To Dartmouth Ultimate alums and players, It’s 11:20 am Tuesday morning, and the Dartmouth Pain Train is resting, eating and focusing on the present and the next step. Which is why I mention, simply as a fact, that two days ago, February 19th saw the Pain Train hold the keys to San Diego. What I mean is that the Train won the Pres Day Tournament. Fact.
Before I divulge the hero’s journey our team took, which ended on a catch by Dan Rosengard against University of Washington in the finals, let me give you some context. We were only 16 strong in California, missing more than a line of players: Sam Hills, Dan Harris, Ian Herrick, Spencer Diamond, Richard Lange, Henry Frost, Cecil Qiu, Dan Mott and Sean Derrow. Knowing this, we budgeted our energy extremely effectively (2 pass o line points when possible) and got the most from everyone, like Spartan warriors. Everyone put on sunscreen.
Day 1
Game #1.
This was against Arizona State and might have been our unflowiest game of the tournament. It was pretty close, and there were a lot of hucks either way. Rosie injured his leg d’ing a hospital pass, but he would reappear after the buy round stronger than ever. We won.
Game #2
During the buy we went to the other fields to watch the women play and then returned to play game number 2 against Santa Cruz, and we won handily. Not a lot to say—they did a lot of Moses’ plays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Red_Sea but Coach Brook Belichick figured out how to contain their deep strikes.
Game #3
This game against Chico State was a good, honest, hard game. They appeared a hippy team, but they were deceptively athletic and good at Frisbee. Largely our offense traded points, except that our offense was indomitable. Engler controlled the disk and Rosie and Adels got hundreds of yards with their in cuts. Lee spent full seconds of hangtime in the endzone pulling down throws. Caleb had an astounding layout catch in the endzone. We won.
Game #4
Easily the best game Prain had had up until that point, against UCSB Black Tide. This was the point of the tournament when we forwent (J) the budgeting and the strategy and the sunscreen (except for Brook) and literally challenged the other team to a heart contest, which we win 100% of the time. We traded points with UCSB and took half, although they came right back and were even leading 10-11. Every time we coughed the disk, they were good enough to bring it to the bank. But they could not match our speed and our power in the air. Adels and Scott had in cut D’s. David the Tetrapus had a butterlike backhand huck to Lee that was sadly contested. In the penultimate point, Engler flew upline and did a barrel roll to ward of his attackers and catch the Frisbee in the endzone. The Robin taught him well. Our heart paid off and we beat them.
Day 2
On to the second day when things got really real for us.
Game #1
Our first game was against Cal Poly U “SLO.” Despite a double break to start off, they came back, getting breaks when we did, and largely trading points with us. This game, with a light wind, showcased our offense, which was much quicker than theirs. Our man D was ok against them, but they punished our slowness whenever we transitioned from zone to man. In the 2nd half Slo actually got the lead on us, and it was really up in the air who was going to win it. Our Oline kept delievering though, scoring against both their man and zone defense. Whatever techniques they employed ours was better. Lee Farnsworth ’12 fired up the team for this one, getting really vertical for crucial goals. Matt Heffley ’12 always seemed to be in the endzone right when he needed to be and scored.
Game #2
This second game was against California, and time seemed to stop. We dialed in even more heart for this game. Lee went to the endzone quite a lot and caught a lot of hucks for us. Lee also threw a high upline to Scott for a ridiculous snag. They threw a zone on our upwind points that we seemed to have trouble with.
We were tied up 14-14 on Universe on O but we lost the disc. When Cal got the disc back, their handler threw it into the ground trying to reset it. Awesome job Dartmouth Defense. We capitalized, scored and won the game.
Game #3
Our finals game was against University of Washington, which was ironic since Coach Brook “the duck” Martin used to coach Washington’s team. I imagine it was how Obi Wan felt when he had to battle his padawan. Every move by Dartmouth was matched by the other team. Their play style was similar to ours, and every Dartmouth player had his lookalike on the other team.
Washington had a good offense, with a deep game and a short game, but ours was just better. Lee could jump higher than anyone else on the field and he knew it, so when he was guarded as a deep in a UW zone, he just waved for Engler to pop it to him, which he did.
Adelstein always got his in cut like magic, including one where a UDUB player bid between him and the disc. Caleb played great as a handler, pivoting off Seattle markers and getting off the right throw for days.
On defense, we played fiery as ever, despite no gasoline left in the tank. Scott got a wonderful sky d ( he can jump!) from the endzone, despite a bad ankle, and Rosie got a timely in cut bid.
We finished that game smoothly 15-11, and won the tournament. Lee got the Skyd magazine MVP.
Next step Train.
