KCL Thrown at SEUMIR

Here is Adnan's tournament report for South East University Mixed Indoor RegionalS this season. Not a particularly important tournament in the big sceme of things but significant for us this year - it was the first tournament thrown has ever won. I really love this report for its enthusiasm. I apologise in advance for Adnan's refusal to use capital letters or proper punctuation (he's a bit like James Joyce). Enjoy.

im still buzzing from the highs of yesterdaynot to mention aching all over (leading to a pretty poor performanceat winter league today…)anyway,this is probably one of my favourite parts of the tournament: thematch report…so i hope you guys read it

GROUP STAGES
last year we sent down a beginner team to mixed indoor regionalsand this is where dan and louis in particular really started toflourish (and i got my ankles injured…)this is relevant because it explains why chichester 2 were seededabove uswe were fortunate i guess that we werent stuck in a group with twoother first teams…
after struggling to get to the venue on time we were fortunate toease into the tournament with a second team.

vs CHI 2 (chichester)
not much to say about this match to be honest. this was a team full of beginners. they threw away a lot and tried a lot of low percentagethrows probably in desperation. new to the team this year were jess, jackie, millie and alex so it was great to see them integrate sowell. millie was scoring at will, alex and jackie were creating somegreat flow and jess was the definition of reliable as a handler.great start to the day without being tested too much.final score 11 - 0

vs MOHAWKS 1 (sussex)
we have had little to no indoor practice this year so were not verygood at indoor throws, indoor zones or iso etc. mohawks are at theother end of that spectrum and we really got taught a lesson in thismatch. they had a great iso and quickly went 4 or 5 up. after thematch harry suggested that i should have taken a time out and he was definitely right. our heads were down and though we got a consolationpoint, mohawks were in complete control. the one positive to takefrom this game was our efforts against their zone. we were cool andcomposed and they didnt dare try it again.final score 1 - 9


vs SCORPOIONS 2 (surrey)
after the last match this was quite nice to regain our confidence. surrey 1 are very well drilled and i was worried about the secondteam causing us some problems. for whatever reason that didnt turnout to be the case. our offence and defence was back to its aggresivebest. a really nice and well spirited team finished our group games.final score 11 - 1
the group results meant that we came second to mohawks 1 in our groupand took 7th seed, which is absolutely fine for us.


(SECOND TEAM MENTION
having played two 2nd teams and cheered on thrown 2 i have to say iwas massively impressed by how our beginners did. nick and the otherexperienced players did an incredible job at getting the best out ofour freshers and getting them so involved. harry and i have triedreally hard to emphasise the importance of dumping at practices and its so good to see proof that you guys listen. unlike chi 2 who threwaway recklessly at high stalls and scorpions 2 who kept gettingstalled out, thrown 2 rarely threw away. but ill leave the more indepth match reporting to nick. needless to say it was great to watchthem play some great ultimate. thrown 1 could learn a thing or twoabout dumping and swinging… )


QUARTER FINAL7th seed vs 2nd seedvs SCORPIONS 1 (surrey)
weve started to have some really heated matches with the scorpions inrecent times. (at outdoor div2 nationals and at indoor regionals) andthis turned out to be no different. pugh has drilled this team incredibly well and i reckon many people would have considered them to be favourites. our matches have meant that we now know moreof what to expect from this team and after our loss to mohawks wewanted to prove ourselves. id learnt from indoor nationals lastnovember not to be too fancy with tactics but rather to stick to what we know - simple stack offence and hard defence.
thrown took the lead but surrey werent far behind. there were several flash points to this match. dan was doing the most incredible job ofmarking out pugh. there were several calls made in this match. This used to get into our heads before but not in this match. dan wasnt phased by the stripcall (and nor was i after he questioned the validity of my awesome layout grab…) and if anything he seemed to be winding himself up…at 4-4 we went into sudden death. we were on offence so the pressurewas on us to convert. i threw away a stupid hammer but our d whichhad been phenomenal got us the disc back. this time i found louis in the end zone with a much simpler sidearm cut.
final score 5 - 4 (took 2nd seed)
this result guaranteed us top 8 i think and made it difficult for us to drop out of qualification.

SEMI FINAL 2nd seed vs 3rd seedvs DISC DOCTORS 1 (imperial)
dd had been awesome at indoor open regionals and nationals and i reckon thats to do with their good tactical awareness. they have an effective zone and a great iso so i was quite worried to be honest.we talked about iso defence and considered our female advantage. unlike the previous match which we won through sheer effort and aggression this would be more of a tactical encounter.
we started on offence and opted for 3 girls on the line. dd used azone and we worked the disc up between all of us really nicely:confident and composed. when we got to the endzone we were all a bitclueless, but it was great to see all of us trying different ideas.jackie and i tried to jump it in a few times, jess was constantlylooking for some break throws to spilt the zone and tim and kaleighwere stretching the defence. in the end i reluctantly threw a bladeto tim who was towering over rosie. (i know he was expecting thatmuch earlier) our d was sharp and i think we took quite a comfortablelead. the score was 4 - 2 at some point but i never felt like ourlead was in the bag at all. finally dd used their dreaded iso onmagnet… we put in place our d and though it didnt work perfectly atfirst we were much improved compared to the mohawks game. louis evenmanaged to get a huge high d on magnet and the subsequent zones meantthat dd couldnt catch up. bit of a tactical error on their part ifeel but a win against dd is always sweet.
final score 5 - 3?(kept 2nd seed)
this guaranteed us qualification and the 2nd seed and put us in thegrand final against mohawks…


GRAND FINAL 2nd seed vs 1st seed vs MOHAWKS 1 (sussex) again
all day we had been talking about playing good ultimate and trusting that the results would follow. we had qualified for nationals and were happy with that. we wanted to redeem ourselves more than actually take the 1st spot i think. after our powerful win vs surreyand our tactical win vs imperial we had given ourselves the perfect lessons to combat mohawks the second time round. we had a massively intimidating crowd watching us from above, including a rawkus mohawk contingent. thanks to the thrown 2 team then for cheering us on, and for ham as well, who had made the tripdown to support us. we had kept our heads in our previous matches butwith the entire southeast watching this was different.
we actually took the lead in this match which really helped calm my nerves. mohawks pulled out their iso early which made sense on theirpart. much like against dd it took us a little while to truly shut itdown. but we did so convincingly, which meant that they had to abandon that tactic. 4-2 down at least we could play them on ourterms of stack offence and defence. unlike many of the teams at the tournament we didnt rely on one person, we had great cuts and throws from everyone. i think i threw away the most to be honest soapologies for that. i remember harry threw a really nice curving backhand to kaleigh after a series of beautiful give and go passes. everyone upped their game. millie had only really made herself knownin the endzone in previous games but got involved in the final, whichis great. we had a couple of chances to bring it level, the best ofwhich came to alex, who had made another great run towards theendzone and managed to sky a mohawk with ease. unfortunately mohawks called a foul and so the contested call was sent back. the buzzerwent during this point, which for the final meant that we had to finish the point and play to a one point cap… jess was dominant. she had been throwing some great discs for everyone and sent yetanother one towards harry who sprinted to the endzone to catch thedisc high and crash through the hall doors. again mohawks called afoul but after a lot of discussion the point stood, meaning anothersudden death situation. with mohawks on o though, we needed to forcea turnover. we did just that. we moved the disc with some crisp passing and jackie pulled out a great hammer cross pitch towards the endzone. im sure everyone saw this in slow motion. i expected to see tim on the receiving end, but was shocked to see dan instead… his defender was caught out of position and dan actually went for the disc high with one hand.
the crowd erupted as we thrown won its first ever tournament andfinished seumir champions…
well played everyone. we all earned and deserved that trophywhich is why i cant really think of an mvp or bag winner…

anyway,sorry for the length of the report thanks for reading this far i really cant tell you how proud i am of the team and the club this weekend.

i really enjoyed watching the second team play and watch everyoneimprove.
the season isnt over though. keep coming to practices so that we can carry this momentum to climax the university season in style.

adnanthrown first team captain 08/09