KCL Thrown Ultimate

hanks again to everyone who made it down this weekend to brighton. it
was absolutely awesome. i fear this may be quite a long tournament
report… so much happened… sorry if i get the scores wrong.

DAY 0
friday evening

only 5 of us took the train down from london bridge on friday evening
(me, cazbo, lucy, louis and dan). but that didnt stop us from enjoying
several games of mafia. then, after a brief stop at brighton station
we headed to the sussex student union at falmer. here, we met up with
some mohawks, and some more thrown players (robin, laura and kyle).
and after a couple of drinks and louis’ encounter with a girl in
search of condoms, thrown went outside to play some midnight ultimate.
disc skills werent great, probably due to the drinking and lack of
light, but still good fun. dan suffered the first of many head
injuries, when a beautifully, if not perfectly, thrown disc hit him
right in the face.
tired from the first night already, we retired to gash’s house and
managed to cram into the rooms available, in preparation for the first
day of ultimate

DAY 1
saturday group stages

early saturday morning, we were joined by even more thrown players (ed
english, ed evans, marty and jess) giving us quite a big squad for the
day.
thrown was actually in quite a difficult group, with tournament
favourites mohawks 1, a solid looking brunel 2 and an unknown
chichester 2. with many of our players having never played together
before, and a depleted first team without the likes of harry, kaleigh
and tim, this was always going to be difficult.

vs Chichester 2
in retrospect this was a hugely dissapointing game. we were slow to
get started and chi played hard right from the start. our d was sloppy
and our o was confused. we looked awful… then, within just a couple
of points i went down in a heap after landing badly on my right ankle,
taking me out for the rest of the tournament.
i dont remember much of this game, but we really should have done
better. the less said about it the better. it was a poor start to the
tournament but fortunately things could only get better
final score ?

vs Brunel 2
having talked about what had gone wrong in the last match, we were
fired up for this next one. we played a lot harder, and earned every
one of the points we scored. there were loads of turnovers as our d
worked relentlessly. kyle, in partiular was solid throughout and dan
was consistently finding space. though our o was still a little
haphazard we traded points for most of the match, before brunel pulled
away right at the end.
even though we lost, it was great to see the massive improvement from
the last game. thats the most important thing most of the silly
mistakes were cut out and we looked like a team with real character.
final score 5-4 to brunel

vs mohawks 1
this was always going to be difficult, mohawks had annihilated the
other two teams and i dont think theyd conceded a single point in
their path towards the final.
but thrown just wasnt intimidated at all. we were keen to keep
improving and maybe even cause an upset…
our d was epic in this match. we were hungry for the disc and forced a
lot of turnovers. mohawks struggled to score points against us and
didnt look like finding a way through. halfway through the game theyd
scored just 2 points and we were looking close to getting a point on
the board. ed english was awesome on d and really looked like he was
enjoying himself. ed evans and marty were making great cuts and thrown
had some great periods of possession in this match. it wasnt long till
we got through the mohawks and made them concede their first point of
the tournament, to which the sideline cheered empahatically.
unfortunately for us, their quality came through, and they pulled away
towards the end.
this was a great match for me to watch, as it was obvious that we had
some great potential in our midst.
final score 8-1 to mohawks

DAY 1
saturday evening

unfortunately we lost both eds and marty in the afternoon. it would
have been cool if they could have stayed but im grateful for their
effort in coming down for the one day. thanks a lot guys

we finished quite early actually, around 2 maybe? so we went outside
to play some more ultimate. after a fun but rather unsuccessful mack
line and a couple of show games we decided to head down to brighton.
kyle took us on an extremely long, but inspiringly scenic, route to a
chocolate place, where we feasted on some incredible chocolate cakes.
i was struggling to finish just half of one of those bad boys… the
sunset was beautiful and it was really nice to walk through the
various small streets in the brighton town centre.
after cake we got some great fish and chips and even though it was
cold and windy we headed to the beach. after throwing rocks at kyle we
got the frisbee out and chucked about for a bit against the backdrop
of brighton pier. dan and lucy were getting really good at throwing
against the wind. it was really impressive.
on our way to brighton pier dan suffered his second head injury. we
spent a couple of pennies on the slot machines before heading back to
gash’s ahead of the party that night. after a couple of rounds of ring
of fire we got changed into our mafia gear. cazbo made a great effort,
in fact everyone did, except me. sorry…
the party was great fun. we played a couple of rounds of hands in the
bushes, kyle was pretending to avoid his stalker, and i was treated to
a lecture by shimmy about his new phone… nearly all the teams were
there and it was cool to see everyone. great party.

DAY 2
sunday elimiation stages

having been relegated to the bottom half of the rankings we were
understandably dissapointed, but we were confident. we picked up nick
and everyone had improved so much the last day. we were on our way to
win our second plate.

vs mohawks 3
every single mohawks team has great disc skills and this team was no
exception. even so they were no match for us. we worked unbelievably
hard in this match. mohawks couldnt handle our iso and louis started
to make some incredible end zone cuts, making scoring look easy. nick
and laura were great as handlers and caz was working hard as dump
handler.
the silly mistakes were cut out from the previous day and we were
looking amazing.
final score 8-3 to thrown

vs brunel 2 (again…)
we could have and should have won this match yesterday and so this was
our chance to redeem ourselves.
we stared much harder and took the lead before trading points. robin
was infallible as our iso and we were close to the plate final.
for some reason though, we started to let errors enter our game. we
conceded some sloppy points, allowing open side cuts to go free, and
we pretty much gifted them the victory…
we had moments of brilliance in this match, with jessie making some
awesome grabs, but it was our own fault that we lost this one.
final score 7-5 to brunel.

vs imperial
even though we missed out on another plate, it was cool to be able to
play imperial as our last match. i was dying to play this one… but
it was fine, because everyone else pulle their weight. lucy made some
awesome ds and dan and louis were great on o. jessie made some awesome
grabs, and even though it was tight, we never looked in danger of
losing.
great way to end the tournament.
final score 7-5 to thrown

final position 11th
great result for us. the beginners in our team improved so so much. it
was great to see. couple more months and you guys will be great,
couple more years and well be unstoppable. make sure you keep coming
to practice and tournaments. and keep working hard. make sure we earn
everything get.

schneider award
louis
awesome end zone cutting. in indoors and outdoors this is possibly the
most difficult thing to teach and to learn. louis looked like a pro.

favourite quotes
“surprise me” girl in search of condoms
“easy, i could do this with my eyes closed” dan
“hows your chlamidiya?” jess in a game of do you take it up the ass.

jess, lucy and dan took some photos. so look out for them on facebook.

thanks to everyone, for tending to my ridiculous injury.

really well played guys. i had such a great weekend.