Siege of Limerick

Sorry for the delay everyone. A short recap of what I've been up to since I last posted.

I spent two weekends with the Ultimate Frisbee team, Skulltimate, at UCC. The first was at the Siege of Limerick, a really fun tournament hosted by UC Limerick. Saturday was great, we went 2-1. Our day started out playing against Johnny Chimpo, a club team and the top team in Ireland who went on to win the tournament. We opened up to score the first point, but after that it was a struggle, and their superior experience definitely showed. Even with a diminished squad, they beat us 11 to 5.

Next game was against Jerk Factory, a club team that hadn't played together in months. Their lack of chemistry from being out and overall fitness were not up to ours, we bet them handily 13-4.

Our final game of the day was a real nail-biter, playing against NUTS, a team that flew in from Amsterdam. This team had great spirit and made us work really hard. We were trading point for a few rounds, and then a time cap came on while they were up 5-6. The end of the point would determine what the final cap was -- if they scored, it would be 7-5, game played to 8. If we scored, it would be 6-6 and the next point would win. We didn't give it our all, they ended up scoring. We turned on the afterthrust, scored three in a row, ending with a sweet D by Steve Kehoe running down the field to get the D, then Brian throwing a hammer to the breakside in the endzone. NUTS kept us close despite having only 2 or 3 subs compared to our 7.

The next day, we started out playing Broccoli, a club from the Dublin area. We went in with high hopes, but we didn't play the defense we should have, and the result was lots of hucks and lots of us getting burned deep. The first couple points were traded but it was really a one-sided game. There was one highlight of the game for me, though. After cutting deep for a huck, I realized the throw was coming in too short, my defender behind me had the chance to get the D. I was able to get next to him, jump and reach over him, grab the disc between my middle finger on top and index and ring finger on bottom for a nasty sky. However, this sweet moment was irrelevant as we still lost.

Next game was against DIT. With the Irish wind kicking in, their zone shut us down and we made a lot of stupid turns early on that they were able to capitalize on. However, pretty soon we were able to chill out and spread the field better. A sideline from the rugby field the tournament was hosted on confused us, because it was not the sideline for our field but we though it was. Despite some unnecessarily long points with lots of stupid turnovers, we closed the game 11-3.

The final game of the day would be an epic rematch against NUTS. We were tired going in, none of us thought we had the legs to maintain. Using a FSU zone defense, as a handler mark I failed to make the necessary switches, and among other defensive errors by UCC, we ended up down 6-4. Something in us kicked in then, and we went on a 5 point run and the game ended 9-6. NUTS played great, and showed great spirit. I'd love to play against these guys again.

Overall, Our team played great but definitely some communication and focus issues needed to be resolved. Hopefully these will be worked out for UK Nationals, which we're playing in this weekend (March 14-15) in Sheffield, England.