Things we learned this weekend:
The MBTA costs money
Taking the car pool lane on I-93 southbound makes you late to your first game
Callahans are awesome
Our 14's (freshmen) rock.
Our second tournament of the year was incredible. Despite the absence of Coach Brook, we went undefeated (8-0) and won a bid to UOA nationals. This was the first non-sectionals tournament that the Pain Train has won since 08' Regionals.
This was a UOA tourney, so the rules were a little different and there were observers counting stalls for us. This was supposed to be an Ivy League tournament, but Cambridge is far, so good non-Ivy (Umass, Brandeis, Tufts) teams were used to round out the pack. Check out the website if you're interested to learn more about the UOA: http://ultimateobserversassociation.com/index.html.
Day 1: Saturday
Game 1: Dartmouth 15 Umass 10
Funny thing about first games that start at 8:30 AM – sometimes not all of your team is there on time. The beloved sprinter van, carrying all of our captains, the disc bag, and all but 8 players arrived at the fields at about 8:27. In addition, one of our players (who shall remain nameless), was late because he got kicked off the bus. Unlike Advanced Transit, apparently you have to pay to ride the buses in Boston. Oddly enough, this worked to our advantage, we kept it loose and made fun of our own navigational incompetence. We went up a couple of breaks and never let go. Nice first win.
Game 2: Dartmouth 15 Columbia 0
Score speaks for itself.
Game 3: Dartmouth 15 Brown 12
As it turns out, this was our closest game of the weekend. It was windy so we threw a lot of zone at them, but as usual Brown's handlers were solid and made us run a lot. We toughed it out to earn the win.
Game 4: Dartmouth 15 Tufts 8
We were all looking forward to this one after last weekend, where Tufts beat us twice. So far, they're the only team to beat us. We were hungry. Tufts just had a tough universe loss against Harvard, and looked tired. Even though it was windy, we decided to go man on them and make them run. After a close first half, we broke away and took our revenge. Team president Alex Taylor 11' took it home for us with a layout catch in the end zone.
Dinner
Anna's Burritos!!! There is no better way to celebrate an undefeated day than with some delicious burritos. Thanks to former captain Alex Kell 10' who let us stay in his house in Needham afterwards.
Day 2: Sunday
Game 5: Dartmouth 14 Yale 11
This was a sloppy game to open Sunday. On a windy day, we had a lot of drops in the end zone, we left at least 4-5 points on the field. Cap went on and the game ended with another Dartmouth victory.
Game 6: Dartmouth 15 Harvard 9
After the sloppy game against Yale, we went up against regional rivals Harvard. Boy, were we pumped for this one. Coming out on D, Robin Meyers 10' Th 11' caught a Callahan off a tipped disc. We got a break the next point as well, and ended up taking half 8-4 on a Lee Farnsworth 12' catch of a well-placed Scott Sottosanti 12' huck. Sophomore Sensations indeed. We didn't let up and took care of business.
Game 7: Dartmouth 15 Brandeis 0
Due to the seeding and design of the tournament we were slated to play Brandeis twice in a row, once to finish off pool play and once again in the championship game. Brandeis has a 10-player squad and they had a number of tight games. The UOA is very strict about playing all games, but since our championship spots were locked up, Brandeis practiced dropping pulls. That was ridiculous.
Naptime:
We had about an hour to burn before warming up, so there was a lot of sideline spooning. We definitely won the cuteness championship.
Game 8 (Finals): Dartmouth 15 Brandeis 11
We rarely play Brandeis, but they looked good on a very windy day, breaking our marks around a little too often. Our offense was looking smooth in the wind, despite a few miscues against the zone. Especially dominant were Spencer “Chuck” Diamond and Dan “Fat Albert” Harris, both 14's. On defense we got a lot of turns, but sometimes had trouble converting them into goals. “Good” Dan Rosengard 13' understood this. On game point, after a spectacular Caleb “Burrito” Ladue 14' pull, Rosengard decided to end the shenanigans and caught a layout Callahan to win the championship game and end the tourney. Boomslam. Ivy league champs baby (check out the pictures below and above to see what we look like)!
