This is the end... for now

We came in third at Regionals -- we needed to get top two to advance to Nationals, so we won't be making the trip this year. Based on the traffic the past couple of days, a lot of the viewers of this site are going to be looking for something to make themselves feel better for having beaten us. That's fine. I would probably be doing the same if I were in that position. I'm going to keep my commentary about our competition relatively short, because in the realm of ultimate, there are other things that I feel more compelled to write about.

To begin, our opponent in the "game-to-go" was Pitt. Based on previous posts, and circumstances, you should know how pumped I was to play these guys. I will say that aside from isolated incidents of douchebaggery, they were respectful and, of course, very talented. Again, incidents of shitty sportsmanship did occur, though I find it pointless to bring them up. I will say that I have a lot of respect for their captain for approaching me after the game. I had been grumbling about his celebrations on the field and one of their team advisors heard what I said and told him. Sean wanted to make sure that I wasn't too upset, and I respect that. Honestly, I could be accused of being a dick on the field sometimes, too, so most of my grumbling is just that. I still will not concede that they are a better team than us when we are at full strength; however, we were never at full strength at any point this year, and thus, my hat is off to them.

In order to remedy that situation, I definitely want to go to fewer tournaments next year. There may be varying opinions on this, so over the summer I hope people will approach not only me, but other guys too, and talk about it. Before Sectionals, someone told me that g-dub had played the third-most games of all teams registered with the UPA. I think that that had a big impact on the amount of injuries we were faced with at the end of the season. Honestly, I would be happy with three tournaments prior to Sectionals, a max of four. Not only that, but I think we need to have a larger A-team. This past weekend at Regionals, we were playing essentially 13 players, with two of them playing with substantial injuries. 11 healthy players, with 4 rookies, makes for a long weekend for most of the veterans.

Now that the training season has begun (there is no offseason... you're right), I have some personal goals too. I'm going to start doing some old football drills again to work on agility, because lately that just hasn't been there, and it shames me to be run around by some of these handlers. Secondly, I just have to take better care of myself. I need to stop eating like a fatty. I am a sucker for any of the following things: Hostess mini-dounts, ice cream (all sorts), chocolate (any), cheese curls, cheese in general, mayonnaise, red meat... the list goes on. You'd think the lactose intolerance would be a deterrant... I also need to play this summer, but so far no invites onto any club teams. Not sure I'd want to play with them anyways, as I would have to desert the g-dub guys for Sectionals and all that.

High points of the weekend include winning a calf-off against a guy from Pitt. They tried to make some argument about definition or something, but honestly... an anorexic chick has more "definition" than most of the women athletes that I know -- of course, the athletes obviously have enough muscle mass to shatter an anorexic girl into several calorie-starved pieces, so the argument is moot. My calves reign supreme! Additionally, it was nice to see my family this weekend. My sister Kate got a scholarship to RPI for softball, and she'll be playing for them as a catcher next year. She also told me about the shift they employ against her, which consists of moving the outfielders to the fence. She claims it's not fair and that they're cheating. Either way, her slugging percentage is off the charts and she'll be playing for a nationally-ranked program next year. My dad was there and almost wore his Cornell alum shirt when we were playing Cornell... yeah. That's my dad. He thought it would be "that much more effective since [he'd] be cheering for GW."

Also, something funny was the signs that were all along the highway, saying that "slower speeds save gas." It's funny because prior to this year, they all said "slower speeds save lives." Between then and now, I bet it was someone's job to make sure that "lives" got changed to "gas" on every lightboard on the I-95 corridor. Somehow I feel like saving gas would actually work better in getting people to slow down. As in, maybe one person would slow down instead of no one at all, and a handful of people speeding up just to spite everyone.