Nationals was so much fun :) Boulder had beautiful weather, beautiful fields with snow-capped mountains in the distance, and sMITe played some amazing ultimate. The one game that I remember the most is our game against Wake Forest on Friday. It was our last game in pool play. The first half Wake played man defense and we would work it up the field and turn it over. There were a few points where I would huck it to Jenny going deep (surprise surprise) and we overhead the Wake coach saying, "There she goes again..." haha :)
I think Wake took half at 8-5 and during the second half they played a lot of zone defense. But their cup was HUGE and Catherine, Daphne, and I were having a field day swinging it around the cup and hitting poppers through the cup. It was probably the most satisfying and fun zone offense I ever played. and I reeeally like zone O. :) sMITe did a little better the second half but at one point we found ourselves down 10-14 in the game to 15.
"Then, all of the sudden, MIT loosened up and started playing with nothing but heart. The women sprinted to the line and played the nose game to see who got to play; they stopped stressing and started to score. In a surprising and gutsy comeback, they tied the game at 14s before Wake Forest scored again. Then the teams traded, and finally Wake Forest won, at the cap, squeaking out a 17-16 victory over a very spirited MIT squad."
We're definitely a team that plays better when we're happy and playing for the love of the game. I was really sad that we lost this game against Wake but it was one of the best games that sMITe has played (aside from the games against Dartmouth in Regionals) and it was really fun.
Sunday's weather was a lot warmer and some of our team were getting dehydrated and nauseous. We played Maryland, Michigan State, and Oregon which were all semi-close games but not really. During our last game against Oregon we were getting schooled because the legs just weren't there: no one was cutting and when we were, we weren't running through. At half we were down something ridiculous and then we started playing fun lines: Asian line, white line, odd course # (Catherine: "I'm both 1 and 11!"), even course # (Catherine: "1 plus 11 is 12!!!), graduating line, rookie line (+ Karen or else there would be no handlers), etc. The rookie line did very well I might add. :) Very promising for next year :)
Anyway, it was all in all a great time at Nationals. :) Thanks to all the alums and boys who came out to support us:
