Centex Synopsis by Ricky

this weekend we played at Centex, which is arguably the most competitive college tournament in the world.

MagnUM went 4 and 4 and fell short of winning the 9th place game, by one really awesome pink hatted thrower. this guy was happy to throw every throw in the book and hit alot of them. in an upwind downwind game, he was an unfair advantage and we needed to put the wookie on him.

anyway, MagnUM played some tight games with Stanford/UCSD/Wisc. each game had a huge comeback by MagnUM fueled by sick, primarily zone, defense. MagnUM nearly pulled off the comeback of the weekend, being down 11-7 to UCSD, tying it at 12s, but falling short.

in much happier news, we soundly beat Brown, Carleton, and Harvard proving high Wunderlich scores do not mean ultimate greatness. we also handled western washinton, who was one of the surprises of the tournament, IMO.

regionally speaking:

MSU played well, beating Stanford, UBC, and UCSB and barely losing to Oregon. They lost to UGA in the 7/8 game after losing in quarters to Colorado.

Indiana, lost everything. they lost their boarding passes. they lost the keys to their john deere's. the lost their velcro, camo-wallets (with the confederate flag on the back). they also lost nearly every game they played. with any luck, they will also lose there way to 3rd or 4th at regionals as well.

i think sectionals is going to be fun (be there.) regionals is going to be awesome (be there too.) nationals is going to make me puke all over the stat sheet (i'll just write a summary.)

Swigs' post which he intended to write to this blog

fundraising idea...

just throwin it out there:

i just played in a hat tournament here in melbourne. aside from being a whole lot of fun, it seems like a sweet way to make a lot of money. i payed 70 for entry, which included the usual plus a jersey, breakfast and dinner. there were 12 people on my team. thats 840 dollars from each team. get 12 teams and youve got over 10 grand. thats a lot of money. it seems like a lot more work than a normal tourney, because you have to get people to register and come individually, so you are communicating with like 200 players instead of 12 captains, and you have to deal with no shows and stuff on saturday morning, but it might be worth it.

there is a large pool of players close enough that would participate, depending on the timing. you could try it in the fall, perhaps the weekend before cooler? i dont think it would fit in well later in the fall, unless you do it as an alternative for those who dont make club natties (weather gets in the way, as does too many tourneys for magnum guys, as does people not knowing if they are coming till post regionals) or in the spring perhaps as a good excuse for an alumni reunion (but playing mixed before college natties isnt great for all sorts of reasons)

anyway, hat tourneys are fun,

swigs

Crash — A Personal Experience

No, this post will not document the most famous car crash in MagnUM history. It is the story of me at CCC last year. I invite anyone and everyone to post stories similar to the one I'm about to post in order to add some life to the MagnUM blog.

2005 CCC was a crazy one for me. It all started on the Thursday night before the tourney. I was supposed to fly out to New York City for a medical school interview that night. Unfortunately, I misread the departure time of my flight and missed it. I was forced to buy a cheap one-way out to NYC for early Friday morning. It left at 6AM, so I had to get out of bed around 4:30 and have Ian drive me to the airport (thanks Ian). Oh, there was a big controversy about Swigs driving me to the airport because Ian didn't really want to drive me, and Swigs said he would — but Swigs was going out drinking that night, and we all know Swigs' track record of being able to get out of bed in the morning, so I decided to convince Ian to take me. Anyhoo, Friday was a very long and stressful day for me. I eventually flew out of JFK to Atlanta to meet up with the team for the tourney. I didn't sleep very well on Friday night, so Saturday was a real struggle for me. As I recall, we dropped a couple of games — I think we lost a game to Georgia Tech which we really should have won.

Sunday was more of the same. Shit — what happened on Sunday? I think we beat Ohio State, but I'm not even sure about that. Yeah, I think we beat them, and then played Michigan State in the next game. We lost this one. I certainly played shitty, as I know some other guys on our team did. Not such a great tourney, though I think that's where we really started to turn the season around and make a strong push toward regionals.

Oh yeah, and I was on this medication which made my skin extra sensitive to the sun. So, even though I applied sunscreen at least seven times during the course of the tournament, I came back to Ann Arbor with a ridiculous sunburn, especially on my nose. My nose looked like a collection of physical landforms with peeling skin mixed with redness and irritation mixed with freckles. Good times.

I also crashed a van on the way home from the tournament on Saturday night. I took a turn too fast and lost control. The van came close to veering way off the road, but it ended up only half-off the road. The van came to a stop in a ditch in front on top of some rocks. There was some minor damage to the car, but nothing to write home about — certainly nothing to write to the university or my insurance company about. What upset me the most was that I had given Batey a scare because he'd already had enough scares to last a lifetime in the past year.

So that's my story. 2005 CCC was not the most fun ultimate tournament of my life, but certainly an eventful and memorable experience.

Like I said before, if you have a personal tournament experience that you would like to blog about, I encourage you to post it. Also, I'm sure I'm not the only almunus who'd like to hear about how Sprink Break 2K6 went. If anyone's having trouble posting or would like to become a contributing member, please contact me.

QCTU Tourney Synopsis (from JZ)

Saturday:

The day started out pretty miserable. For those recent alums, it wasn't as bad as last year's Spring Phling, but worse then Dave Baldwin's of old.

Without even stepping foot on the main fields we were forced to change fields. Then we went to some middle school fields that sucked pretty bad. The one plus about the middle school fields is that it smelled like sour cream and onion chips, but looked like radioactive wasteland.

The day started out against a Tennesse team with about 11 players, their starting 7 had some skills and really caused us some trouble. The weather was also really playing a major factor as we dropped endless number of discs and really had some issues moving the disc. We were down the entire game when the cap went on, it was 9-8 game to 10, with us pulling to them. In true magnUM fashion, we had to keep it interesting for the fans (ie Craig Sanford's parents). But showing some real grit and testicular fortitude, magnUM pulls out the game 10-9.

The next game was against Elon, who supposedly were from Utah (or so said a rumor started by Dave Branson). The again had 2 or 3 guys who could make some plays, and the game started out even. The weather was playing even more of a factor this game then the game before, for the first few points of the game the D caused more turnovers then we had completed passes. Mugatu was trying his best to replace Tim Wakefield on the BoSox by putting up knuckleball after knuckleball. It was ugly to say the least. Then at about 11:45, with the game tied at fours, JB starts walking to our field flanked by two cops, I thought that was it, JB was being taken in and we would never again be allowed to play in Queen City. But as it turns out JB informs us the game will be capped at 12 and we will move to other fields to finish the day. We then go on a four point run and finish off Elon.

Games were then moved to some other school, the field were better then the first, but we were cramped for space, with one of the fields having an infield as it's endzone. We started off playing the U of Buffalo Soliders, nothing to write home about, I think we finished them off 11-3.

Next came the game of the day, Virginia had been hyped up in all the pre-tourney articles as the sleeper of the pool, they were the QCTU defending champs and looked to continue their success. But we came out firing on all cylinders, breaking to start the game and really never looking back. With the game still close (4-3 or so) Colin makes a big layout D on a dump pass that gets us all pumped up and we continue to go on a run. The defense was stifling and the offense was efficient, we take have 7-4 and finish off the game 13-7.

Wake Forest was up next, they had given Virginia and Tennessee some games, so they were a team that could pull off an upset if you let them hang around. But we never even gave them a thread to hang on. We come out with a few breaks leading 4-0 before they even get on the board. After that they pretty much folded over for us, constantly asking us if we just wanted to call the game. We end up taking the game 12-2 or so. Some memorable plays were Mike Akresh, FINALLY learning how to layout, getting a HUGE bid on a invert flick that was tailing away from him, very akin to my conservation of greatness layout against Illinois at regionals last year. But the best part of it was as he got up to dump the disc, he had the BIGGEST grin you could possibly have on his face. It was a good sight to see, Darren (D-Rock) also had a big layout in the endzone to finish the game off for us.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. We start the day off against Vandy, they come out ready to play and in traditionaly magnUM fashion, we start the day pretty slow. We trade for a few points when the wind starts picking up. It basically becomes a punt and play zone game, Vandy keep hucking to this one guy who seemed to come down with everything. I think we go down 5-3, then start getting our zone O working. DC, Colin, and Ryan are all working the zone, shredding it up, with TK and V downfield gaining yards and making plays, we end up taking half 7-6. The cap goes on with us up 9-7, and we finish the game 10-8.

Next up is Darkside, I respect UNC's team throughly, but we had a score to settle with them. The ended our competetive season last year on a real tough point. The game starts even for a few points, Zac Washburn is putting up alot of hucks that aren't finding it's target, but our D is having trouble capitalizing and their offense holds. We then set up a few trap zone plays from a timeout and force a few more turns, we end up getting a few breaks and the O is playing really efficient. DC putting up very timely hucks, TK coming down with stuff in the endzone, Colin making UNC's marks look non-existent. The O is playing well, and the D is getting turns, their still hucking but, their having trouble completing the passes. We end up taking the game 13-8 or so.

In the next game we expected OSU or another team, but we drew upstart Delaware, who had been playing really well upsetting a Davidson team that won their pool over NC State and OSU. We make it a goal to come out hard and make them fold it in. We play really well and Delaware's having trouble against our D, we take half 7-2. For a semi game it was pretty lowkey, they never pose a threat and we end up taking the game 10-4 after a pretty grueling final point.

We end up watching the end of the NC State/UGA game, it is really intense with D's all over, but the final point takes over 20 mins, with both teams just picking up the disc and hucking it to the other endzone. NC State eventually pulls the game out and we're looking forward to an intense finals.

The game starts out as expected, our O is playing really well and not committing many turns. The NC State team is playing their game, looking for deep looks from anywhere on the field. We start out in a backhand force the give up a few hucks, then after a little speech from Rick, we tighten up our marks and start going straight up and making it harding to pull out hucks. Without their huck, NC State has lots of trouble moving the disc, V has a big layout D on an in cut and we go on a nice run taking half 7-4. The second half is more of the same, them looking to huck, us stopping the huck. The O is still playing really well and the D is getting enough turns that they eventually convert. NC State starts to make some questionable calls and the games gets a little chippy, but in comparison other games against them, this was as calm as you could hope for. No major scuffles, expect for that one guy (#1), the guy I think DC wanted to knock out at Collegiates, the rest of their team was pretty chill. We finish off the game with some solid play and take it 13-7.

Overall, everybody played really well, the rookies stepped up and played major roles, the vets palyed within themselves. Hopefully this is a start to a big season, but we have alot to still work on.

CCC Write-Up (Alum version)

Here is what I have to report from my trip to CCC last week.

I arrived on Friday night. I was picked up by Barnes, Vitaly, JZ, and Ricky at the airport, and met up with an already-drunk Slovan and JB at the hotel. We headed over to a bar and proceeded to drink more. Oh, and JB explained to us the intracacies of http://www.project-entropia.com/Index.ajp. That is all for Friday.

Saturday, Slovan, JB, and I headed over to the fields during the middle of the William and Mary game. That was a great opening game %u2014 our defense was a getting a bunch of breaks. MagnUM let W & M back in the game at the end, but that didn't affect the outcome (MagnUM wins 10-8).

The next game was a tough one for Michigan. MagnUM had beaten Indiana at a previous tournament. But our guys could not handle Hoosiermama in Atlana. Indiana took an early lead and from then on just rolled. Indiana wins 11-2.

We then stuck around for the first half of the Kansas game. During the part that I saw, it looked as though MagnUM did a great job regrouping after the tough loss in the previous round to Indiana. MagnUM wins 9-7.

For the next three hours, Slovan, JB, and I watched Michigan and it's defense collapse in the fourth quarter (I'm talking football here). Damn. But apparently, during this same time, MagnUM beat George Washington 11-4. Sweet. Anybody care to fill in.

We returned for the better part of MagnUM's last game of day %u2014 a game against Georgia. It was a hard-fought game on both sides. Both offenses looked very strong during the second half. In the end, MagnUM had difficulty neutralizing both the throwing and catching of Georgia's Dylan. Georgia wins 11-9. I think Batey had a sweet layout in the endzone during this game.

Saturday night, we all got pretty wasted. I was told that some rookies were pimping. MagnUM lost in the first round of the boat-race tournament to Florida, who looked like a professional boat-racing team. Did they win it all in the end? And Ricky kept on saying Fuma.

Sunday morning, we got to the fields toward the end of the Ohio State game. I think the score was tied at 8's or 9's. Anyway, MagnUM got some bad breaks and there was a sheisty foul called on Batey. Long story short, MagnUM loses 10-9.

From there, MagnUM never really recovered from the difficult Ohio State loss. Davidson brought a decent zone which MagnUM just couldn't break. MagnUM's defense played okay, but the offense just couldn't put the biscuit in the basket.

Whatever though. There's a long frisbee season ahead of us, and MagnUM has the rookies, the role players, and the veteran leadership to pull it together. If anything, CCC served as a good wake-up call because a successful fall season only instills false confidence in a team. Anyway, I had a great weekend seeing all you guys, and I will try to meet up with you all again during the spring. Good luck MagnUM and keep blogging!

Oh yeah, and if it isn't evident to you, I wasn't really paying attention to anything all weekend. So anyone and everyone should blog about anything and everything of note.

MagnUM Ultimate Blog

I have created this blog as a way for alumni to stay involved with the team and for current players to have a forum to discuss MagnUM goings-ons. Anybody who plays or who has played on MagnUM is eligible to post and comment on the blog (you still need to sign up to do these things). If you think that blogging is only for nerds and geeks, open up your mind. Using this blog will also allow you to polish up on your witty-banter abilities. In my imagination, the content on this blog can range from raving about someone making a sick catch at a practice to giving a synopsis and reporting scores from a tournament. Let the blogging begin!