Strange Blue Tournament Report

Womens Tour 2

my gosh another wet and windy weekend in mansfield, some things NEVER change!!!

the team: anna, hannah, kelly, sarah , mags, susanna, malia, cynthia, flo, jill, jen, sonja - what a line-up!!!

the games:
sb 6 vs iceni b 15
we scored the first point! sat was very upwind downwind and we scored many of the downwind points, but no upwinds - something to work on...it was a great match though and we challenged them with our huck and junk with jill and susanna doing some FANTASTIC chasing - i think jill managed about 10 point blocks all weekend.

sb 10? vs biddy murphy 15
we were actually two up on them on two separate occassions. they took the half 8-7 and then rolled us the second half. but there was fantastic play here, with sb scoring upwind AND downwind. they finished the tour in 5th place and we had them VERY scared which is super impressive. they called multiple timeouts to figure out how they could stop our flow. unfortunately they figured it out in the second half, but hey, we were in their heads big-style. oh and kelly had a HUGE layout score after i scared the bejesus out of her ;) FANTASTIC!!

sb 1 vs iceni 15
unfortunately my achilles was too rubbish to play this match, but the team adjusted fantastically with hannah coming back to handle and putting up some LOVELY hucks. sonja had the play of the day with a huge high d in the endzone against mel of iceni. unfortunately sonja injured her hip flexor that game which put her out the rest of the tournament, but that d was worth coming all the way to mansfield for, eh sonja? :)

sat night saw sb boys and girls wining and dining in a lovely italian restaurant that jill had booked for us. we ate and ate and ate and then rolled all the way downhill back to the haunted house. special mention goes to jill here for organising the accommodation and food for sat night and sun morning so that we could all stay and party together sat night. thanks sooo much! and thanks to the boys for cleaning up in the morning. i know, i was surprised too ;)

sunday
sb 15 vs brighton 13
this was the toughest and best match of the whole weekend. it was the match to keep us in the top 8. brighton really really wanted to bust into the top 8 and they came out firing. it was very wet but not too windy this morning and the disc was super slippery. we managed to hold on to a lot of things, but then we started to get tired through the second half and have lots of drops - let's keep doing core strength so we can throw and catch even when our legs are tired! anyway, we were up by a few at the half, but not before i called THREE TIMEOUTS in the first half!!!! so after giving up the disc on our OWN endzone, we got the d back and scored, but manohman, i'm sooooo sorry!!! it took us awhile to wake up on d, but when we did, no one fared better than mags, who gets my mvp for the weekend - she had a STORMER and had about 8 or 9 run-through d's which won us the game. she inspired the rest of us to pick up our feet and play some great open-side d, something that the open and womens team needs to work on a bit more. well done mags on saving us the game...brighton had a massive comeback and it was 15-13 in the end, after we had been up by 6 or 7. they put a junk on us and i put hammer after hammer up to kelly and susanna and jen in the middle and they worked it up the pitch for the scores. so well done for hanging in there, kiddos, and finishing the game. i think everyone learned a lot that game. i'm also very sure that game lasted well over 2 hours. it was a battle of fitness and we won! top 8 for the next tour...

sb 5 vs mu 15
another very wet game against the midlands team. after my it band flared up during the brighton game, i was out the rest of the day, but again, the team stepped up and dealt very well with having me and sonja and jen injured on the sideline (although jen still played loads with a very very VERY swollen hand!!). susanna had a fantastic couple of wipe-outs while charging at the disc on o and d - it looked like she had tights on by the end of the match, there was so much mud!

sb 3? vs swift 15
surpringly, the scots didn't fare well during this tour and we were very surprised to meet them in the 7-8 game. they came out with a vengeance after losing most of their games through the weekend. but we had some lovely play...kelly was a workhorse, ALWAYS bailing us out in the stack and making some fantastic aggressive cuts under, jill was laying out in the mud and being graceful as always making grabs high and low and way out of her reach - she had a great layout score near the end of this game. hannah assisted all of the scores with fantastic long bender forehand hucks - keep those coming! mags continued her ridiculous defense, getting more run-through d's. and flo always seemed to be there for the continuation passes to move the disc to the other side of the pitch. it was a really fun last game to finish on and although everyone was completely knackered, there were muddy smiles all around. awwww.

well done everyone and let me know if you can make it to tour 3. i won't be able to make tour 3 or nationals, so kelly and hannah will lead the team to VICTORY!! let's go out there and finish the tour in the top 8. SUCH a fantastic result for sb women, well done everyone.
--a