KCL Thrown Ultimate

Friday Night
We started off Friday night with me, Jess, and Milly on the (extremely packed) train, with Caz joining us in Cardiff. Once in Cardiff we sat in the pub until they kicked us out. We learned several things that night, that April needs a phone or risks getting lost again for 2 hours in the dark streets of Cardiff (but she eventually found us), Jackie has an odd-sock phobia, and that our host, Barry, was at Burla this year and that my tan lines have reached minor celebrity status within UK ultimate.

Saturday
We didn’t start until 11:30 on Saturday, so that gave us time to Pick up Rosie, Haley, and dD Jess and work off the hangover.

v Uriel (Exeter)
Uriel’s play consisted almost solely of an iso play, which, once we realised what it was, was handled really well by Rosie on defese, shutting down all the under cuts. our D was excellent, but our O wasn’t quite together, making the points extremely long and tiring. We played well, and had we played Uriel later in the day we could have given a much better game.
Final Score: 4-4

v Squaws (Sussex)
Coming up against a well drilled team was our biggest challenge of the day. Our game really improved, with dD Jess and Haley getting better all the time, but we were still having real trouble stringing together an offense, particularly against the Squaw’s zone. We continued to force the turnovers but couldn’t manage to convert. We saw some excellent D by April and amazing cuts by Jackie.
Final Score: 13-4 to Squaws

v UCL
Our final game of a very short day, we faced our open rivals, UCL. We were pretty evenly matched, but our offense really picked up with the arrival of Thrown Jess, who brought some much needed long throws and, more importantly, confidance. Rosie and Milly rocked the strike to the corner with Jackie churning it up in the middle, and Jess put up the huck all day. dD Jess and Jaley ran their defenders around until they couldn’t keep up. We pulled ahead in the end due to fantastic play by everyone.
Final Score: 9-7 to Kingperial

Saturday night saw us going out for incredibly cheap curry and then out to the party until some ridiculous hour because we thought we couldn’t work our way to 6th seed after finishing the day at 12th. As it turned out, we were wrong.

Sunday
Unfortunately we lost dD Jess Sunday morning to Imperial Musical Theatre (funny enough in itself, sorry Jess), who played incredibly hard on Saturday. Therefore, with a team of 8, we faced 5 possible games on Sunday.

v Squink Squank Squnk
This game was against the pickup team, so we used it as practice. We worked out an iso on Jackie with Haley and April making cuts in the endzone, but unfortunately the zone we tried was not working out so well. It was great as a warm up and still managed to pump everyone up for the games ahead.
Final Score: 11-3 to Kingperial

v Siren (Surrey)
We knew from the open season that Surrey’s women would be tough. Fortunately for us it was their first game and by this time we were amped to play. Our defense was so good we didn’t have to play it for more than 2 or 3 passes, and the offense was flowing like we practiced together. Rosie had some amazing strikes and Caroline some great breaks.
Final Score: 11-0 to Kingperial

v Sublime (Portsmouth)
We were facing a team where we knew all the throws would be solid, something we hadn’t quite come up against that day. However, our D, as always, was amazing. Hayley, April, and Caz worked amazingly hard covering all the upfield cuts, forcing the handlers to dump backwards into their own endzone and eventually forcing the turn. Our offense continued to improve, with the cutters working the disc up the pitch amongst each other without any help from the handlers.
Final Score: 12-2 to Kingperial

v UCl
A grudge match from Saturday. They’d lost before but were gunning for victory, and now they had a sub. However, we were pumped. No one was broken the whole game, Rosie got some amazing positioning D’s, and April got a huge run-though D against a girl who had to be 15 inches taller than she was. Our offense was unstoppable, with Jackie and I homeboy-ing it up the pitch to hit Hayley and Caz in the end zone. Everything looked effortless. UCL did pull ahead at one point, but we forced the turns purely by hard work and everyone playing together.
Final Score: 10-8 to Kingperial

After an intense game against UCL we found ourselves in the final game for 6th place and a spot at Nationals.

FINAL v Cardiff Angels
The final saw Kingperial slightly worried, as the Angels had an enormous sideline of very loud (and slightly obnoxious) men, including our host. However, we took the first point in the same style as we’d been playing all day, and then on the second point immediately shut down any chance of their iso on the first throw. We continued to D and convert, forcing the Angels to abandon any structure they had. After one incredibly long and important point (with Rosie, Jess, Hayley, April, and Milly playing their hearts out on both offense and defense) we found ourselves with a 4 point lead. And it was smooth sailing from there. The Angels’ sideline got quieter and quieter as we pulled farther and farther ahead.
Final Score: 14-3 to Kingperial

In addition to earning ourselves a place at Nationals, I want to impress on everyone how happy and proud I am of the way our team played together. I mentioned the cool stuff people did because that’s how match reports work, but Kingperial, as a team, worked seamlessly together, and that is the real reason we did so well. Not once did anyone have to be told to sprint every cut or work hard on defense, everyone played their part to perfection, and I couldn’t be happier. So well done team, and bring on Nationals!
Kaleigh
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