselves at 8-10 receiving the pull. We scored that point to make it 9-10. Then we broke them twice to win on universe point 11-10. The last point was Mabo hucking to Chelsey who had an amazing grab in the endzone.

So at the end of the day we held seed at 6th, made friends with some Valks, Ewo, and Pilots, and played some awesome ultimate together. We've definitely come a long way since 4 months ago (we started playing together in July) and I'm really proud of this team.

Hatch withdrawl...

Club Regionals

Hatch held seed, beating high school team 15-0 and Enigma (Canadian team) 15-1. Then lost to Capitals 5-15 and beat MissCONNduct 15-9. I was pretty happy with our play against Capitals. They're a really good team and we put pressure on them on D and we were getting some nice flow on O. This is the game where Doris got cleated on her thigh and her D kneed her jaw. But Doris got the disc :)

The MissCONNduct game was interesting. Came out strong, went up at half 8-2. Then MissCONNduct turned up their play and eventually Hatch won 15-9.

Ambush game tmr at 8:30. Should be pretty exciting. Gonna be a long, exciting day. :) Yay ultimate. :)

Smite did well today at Lemony Fresh (according to Liver and Meri). Newbies learning really fast and also had a lot of fun. I'm glad. :)

So sMITe is going to Lemony Fresh this weekend and Hatch is going to NE Regionals! I'm so excited and nervous I haven't been able to get any real work done the last 3 days.

Here are the websites so you can keep up with us this weekend:

Lemony Fresh

NE Regionals

Wish us luck!! :)

Is it sad that ultimate dictates so many different aspects of my life?

- how short I cut my hair (short enough so that it doesn't whip my face when I pivot/fake, but still long enough to be put up in a ponytail)
- when I cut my hair (before sectionals or regionals)
- what kind of underwear I put on after my shower, depending on whether i have practice in the afternoon (patagonia active hipsters, thanks to darlene's enthusiasm for patagonia undergarments)
- when I schedule my classes (MWF mornings so I can go to practice TTh afternoons)
- when I schedule sMITe practices (TTh afternoons so it doesn't conflict with Hatch practices on Wed evenings)
- when I do my laundry (after tournaments, esp wet and rainy ones)
- what kind of backpack I buy (last year I had an Adidas backpack that had a convenient disc-storing pouch)
- what kind of snacks I crave for (Life cereal, Cheez-its, Triscuits of all different varieties have their own shelf in our house now)

What about you?

O-Line, D-Line

Yesterday Hatch scrimmaged Brute Squad at the end of our practice. I have to confess, playing on both O-line and D-line is like having a multiple personality disorder. They have different mentalities from the start of the point. Jin would come up to the line to give a little pep talk.

To the D-Line she says, "You guys are the heart and fire of the team. You guys have to want that disc, bring up the intensity of the game."

To the O-Line she says, "You guys are on the O-Line because you are calm and cool and can value the disc, working it up the field. You guys are reliable and can score every time."

I guess they're not that contradictory but I feel like I have pretty different mentalities as an O-line handler and defender.

The scrimmage was ok. There were a lot of soft turns, unforced errors, whatnot. There were a lot of great things from individual people, like Christina going up for and catching my huck in the midst of two other Brute defenders. And Doris getting a handblock. And nice flow/swings from Shira/Michelle/Lauren in zone O. Between Doris and I, we either caught or threw the 3 scores in the game. =P Final score 3-15.

Scrimmage against BC

It was pretty windy and cold for the first Friday of October. We had about 13 people come out for the scrimmage, 5 returners and the rest rookies. Since we've only seen ho-stack in practice, playing defense against BC's vertical stack took a little getting used to. With all the soft turns from both teams, and BC playing more aggressive O and D than us, we were down the first half 0-7. During half time Meri and I explained defense positioning in the stack and tried to get everyone pumped up about play aggressive D, and our second half looked a lot better. Final score 2-13.

New Jerseys?

I want new jerseys for Smite but I actually don't want to own more jerseys because I have too many already. But what do people think of this (Eugene's mock-up).

How are the pushups going?