(pic stolen from Kelly's facebook because she always wears that shirt to practice and this picture is kinda ridiculous... hope you don't mind =P)Name: Kelly R.
Nicknames: naryllek, Kel
Hometown: Reston, VA
Year: 2012
Course: 2
Height: 5'5"
Favorite position(s): being in the (vertical) stack
Personal strength: Capacity to eat food
Personal goal: To become fluent in Chinese
Favorite ultimate memory: Playing in DC's summer league with my sister :)
Interests besides ultimate: Running bridge loops, Solar Electric Vehicle Team, reading, good food, learning how to play guitar
Before school started this year, our original Kelly (the non-rookie one), told me, "I played ultimate with this girl named Kelly this summer and she's really good so we should recruit her. But she's also interested in crew so we have to make sure she joins ultimate." Haha and now here she is. :)
One of the things that stood out to me about Kelly was her mark; she knows the force and puts pressure on her thrower. Kelly is fast and makes nice sharp decisive cuts and catches. So even though she says that her favorite position is being in the vertical stack, I'm sure it doesn't mean literally in the stack, but more like making cuts from the stack... :) Kelly's also patient with the disc and doesn't force throws. More on Kelly's awesomeness in the scrimmage against Harvard...
It was gorgeous this weekend in Boston. Both Saturday and Sunday the temperature was in the high-50s. We were supposed to scrimmage Harvard on Sunday afternoon on their bubble turf, but they called to tell me that the bubble people screwed up their bubble time so we were going to play outside instead. Yay!
It was a decently windy afternoon but it was so beautiful outside that I didn't have much to complain about. Smite brought about 13 girls and we played on Harvard's nice outdoor turf. We saw a lot of great things and a lot of crappy things during the scrimmage, so I'll just focus on three of each, starting with the positive things:
1. Throwing in wind - I thought that for the first time we've played outdoors in the wind since November or something, we did a pretty good job of being patient with the disc, throwing to people who are open.
2. Zone O - Harvard set up a zone on us a few times when we were going upwind but we dealt with it pretty well. Heather, Amy, and Ethan did a great job of handling the disc and throwing it through the cup. Kelly, Emily and Mangpo had great positioning in the holes of the cup and made some amazing grabs. Kelly, especially, was really good about catching things through the cup and then dumping it back to the handler. I don't think we ever scored a point on zone O but we worked it up a good chunk of the field.
3. Ho-Stack - People were good about cutting in their lanes and mirroring their buddy.
Things to work on:
1. Man defense - our D was pretty atrocious this weekend. We were on the wrong side of our girl, we didn't know the force so we were forcing the wrong way, our marks kept getting broken, and we chased like chickens chasing worms. We need to be more disciplined about being on the open side of our person, dictating her in or out, and backpedaling.
2. Catching and reading - I think our cuts were good and people were open but there were a lot of drops and misreads. We should have a drill with high through-put catching.
3. Transitioning - Transitioning after a turn from zone O to man D. Don't get down on yourself - it's a new possession, pick yourself up and play defense!
Final score 2-15.
