CUlt mixed tours round up
Cambridge kicked off the 2017 Mixed season with two teams heading to Cardiff for Tour 1 where the weather was perfect for ultimate. The first team went in seeded 11 and the seconds came in at 44. The first team looked quite different to the one that took 7th at Nationals last year. With a little less experience and a few more pickups, the 11 seed was always going to be tough to hold.
We started the weekend with four losses in pool play, always a tough way to start the season. It would have been easy to throw the weekend away at that point but we put out much better performances on Sunday. Birmingham were first up and just pipped us 10-8 with a couple of quick points to finish it in a game which could have gone either way. Next up were Bear to Bream who we beat 14-10 to claim our first victory of the season. The final game of the weekend can often get messy as tired legs begin to wane but we saved our best performance for last. Playing U24 White we looked to push them deep and challenge their less experienced throwers, a strategy which gave us the crucial turnovers we needed to take the game by two points.
Our spirit score for the weekend was a stone cold 10.00, leaving us in the bottom half of the spirit table, a result we’d look to improve on for the future Tours.
Cambridge 2 fared much better with their start to the season, finishing pool play with three convincing wins and a narrow universe point loss. This left them top of the table, picking up the 37 seed in the process. The success continued into Sunday morning with a convincing 15-4 win over Curve. Unfortunately the roll didn’t continue and the day finished with two losses to St. Albans and Sneeekys. Cambridge 2 finished 36, picking up 8 seeds over the weekend.
Cambridge 2 pipped the firsts with a spirit score of 10.14, still in the bottom half of the table though with room for improvement.
Tour 2 was all the way up in Durham which followed Cardiff’s lead by putting on awesome ultimate weather for the weekend. Cambridge were only able to field one team this time due to a lack of women available (get recruiting!). Unwilling to cover the distance, a number of teams skipped this tour, giving us a seed of 13 and room to move up the table.
The weekend started on a high with the journey North broken up with a stay at Jo’s family home on the Friday night, thanks Jo! The high continued into Saturday morning with a big 15-3 win over Black Sheep 1. Herd 2 were a tougher match immediately after but we maintained focus and took it away 12-10. The final game was against Cosmic Manatees and resulted in one of the most bizarre Frisbee matches any of us have played. The game started with a 7 point run to Cambridge, followed by a 5 point run from the Manatees. We pulled away again with a three point run but again the Manatees had a run back at us. The final score was a tight 12-10 win for Cambridge, but that didn’t reflect the bizarre ebb and flow of the game.
After a nice night out in Durham, Sunday morning brought us up against Deep Space. With former Cambridge teammate Nick Wong out of action for Deep Space we liked our chances. But they took it away 13-7 in a game that felt tighter than it was. The day finished with two more losses to JR and U24 Blue in games we just couldn’t get into. That left us in 12th place, jumping one seed over the weekend.
Our spirit score for the weekend was a much improved 11, leaving us 5th equal in the spirit standings.
Tour 3 took us to Cheltenham where once again we had good weather to round out the Mixed season. Lack of number available dropped us to a single team again, so the MT2 team was shuffled slightly to give more players a go at Tour.
We came in seeded 12 off our Tour 2 result but the reappearance of some teams meant that we’d have to fight to hold it. We kicked off the weekend with a gutting universe point loss to U24 White followed by a loss to TBC who took it away from us 12-5. Pool play concluded with a rematch against Birmingham who pipped us at MT1. This time it went our way with a 10-7 victory.
All the bad weather saved itself for Saturday night as heavy rain tested the tents of the campers. Fortunately the rain passed by morning and we kicked off Sunday with a big 12-5 win over Herd 2. Next up were the severely underseeded Brighton Breezy who capitalised on what was by far my worst game of the season to take it 12-7. The final game of the season was against JR, a team we regularly encounter in our area of the table. James Richardson (confusingly also known as JR) kicked off the game with a spike to break the disc. That set the tone for a very competitive but enjoyable game. It remained tight the whole way but JR ultimately took it 9-7. It was unfortunate not to finish on a win but we finished with a solid performance in a tight fun game which is almost as good.
We finished up with a spirit score of 10.71, 12th place in the standings.
Big thanks to all the players this season who humoured me at training and played hard and spirited at Tour. It was a great team to play with and Captain. Extra big thanks also to Jo S, Becca and Sam F for helping arrange transport and accommodation.
