University Mixed Indoor Regionals 2018

Player Information and Initial Goals

After graduating a number of key players last year (tejas), we knew going into the tournament that the formation of team chemistry would be challenging as we had only 2 indoor practices and many players were relatively new to Strange Blue. Unfortunately, I was unable to play this tournament due to injury. However, on the bright side, we had the ever present bromance of Jimmy Rich and J-Slaugh alongside experienced handler Rebecca Harwin. On the men’s side of the handlers,  military veteran Perry ‘P-string’ Hong was accompanied this year by WUFO’s finest Noah Beast-Richman. We also had the versatile duo of GB one-knee Fi and goalkeeper Emily Hoyt who were able to effectively integrate as handlers or cutters into any line. The gangle twins, namely Henry Mattinson and Australian ultimate legend Anna Annosovitch represented a formidable downfield threat and they play defense which I guess can be helpful. Joining them downfield was one half of the mighty Trans, Catherine (Sunday) and Dean ultimate gym bro Fisher. Rounding off our cutters, was the reliable and dynamic trio of May yean chua (vet-eran), Dr Joanna Knappett (Stark-dog) and french ultimate sensation Alexandra..

We had three goals going into the tournament:

• To qualify for nationals obviously

• To learn how to play with each other and which combinations of players optimise our playing style

• To have some fun on and off the pitch; this consisted of one bites, foam fingering opponents, and the classic water parade

Day1

Unfortunately, we received the news that Anna would not be able to play this weekend due to illness, disrupting the ying-yang balance of the gangle twins. Our first game was against United Emirates Arab 2 and we used this as a good opportunity to form team chemistry and make sure our defensive intensity remained at a high level throughout the game. We won comfortably 15-1, i seem to recall Noah throwing to Henry 6 times for the score and Alex and May were involved in some huge blocks. We were then matched up against UCL, who represented a formidable opponent and eventually went on to finish 2nd at mixed nationals. However, we knew that they were in a similar position to us in integrating new players and we were confident we could give them a competitive game. The game was quite the grinder and both defenses were especially stifling at times. UCL managed to pull off some nice overheads towards the end of the game and it helps to always have the option to throw it up to CJ when the stall is high. The final score was 8-5 but we had some great performances from all of our players, especially couple GFi and JR, and my president of SB, Becca. Our final game of the day was against KCL2 and we were determined to bring the same intensity to this game as we did against UCL. The game ended 9-0, with Emily, May and Fisher racking up the D’s in this game. We ended the day 2nd in our group, as the 3 seed, knowing we’d play a crossover against LSE (6 seed) the next morning.

Day 2

After an excellent pasta party hosted by Catherine and Tom, we were well rested and fuelled for the next day. The game against LSE started with a few long defensive points, however our vert offense looked much more fluid as the game went on and we continued to trade. Unfortunately, we lost this game 8-7 after getting a break to send it to universe point. This loss now meant we would be fighting the rest of the day to get back into the top 4 slots and knew we had to win our remaining three games to qualify. However, we took a much needed lunch break, did some one bites, foam-fingered Herts center Ernie and discussed the best way to play against our next opponents UEA1. UEA played a very similar style of offense to us (outdoors, relying on handler resets out of a vert) and had a cameraman who had some very questionable (at best) chat. There were some great moments from both sides, with great defensive efforts from Henry, Alex and Dr Starks. We managed to win a 7-6 nailbiter thanks to some solid offense from Noah and JR. In the 5-6 game, we played Hertfordshire and a win here would earn us a chance to play in the game to go to DivII Nationals. We started poorly in this game, with some abysmal open side defensive coverage and they quickly took a 4-1 lead. We tried to make a comeback from this point but we were always fighting an uphill battle and the game ended 10-6.

Summary

Although, it was disappointing that we did not manage to complete our first goal (qualify for mixed nationals), we definitely attained our two other aims for this tournament. Ultimately, in the microcosm of life that is sport, we can only try to learn from our failures and try to improve for next time. We ended with MVP voting (Alex and Noah) and finally the much anticipated water parade.