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4/30
First thing's first. After five years of doing the website it seems that I'm finally graduating and will be passing along the reigns to someone, hopefully. I'm well aware of the incorrect banner, random typos and general mish-mash, so I'll challenge my successor to fix things like that. That being said, we've got tons of news:
Fools Fest
We didn't get into Kansas until about midnight on Friday, due to most of us having afternoon classes that we'd rather not miss. But Mod's parents had plenty of floor space and while nobody was interested in a late night meal at Waffle House, we still all got a decent amount of rest.
Saturday morning we rolled up to our tiny, bumpy fields in the middle of the KU campus. Our first game was against a young Mizzou team. We came out flat, like we seem to do from time to time. They had a few athletic guys but really didn't match up at all with us. Our drops and general sub-par offensive play however let them stay in the game for the first half 7-5. In the second half we cleaned it up a little and took the game 13-10.
Our second game was against Kansas B. They were what their name entails, a B-team. Again however, we played down and they put 6 up on us before going down.
Our final game we moved to the main field site, which was exponentially more windy. Our game was against Iowa, a team that two years before, we had beaten 13-2 at this same tournament. This year however, they looked really sharp and the wind coupled with their tough zone gave us fits. We never really ended up being up to work the disc up-wind against their containing zone, but we also couldn't play defense for our lives and allowed them to score almost at will going both upwind and downwind. They ended up taking the game 13-3.
Our final game was a meaningless crossover against Arkansas. To spice it up a little bit I told the team that we would have a first round by the next morning if we won (a lie). That got at least a few people psyched up to play, and despite the power of Doege, we ended up winning the game 13-9. Upon revealing that my the first-round bye was a myth I was severaly tackled and battered, but overall I think it was worth it.
Saturday night we watched a ridiculous Kanas/Memphis game and then hit the streets for a couple hours to observe 35,000 insane Lawrence residents destroy their downtown.
Sunday morning we got to the fields early for our game against Truman State. They didn't much want to play and we rolled the game 13-6, giving us a quarter-finals matchup against CU. The wind was a factor again today and we struggled moving the disc around in the gusts, and after dropping the go-ahead upwind goal, we didn't threaten them anymore, losing 13-3.
Sectionals
After a mildy disappointing Fools Fest we were heading into sectionals really wanting to play a better game against CU. Both Saturday and Sunday at the Colorado Academy were gorgeous. Saturday we played CU-B, Colorado College and DU. None of the games were very close, although CC had a couple of extremely solid players, just not a lot of depth.
Sunday we got the fields super-early to warm up for our finals game against CU. It turned out to be one hell of a game. We went up a break on them from the start on a sick break throw from Mod on the goal-line, then traded in a series of super-intense points with both teams getting several Ds every point. They seemed pretty content to huck the disc to Mac and we were content to work the underneath and send it to Jordan when the occasion arose.
They ended up getting our break back and taking half 8-7. In the second half we came out fired up and roasted the windless zone they tossed at us early. The intensity of the first half didn't waver in the second and we found ourselves sitting at 13-13. We forced a turn on a deep throw from them and worked the disc down the field. Stringer cut deep and Spencer sent out a pretty flick huck which would have been the go-ahead score, but String had to layout over his defender and the disc macked off his hand. CU marched the disc down the field for the score and broke us on the next point for the win, 15-13.
A heartbreaking loss for sure, but still the best game we've ever had against CU and an extremely competitive game as well. Brimming with confidence we beat CC down again for 2nd place in our section and mentally prepared for next weeks scrimmages against Bravo, Sack and Mamabird.
Clinic
Not everyone wanted to play in the scrimmages and we rolled down with a squad of 13 (Scotty broke his foot at sectionals and Derek was having back pains). Our first game pitted us against an out of shape Bravo team, that both Stringer and I were pretty pumped up to play. We jumped ahead 3-0 quickly on early sluggish play from them. The highlights including Spencer layout D'ing Richter, Sammy just tearing up the field all over the place and Stringer laying out around multiple Bravo defenders to catch a huck from Bronson. As the game progressed, they got into a better rhythm and battled back, using some experienced poaching and clammy zone to get the breaks back, and ended up taking the game 12-10.
Our second game was against a "Sack" team that was really just 4 or 5 Sack players and a bunch of people I didn't know. They were out of shape and couldn't really matchup with our height and speed. We rolled the game 13-7.
The final game against CU was the whole reason behind the scrimmage for us: we wanted another shot to beat them. We were tired by this point, having run with only 13, we let them go up 3-0 really early on silly drops and throwaways. We took a timeout, got our heads together and battled back. Scoring quickly then breaking them to make the game 3-2. We traded back and forth for awhile, getting a break or two, but also giving up breaks. The game ended similarly to our game against them at sectionals 11-9.
Regionals
Heading into regionals, we were the dark horse team. We were seeded third in our pool, but we knew that was an underseed, as did the one seed in our pool, Arizona. Saturday morning we hit the fields early, with only us and our first round opponent, Arizona, being there. We got in a good warmup, threw a ton to get used to the sea level air and marvelled at the San Diego heat.
The game started intense. We knew who their big players were and pitted Sammy against Kershner and Big/Stringer against Austin and their other baller. We were able to force a several turns early on sick Ds from Bus and Sammy, but couldn't quite punch in enough breaks to give us a healthy lead. We ended up only scoring one break, despite getting 3+ Ds. They took the focus away from their deep game for a few points and really started working our marks, getting the break back and talking half 8-7. In the second half we had a couple silly mistakes on offense and Zona's offense really started to click. They quickly got a couple breaks to jump out to a 10-7 lead. We cleaned up the offense, really working the disc underneath, with String, Big, Jordan and Sammy absolutely running shit as cutters, but on defense we were still having trouble forcing turns. Soft-cap sounded and every game in the round was done but ours. It was 14-11, game to 15. We held our heads high and revved the intensity up another notch, with Stringer and Sammy each getting sick layout Ds that would lead to two defensive breaks for us, 14-13. We pulled to them and shut down their intial several cuts, forcing them to swing the disc around with their handlers. Kershner took off deep and a disc that looked like it was going straight out-of-bounds went up. Sammy made up ground and went up for the D, but somehow Kersh grabbed the disc with a big mitt, and still toed the line for the 15-13 win. There's just something about two point losses against top ten teams that Hib is really good at. Props to Arizona for a sick intense game, and props to them for taking the second bid to natties over UCSB.
Our second game was against the two seed in our pool, UCLA. Last year at regionals we had lost to UCLA at hard cap 11-10 in a hearbreaking game that ended our season. With that memory fresh in our mind we went into the game with a fire to win. UCLA is a short team with a lot of squirly players and they play an offense that, for the most part, is based off of short gains. We were able to clamp down on their handlers early however and contain their around game, running off several breaks quickly to jump out to a 6-2 lead. They battled back, mostly on the play of Ben "Seraph" Tong, but were never able to really compete with our height and speed (anyone seeing a theme?). We took the game 15-10.
Our last game was against the 16th seed at the tournament Cal-Poly Pomona. They weren't very good. We beat them 15-6. That's all I have on that game.
We then had a four hour break before our cross-over game against UC-Irvine which would be the first true elimination game we would face. We had beaten Irvine 14-12 at Vegas, but were confident because of our vast improvement since then. However, we came out flat, expecting a win to fall into our laps. They played hard and really worked our defense over with good breakmark offense. We took half 8-7. In the second half we tried to really rev it up, but a lot of key players were tired and while we ended up winning the game 15-13, the intensity from the rest of the day just wasn't there.
Saturday night most of us passed out early after various dinners and basketball watching, in preparation for our Sunday morning matchup with UCSD. We started out strong, scoring at will. They didn't have the height or speed (as most teams didn't) to play man on us. We went up a break quickly and our offense was scoring in three passes or less every point. However, UCSD is notorious for having quality zones. And as soon as they realized the matchup problems they were having against us they started throwing an excellent zone despite the almost complete lack of wind. We were able to break it open early with some blades over the top, but they ended up taking away those holes and our offense stagnated trying to work its way around their contains. On defense we started having trouble forcing turns, with their offense running through several key players. They broke us several times from turnovers in the zone, taking the game 13-11 at cap... another two point loss for Hib.
It was pretty disappointing, but overall we were proud with how we did. Nobody scored more than 11 on CU all of regionals and nobody scored more than 11 on Arizona (except for their loss to CU), so we at least played the two best teams well. In the end, it was a season to be proud of, and although a trip to natties would have been a blast, having every game be close and competetive was enough to make us happy.
Thanks for five of the most amazing years of my life Hib. Take it to the cleaners next year. Jordan, Derek and I will be keeping our eyes glued to the boards and the site for updates on your season.
-Tim
3/27
Vegas is over. Georgia is over. It's crunch time for Hib with Fools' Fest, Sectionals, uber scrimmage and Regionals all coming up in the next four weekends. But we're in shape, having good weather (for the first time maybe ever) and are pumped up for the challenges ahead.
Vegas, overall, did not go as well as we had hoped. We ended up finishing 4-5 which this year gave is a 34th place finish. Day one we got whalloped by Tufts then beat Texas A&M (well Stringer mostly beat them), and finished the day off with a solid loss to Harvard (who would continue on to the semis).
Day two we needed to do well in our reformed pool, but we played like absolute garbage and lost to Richmond and North Texas. This bumped us into the quarterfinals of the 33 bracket where we faced off against Mich State. The game was super-intense but we ended up pulling off a victory 14-12.
Sunday rolled around and we beat UC-Irvine in the semis for a chance to play St. Olaf in the finals, who ended up squeaking out the victory 13-9 against our young, open lines.
There was another game that we won somewhere during the weekend but old-age is getting to me and Skip didn't do us the pleasure of reporting all our scores, so that one is lost for the ages.
Coming off of Vegas the team was ready to buckle down and work hard. We went into Georgia with lofty goals and came very close to achieving all of them. A third of the team flew into Atlanta with the other two-thirds driving in, mini-van style. Despite viscious tornadoes (goodbye Georgiadome roof), everyone finally managed to get to the hotel after a healthy dose of MR. TAC.
We got up early to pouring rain on Saturday morning, but were still the first team at the fields warming up in the mud. Last year at this tourney we were in the power-pools, but ended up 0-6 on the weekend. This year we had been bumped down to a 20th seed (BS) and were out to prove how wrong that seeding was. Our first game was against George Washington. They arrived at the fields late and immediately had to jump into our game without much of a warmup. We took advantage of a lot of early miscues on their part to jump out to a 6-2 lead. The rain had let up by then and the sun was shining; things were looking up. However, we decided that with this new weather we were going to start dropping the disc and not throwing to our cutters; which allowed GW to crawl back into the game and tie it at 6-6. We took a time-out took got our heads on straight and went out and rolled the rest of the game, winning 15-11.
Our next game was a must-win because winning it would mean regardless of the rest of the day, we would be in prequarters Sunday morning. I've been playing Ultimate a fairly long time, but I had never played Auburn and didn't really know what to expect from them. Regardless of who we're playing though, if we come out fired up on D, no team stands a chance, and that's exactly what we did this game. Jumping out to an early lead and taking half 7-3. At this point the weather kicked back up and we had a 45 min tornado delay. We were able to jump back onto the fields and finish up our game later on, giving up a few more points than we'd like but finishing the game out with a 15-10 victory.
At this point the weather got crazy on us. It would rain like mad for 15 minutes then die out and the sun would come out. Then in 10 more minutes it would start hailing golf-ball sized hail, then the sun would come out. Most of took shelter under the big tournament tent where Luke got invovled in a serious dance party with Oklahoma (a far cry from the kind of 'dance party' Mickey did with Oklahoma five years ago). Finally the weather cleared up enough that we took a mud-pile of a field in the semis of our bracket against William and Mary. The soggy field made for super-soft ground which made for RIDICULOUS layouts all over the place. Sammy had a few of his patented Ds there were so damn high off the ground the that defender had to call foul for the simple fact that he didn't believe a human could do that. Even Kenny was getting in there with some clutch catches from the wing spot in 1554. Unfortunately during our warm-up layout contest, Mod somehow landed in a flooded pile of ants and got seriously bitten all over his body. Rallying around our fallen comrade we rolled William and Mary, never letting them even sniff victory in a 13-4 blowout, despite their captain muttering from the sideline how we weren't any good. Our last game of the day was the finals for our bracket against Central Florida, which, if we won, would pit us against a 5 seed from the power-pool brackets in prequarters on Sunday.
At this point, the Storm C gods frowned upon us as the rest of the tournament was cancelled due to standing water on the fields. It was a sad day for Hibida, but at least we got to Tybee early on Sunday for some extra beach time before high tide. Hibida 3-0.
Monday rolled around and a good chunk of us got up early to play in the windy hat tournament. Most of our teams sucked but Jordan found his frisbee soulmate and his team rolled all the way to the finals despite some serious heckling in the semis and beyond from yours truly.
Tuesday morning our games began at 10:00 and we arrived at 8:45 to get rock our warmups. It was Bronson's birthday and PD's birthday was on Thursday and we promised them no less than a tournament victory for the combined 44 years they have lived on this earth. Our first game was against NYU, a team that we had played in 2005, en route to our first high tide victory. The wind was still a big factor and our offense was too strong for them to compete with and we took the game easily 13-4. Our next game was prefaced by members of the opposing team coming up to us and asking us about nationals (something we sadly know little about). Macalaster from Minnesota they were, and their obvious intimidation from the get-go let us run home with a good amount of zone practice and a 13-1 victory.
We had a couple hour bye then a game against a sharp looking Umass team. We knew how important the up-winders were going to be this game and we started out pulling to them with them going downwind. As expected, they punted and we patiently worked the length of the field against their hard man for an immediate upwind break. SIIIICK. Game in our favor right? Wrong! Because someone with our heads up our asses we let them get that upwinder right back and then failed to convert on ours making our early break obsolete.
The next ~18 points of the game were just pure hell. We'd work the disc up patiently against their hard man, but always failed to punch it in. Downwind both teams were punting, but Umass never even came close to getting another upwinder. I vocalized my frustrations in very non-constructive ways and spent some time sulking on the sidelines, convinced that we were going to trade downwinders out for the loss. When it was 11-11 we had another opportunity for an upwinder, getting all the way up to their goal-line but having trouble punching it in. With Mod, Jordan and myself handling and Scotty as the ISO we worked the disc around for several throws before Jordan threw a RIDIC upwind I-O flick break to Scotty for the go ahead score.Commence celebrations. But we still had to guard that upwinder, unlike we did early in the game. The next point we had the same line out there to try and finish the game. We punted it a few times and finally found ourselves around 20 yards out from the downwind endzone working the disc around. This time it was PD, Jordan and Mod handling with myself as the iso. Jordan got the disc on a big swing and I took off to the break side to catch another perfectly in stride I-O flick break in the corner of the endzone. Game over. Commence TONS of celebrations. I think PD gave me whiplash with how hard he tackled me from behind. It was a great game. Umass was a solid team and in the end it felt really good to get that win.
Tuesday night we celebrated at our house with the Bells to the tune of tasty burritos, tacos and chants of HIB 6-0. Winning our pool placed into a pool where we were the 1 seed and were matched up against three other teams that had finished as a 2 seed, a 2 seed and a 3 seed in their respective pools the day before.
Wednesday was as windy as Tuesday and none of the games had much notable happen in them besides Hib domination. None of the teams could match up with our downwind offense and our upwind offense was patient enough that goals were plentiful. We beat UNH 13-9, Fordham 13-1 and Amherst 13-5. That placed us as the one seed going into quarterfinals against Grinnel (who?) the following morning.
Everyone got plenty of rest Wednesday night (with the exception of String, Big and Myself who had a late-night grilled cheese party), and went to the fields feeling a tournament victory in our grasp. Grinnel didn't look too impressive in their warmups. They had one super-big dude who was good in the air, but most of the rest of the team had trouble throwing in the wind. We jumped out to an early lead with a couple of quick upwinders and easily took half 7-3. However, in our huddle at halftime we seemed to have believed that the game was already over. The second half we came out flat and sloppy. Despite outmatching their defenders easily we still punted to their ogre of a guy who came down with almost all the discs. Our upwind defense was playing lazily and looked like garbage, with floaty, crappy throws going all over the place and Grinnel players somehow consistently coming up with the disc. They tied the game 8-8 and we took a time out. Everyone took a deep breath, we talked about how we were going to work it downwind and clamp down with our upwind defense and finish the game out like we had started. The point right after that timeout we walked the disc down the field and punched it in, sweet. But after that we reverted back to our old crappy ways and on upwind offense we could just not move the disc against their strong zone defense. We didn't score again and lost the game 11-9. It was an extremely sad ending to an otherwise sweet week of disc. Everyone was unhappy and rightly so. We had a team meeting, discussed the rest of the season and hit up the beach. Props to Grinnel for winning the game, but mostly we beat ourselves. A combination of mental break-downs, laziness and fatigue did us in, and we're making sure in the future things like that will not happen again. Hib in Georgia 9-1.
That's it for the update. We're heading to Kansas next weekend with the series starting up after that. Stay posted for results.
-TK
11/4
Ok BIG UPDATE! For all the badgering that I have recieved this semester for not updating the webpage, I will hopefully make up for with this update. First of all, PICTURES from Minnesota curtesy of Adam's (Wombat's) dad. I'll do a brief writeup of Minnesota in a bit down below. But I've also updated the roster and practice times for the fall.
We've had a sick fall so far with record numbers of rookies that super baller and enthusiastic about playing disc. We had our last practice on the IM fields on the 31st and travelled to Northfield for the Exit 69 Fall Classic.
Minnesota was a great tournament. Nice fields, well organized and good fall competition. We arrived at our hotel a bit late due to some sort of BS rule about not being able to drive the 15 passenger vans through Iowa (South Dakota is sweet!!), and caught the tail end of the Rockies victory.
We woke up early and were the first team out on dew/spiderweb (?) covered fields. We got a great warm-up in and our first game was against the three-seed in our pool, which I believe was St. Olaf X. They had a pretty big team for being a split squad but my boy Paul Coleman let them know from the get go that they weren't going to be competing with us today by getting a layout D on the first throw of the game! We never looked back after that racking up a mess of D points and having the offense never get broken. The final score was 15-7.
Our second game pitted us against Wisconsin Steven's Point, the four seed in our pool. They were a halfway decent team, but their game plan seemed to be to air it out to their 6'6 guy who did a pretty good job reeling it in. The offense was again immaculate this game and Stringer and DA clamped down on the big fellow to shut down their offense. We took the game 15-11.
Our last game of the day was against a St. Olaf renuion team that had some interesting combinations of Sub Zero players, a guy from the Van Buren Boys and a few other club players. We came out a bit flat and they were the first team that was able to break our offense. They went up a couple early but we battled back to make it 12-10 game to 13. We scored the offensive point fairly handily with a huck from myself to Jordan out of the V-stack, then had an epic battle to tie the game. I got beat deep early in the point by Dave Truesdale and he caught the huck on the goal line, but then threw a scoober to a wide open guy who dropped it. We battled back up the field but couldn't punch it in the red-zone with shakey endzone offense. They (uncharacteristically) stayed patient after getting the turn back and worked it down the field for the socre and the win, 11-13.
This made us the two seed in our pool and gave us a prequarters game against St. Olaf Y at another field site. We headed over there (sweet freakin field), and proceeded to come out really crappy on offense. We had poor cutting, poor handler movement and just a general sub-par effort that was frustrating. However, after they got two breaks on us the D decided they didn't want to see the O on the field and scored 10 (yes 10!) breaks in a row. It was awesome. Wombat was draggin in goals; DA had a sick layout grab on a huck from Jordan and everyone was just shutting their men down, giving them no options on offense. We ended up taking the 15-7.
We rocked out some sweet Karaoke at the party then got to bed early for our quarter-finals game against Minnesota-Deluth, who we had rolled the previous year at High Tide. Sunday morning the wind was picking up a bit and they were pretty content a really loose zone that we had no trouble breaking. However the D just couldn't get a break and we traded points to nines. Somehow the managed to break our O after switching to man and we just couldn't get that break back. We stacked D lines and just couldn't punch it in upwind. at 14-12 we finally got the upwinder, but hard-cap sounded during the point and that ended it 13-14.
Our final game of the tourney was a placement game against Winona State where we opened up the lines on D and O a lot and played 90% rookies the entire time. The D was great, but in the wind the offense was tough to come by and we ended up losing 9-15, but all the young guys played well. This game us a 7th place tie in the final standings of the tournament.
Overall it was a great weekend and I wouldn't be suprised to see CSU as regulars at the Exit 69 Fall Classic in the future.
-Tim
8/20
It's the first day of school and most kids are either busy buying a ludicrous amount of textbooks (me) or scoping out all the ladies on the plaza (PD). Regardless, here's some info that prospective players that want to play for CSU need to know:
Fall Practice Times:
The final practice schedule has not yet been released by the Sport Club office, but it will be 3 days a week for and will be starting next week most likely, at the latest, the week after that.
Fall Info Meeting:
AUGUST 27th at 7:30 PM in the Rec Center Long's Peak Room East (upstairs past the track in the Rec Center)
Any questions you have about tryouts/practices/tournaments/ultimate will be addressed at that meeting so show up!
-Tim
4/15
Ok so maybe we're not Carleton, but we definitely are working on peaking at the right team this season. After a fairly dismal showing at our early season tournaments it seems like we finally got our shit together for the series.
It was supposed to be like 10 inches of snow in Boulder over the weekend but for some crazy reason Storm C (see Prez Day '05), decided to spare us and the storm went south and we ended up with two days in the 60s and 70s.
Our first game on Saturday was against Colorado College. Traditionally they've been pretty decent; they've got some speedy guys and couple good throwers, but today we just had a stellar amount of intensity. They didn't stand a chance. Everyone was playing shutdown D all over the disc and the offense was flawless, taking the game 13-3.
Our second game was against a young UNC team. They had one or two guys with some experience but for the most part they didn't seem be able to get much going and the few goals they scored were pretty schwilly. This game finished in like 35 mintes and we took the game 15-3.
Our final game of the day was against the two seed in our pool, Air Force. We know two things about Air Force 1) We're not sure why a lot their guys seem to shave their legs and 2) They're in shape. As far as number two went, yes, they were, as always, in damn good shape. However, they had trouble matching up with our overall athleticism and we were able to shut down most of their downfield cuts and limit them to a series of dumps and swings. The offense showed its first signs of mortality this game when we were broken twice on a drop and a handblock, but despite that the team played amazing, with a ton of intensity and won the game 15-10.
Our semi-finals game against Mines wasn't until 2:00 on the next day and we were pretty happy to sleep in and be able to eat a big breakfast with time to digest. We cheered the girls on as they beat the Mines women's team and then headed over to CU's turf fields for our game. We were going to bring down our Bourbon zone the entire game in order to practice it for CU and it seemed to be very effective against another young team. Mines played hard, but they had trouble breaking it through our cup and didn't seem to have the patience to just swing the disc. After trading points 1-1 on some sloppy defensive offense, the D revved it up a notch and we rolled the rest of the game 15-4.
So, every year for the last four years our sectionals finals has come down to CU and us duking it out for the one seed out of the college section. However, every single year it's kind of been a Joe Frazier vs. Hilary Swank kind of fight. This year we didn't really have too terribly high expectations for the game going into the weekend. We had lost seven of our top players to graduation and although we're an somewhat athletic bunch, it seemed that we wouldn't be able to match up with CU's overall system and athleticism. After the first four games of the weekend however, we were gaining more confidence in the offense and the defense was ready to take it to their strong hucking games with our junky zones. The game started strong. We pulled to start and stacked the D-line with some O-line athletes to try and reel off an early break and take momentum. Unfortunately after a weekend of forcing young teams flick we had trouble remembering what forcing backhand was all about and had a series of breaks up the field which led to a CU score. The offense jumped on the field and proceeded to reel off a nice looking score with a sweet break flick on the goal line from Sammy to Jordan. Suprisingly, CU was playing a zone defense on the O line; a clammy, poachy zone with a lot of dumping and swinging involved for the offense. The D jumped back on and promptly was beaten deep on approximately the third throw. I was not happy. The O went back on and then had trouble working it against CU's zone. I'm not too sure why, but we just had tons of unforced errors. Drops, poor throws, scoobers over people for no reason; it just didn't make much sense. Some people must have gotten a little antsy in their pantsy. It was super-frustrating because their zone isn't a trap or anything like that; there's always a fairly open look somewhere and we just kept on making bad decisions and dropping discs. This seemed to be the case for the rest of the half the we only managed to reel off one more score leading to Mamabird taking half 8-2. The second half we cleaned it up somewhat and started working the disc a little bit better. Their D-line this year is nothing compared to their D-lines of the past. They have some athletes, but it wasn't as smothering as we've experienced and their defensive-offense after getting a turn seemed to be a bit off kelter, very odd for such a well-coached team. So despite Stringer playing like an absolute madman and showing off his wide array of disc skills, we fell to CU at yet another sectionals 15-6. To be fair, they were playing without Rabbit, but to be fairer our Rabbit defender, Ford, was also sidelined with his viscious swing dancing injury. I think with some more zone practice and ingraining some more patience into our offense we'll be able to give them a much better game at regionals, should we happen to run into them.
-Tim
4/11
It might have been rainy and cold on Saturday but Hib still rocked the disc at RMI this year bringing home our third consecutive home tournament victory.
Saturday started off rainy and crappy looking. I got the fields early to set up our tent and get all the captain's packets ready after a night of rain. Stringer and I soon discovered that our tent had a much higher chance of blowing away then of every standing up so I used my large jacket to shield the stuff that needed to avoid being wet and awaited the arrival of teams.
Everyone got there in a timely manner and we had a good captain's meeting where I informed teams that we weren't booted off the fields yet, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Sure enough about 1/2 way through the first game club sports gave us the boot and we moved over to City Park in an attempt at finish a semblance of pool play.
Not all the games were played and not everyone stuck around but we managed to bagel DU 13-0 and played Utah a hard game with lots of zone for a 13-9 victory.
Sunday morning rolls around and it couldn't have been a more perfect day for ultimate: sunny, warm and hardly a breeze. After playing one final pool play game and reorganizing the brackets as best I could everyone seemed to have a decent matchup and some good games ahead.
Our first game was against CU-B. Historically, they like to huck and play D and we expected much the same this game. Suprisingly they played a clam-ish zone the entire game against us on O that forced us to work the disc underneath, but we had no trouble swinging the disc back and forth and breaking it over the middle. We went up 6-0 before they were able to get a score in. We ended up winning the game 13-5 with lots of guys getting a chance to get in the game and show CU's lowbies that our new guys had their number.
Our next game launched us into the semifinals of the championship bracket. Our game was against Montana State. The B-team had lost to them at Vegas and the young guys were chomping at the bit to get a bit of vengence. I got some inside info from Zwickl on who their main throwers and cutters were and we played super strong man defense on their better players which effectively shut them down. We took the game without much of a problem, almost bageling them in the second half and ending the game 13-6.
The finals pitted us against Utah again in a rematch of not only the day before but also the finals the year before. They had a really small squad (10 guys), but their two main players were pretty good stud players and they had a decent supporting cast. We came out strong, playing hard man defense and effectively shutting down their two man isolation they liked to play. We went up quickly 7-3 but a questionable foul call from Snoochies set a little fire under their team and they reeled a couple points off in a row before we took half 8-5. After half we came out super slow and sloppy. They managed to tie the game at 8s then with three straight breaks and then pull ahead 9-8. At this point we looked to our top defender to pull us back into the game. On a breakside huck to their best reciever DA catches up 5+ yards, lays out around the guy and smacks the disc away. The guy called a foul (shady), but regardless, with a play like that we got some fire back and as their stars tired we started playing better and better defense. Snoochies had one notable D, something I've never seen in ultimate at ANY level: he was right on his guys heels on an in cut and the throw goes up to his guy. Snooch jumps up reaches straight over the guys head and down (it wasn't a high throw) and Ds the disc without ever touching the guy with the possible exception of his knee grazing the guy's upper back and manages to not even land on him. One of the most ridiculous plays I've ever seen. Don't confuse it with a layout, he wasn't horizontal at all, the best way to describe it would be a sky on a disc that wasn't in the air. After these couple plays we got our heads together and rallied to go up 13-11. Despite them tying the game 13-13, we reeled off a big 15-13 victory to a roar of our cheering section of alumni and Hell's Belles. Big props go out to Utah for playing super strong with a small squad.
RMI finally gave us a little confidence this season heading into a sectionals this weekend with eight teams and only three bids to regionals.
-Tim
3/21
Heading down to Georgia, we were a cocky, confident bunch. We had a couple of good tournaments ahead of us and despite still being short on outdoor practices we figured we had the skills to pay the bills. Ten losses, six injuries and two extremely poor showings later we're still a cocky, confident bunch; just a bit less so.
We rolled into Hotlanta bumping to some ATL tunes. We hit up our hotel, collected our boys that had flown and proceeded to crash. We got up early in the morning prepared for another shot at Wisconsin. We got a real good warmup in but they came out strong, breaking our O effectively early in the game. There was some incredible defensive play in the form of Sammy getting a patented over the shoulder layout D on Wisco's goaline, but the defensive offense continued to flounder. They took half 7-3 with strong break throws and stellar athleticism. The second half went much the same as the first half with the game finishing off 13-6.
Our next game was against Minnesota, a team with no results that we didn't think would be very good. They were a decent squad, but this was the point in the weekend where we turned on our shitty defense button and procedeed to let them huck it down the line for scores for 12 of their 13 goals. The O wasn't clicking, the timing wasn't there, the deep throws were going out the back beyond our cutters reach and the defense was playing like absolute garbage. We went down 13-8, and the team was very disappointed and pissed. Additionally our game was observed this team, not by the request of either team, but because they were having a training session. We had an absolutely horrible observing corps, who, after a scuffle between Jordan and a Minnesota kid, clearly were no longer 'unbiased' sources. Their stellar actions included making calls on stalls before consulted, calling DA out of bounds on a sick layout catch when she was 50 yards away on the field with no perspective and telling us not to worry about it because it was 12-7. I complained to the TD after the game and let him know about their rediculous observing.
Our next game pitted us against NC State, a team that was rumored to be pretty damn athletic, but a little short on the offensive side of the disc. They defintely had the athleticism that they were rumored to have but their deep game trounced ours just as Minnesota's had and the offensive side of the disc for us was floundering bad. We tried to stabalize with some dominator a bit, which worked well, but poor execution in the endzone would waste a lot of strong efforts. Additionally, by this point Roarty was out for the tournament with a bruised hip that he suffered in one of the early games so our already thin handler depth had lost one of its stronger throwers. NC State rolled us 13-7.
Our final game of the day pitted us against Pitt who had earlier lost to Wisco on universe point and who we had played twice at this tournament the previous year. Our offense actually looked pretty sharp in the game. We matched up well with them and we opened up the D a bit and got a couple solid breaks. However we didn't manage to squeak the game out and lost 10-13. This game we also had observers but they were different than our first two, and did an excellent job.
Saturday night we had a good time at the whirlyball party, with Bison bringing home the party MVP by getting knocked out of his bumper car due to a falty seatbelt.
Sunday morning we got the fields early and were ready to play a bunch of Sammy's boys from Wisconsin-Whitewater in prequarters who had won the three way tie in the opposite power pool for the second seed. They were a decent squad, but this game went eerily similar to the Minnesota game for us. Our team just didn't come to play, on either side of the disc. The offense had tons and tons of unforced errors and the defense was playing lazy, fundamentally unsound defense. It was an embarassing a game. A team we matched up with well tromped us 15-6, and except for going up 1-0 on a break immediately, the game was never close.
We had a consolation game after that against Winona State where I stopped calling lines, we got a lot of the B-squad guys PT and ended up losing 13-10. It was a fun time, despite Winona accusing us of making shady calls. Our final tally at terminus was 0-6, with several losses that were just terrible play on our part.
Jordan, Big and Chops flew home, and the rest of headed down to Savannah to get ready for High Tide. A few of the more diehards, myself, Spido, Derek and Stringer decided to play in the hat tournament on Monday while the rest of the team slept in, then cheered us on at the fields. Accordingly with hat tournament law I took a big ankle injury that was originally thought to be a torn ligament, but which only ended up being a high ankle sprain, which took me out for the rest of the week. Despite that, Derek and my hat teams met in the semis with us going down to them and then them losing in the finals.
Wednesday we had our first game in the morning against Georgia B. They're a young athletic team, but with them being a B-team we didn't think much on it. The first half went accordingly, we didn't have any intensity, but we still took half 7-4. In the second half, our sidelines were sitting down, our defense stunk and somehow they managed to sneak back into the game and beat us 13-11, imagine that. It has to noted that in addition to our previous injuries, Ford and Kyle were also now out for the week; thinning our handler core even more. That's no excuse for the loss at all, just kind of a state of things.
The second game pitted us against Colgate, a pretty classic metro-east team with 1-2 decent throwers about one good reciever and some filler. I had given a 'this is ridiculous bullshit' speech after our Georgia-B loss and insisted that we have sideline and on the field intensity, or we might as well be an underwater basket weaving team and go home. We picked it up for the Colgate game 150%, and rolled the game 13-6. The young guys played awesome in the game, anchoring the intensity in their fresh legs. After the game the Colgate captain shook my hand and said he was glad to play a team of our caliber, which made me chuckle.
Our final game was against Wentworth, a pretty young but spirited team from somewhere. The game wasn't even close 13-3. With that win we made it into the power pools for the next day, despite being a two-seed.
Wednesday morning we got up a round too early due to my inability to read the brackets correctly which got me a few leers, jeers and water bottles thrown in my direction. After napping a bit more then getting warmed up we played our game against Iowa State. They've classicaly been a halfway decent team, we had beaten them two years ago in the finals of High Tide 15-7 and last year we beat then at Fool's Fest 13-2. However, this year, with our skeleton squad we didn't have such an easy time of it. We took half 7-6, but lost some of our defensive prowess in the second half and ended up losing 13-11 in a heartbreaker that went ten minutes past cap and ended with Sammy D'ing the final huck, but an Iowa State guy still managing to reel it in off the mack.
For our next game the wind was picking up and we were slated to play Vermont, a team with bears on their jersies, which I'm sure would have made Griz jealous if he was still around. The wind wasn't really that strong, but they had an incredible trap zone that we ended up just not being patient enough to beat. We'd work it for the 30 throws then all of a sudden try a big hammer or swing and bam, turnover. Our zone was played poorly and ineffectively and they had little trouble dealing with it. They had one tall thrower with a pretty damn good step-around flick huck, and that coupled with our terrible deep defense that we decided to bring with us from Terminus allowed them to finish us off 13-6.
Our last game was against Bentley, a team without a great zone and without that many athletes. We traded points for first 5 points then reeled off a couple upwind breaks that put the game out of reach and we rolled to a 13-7 victory. We rolled back to Wilmington, and got ready for our games the next day. We were now out of contention for the tournament, but still had a shot to win the 8th place bracket.
Thursday morning we woke up for our game with Minnesota-Duluth in slightly windy conditions. They had just come off of a universe point victory in prequarters and came out rather flat. The game wasn't as nearly as close as the 11-8 final score indicated. We let them stay in the game with lazy play.
The semis pitted us against Bucknell who I hadn't played since my first year playing disc as this very same tournament. By this time the 6+ injuries (now including Paul), the three members of the team that flown home and the six straight days of disc we had been playing really showed. We got rolled by a more fired up, more rested, better executing team, 5-13. We weren't heartbroken the but 4-4 final record to go on top of the 0-6 we had taken at terminus left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. We're looking to feed off some of that anger to have a good showing at our home tournament this weekend.
-Tim
2/12
Oh sweet Vegas. Two squads: 16 on A, 18 on B. Thursday we got our gambling fix out of the way and settled in for a good long three day weekend of ultimate.
The A squad faced off against Michigan State in the first round of the tournament. Last year at Terminus M. State rolled us pretty good in prequarters, but this year they looked like a completely different team. The game started off pretty strong. The O looked good and the D was getting some serious turns. However the D just couldn't seem to connect on offense. There were so many chances; dropped discs in the endzones, layouts inches away from scores, errant hucks. As a result the D wasn't able to get a break, but the O played very strong and we traded points all the way to 12-12. Soft cap went on and M. State got their first break on the O to make it 12-13. The O rolled onto tie it at 13s for universe point. We set up a universe D line and went at it. We forced a turn and worked it all the way up to 5 yards outside their goal-line only to turn it. They then got off a break side huck for the win. 14-13; heartbreaker.
Not to be let down we went into our next game against Cornell fired up to win. They were kind of intimidating team to see as we walked up to our new field. They had four guys over 6'4; one of them being a 6'8 monster. Early on we saw that they were going to huck it and they were going to huck it a lot. We played some junky zone and DA pretty much set up camp in the back half of the field. Despite this they didn't stop hucking, even though DA was making a living back there getting Ds. Our offense was rolling along just as in the Michigan State game and the D started capitalizing on Cornell's turnovers. We went on to win 13-7.
Our last game of the day was against Florida State. We had two byes in between our second and our last game and we didn't get in as good of a warmup as I would have liked. We came out a little flat against a small speedy team and they took advantage of our miscues early on to jump out to a quick 5-1 lead. We finally got our footing and started battling back, but we weren't able to make up enough ground and lost the game 13-9.
The B-squad played really well on day one. They lost their first game against a super fired up Montana State team, but went on to beat Gustavus and Stanford B.
Saturday morning we got to the fields a little late, but still managed to get a better warmup in than our crossover opponent, George Washington, out of the metro east. We had heard they only lost to Wisco 13-10 and were expecting one heck of a game. However, they seemed to come out a bit flat and had trouble matching up against our speed. The offense opened up their deep game a lot this game and it was almost perfect, I believe they had one turn the entire game. 13-6.
After G-dub we played Tufts, who had just lost to Texas A&M. They looked pretty sharp coming off the bat but again had trouble matching up with our speed. The ladies team came over to watch this game and the defense seemed to play a heck of a lot better with spectators. After a couple breaks and the offense playing flawlessly, we put them away 13-7. This win guaranteed us a spot in the top 16 bracket and a chance to play Wisconsin to steal their number two seed.
We came into the Wisconsin game super fired up. The B-team had a bye and was there watching and after playing so well in our first two games of the day we were ready to stick it to the best team in the country. However, we underestimated one thing: how good Wisconsin really is. They're fast, they've got throws and they don't play down to any team; well definitely not us. At Terminus last year we had a good game with them, going down 12-9, but this year we didn't manage to capitalize on the few turns we got on D and the offense struggled a bit with the wind picking up and Wisco effectively shutting down our deep game. The game wasn't even close, 13-4.
We were a bit dejected after that game, but we didn't let it damper our excitement about playing for 9th at one of the most competetive tournaments in the country. The B-squad ended up going 2-1, beating UCSB-B, losing to UNLV, then beating Cal State Long Beach.
Sunday morning we woke up, got to the fields super early for a good warmup, only to find a very stiff breeze. Our first game was against Las Positas; whom we played twice at this tourney last year, beating them both times. This year they added a couple handlers it seemed, but were a fairly similar team. After assessing the wind on the first couple points we decided to have the D play all the downwind and the O play all the upwind. This worked very well in the first half. They went up an upwind break, but we responded, taking it right back. The offense then got another upwind break, with the D poised to stick the knife in with a second upwinder. But an errant punt on our part that gave them great field position set up an upwind score that the offense couldn't answer and they went back up. The second half there were some miscues on our punt and play D game which led to another LPC upwind break, which sealed our fate in the game. 9-13. They're a pretty sharp team, but until I see that the two 35+ guys that were coaching them last year and playing this year have eligibility, I'm not going to give them props, because without those two throwers, they were very mediocre.
Feeling a bit dejected and tired after that loss and losing both Joey and Wood to injuries we went into a game against UC San Diego, who had been upset on Saturday by UCLA on universe point, which had bumped them down into our bracket. They didn't suit up all their veterans, but it was still an intense upwind, downwind battle. Roarty's over the top and through the cup throws broke open their four man cup and the defense only gave them one up wind point, which led to a 9-6 victory for us, being capped off by a 20 minute marathon point where Stringer skied two squids and Jordan for an upwind goal.
Our final game of the day pitted us against the University of Central Florida for 13th place in the entire tourament. We switched fields to a field that was facing a different direction which made it an even more of an upwind/downwind game. However, this game Joe, Joey, Wood and Mod were all out and the rest of us were fairly down and out. We played hard early on, but their downwind points were scored in a couple throws due to poor deep defense on our part and our downwinders were a struggle every time, with there being several turns both ways before we scored. We traded until 4-4, when a handblock on our goal-line of a downwind huck gave them their first upwinder of the game. This took the last wind out of our sails and we crumbled a bit, giving up the game 6-12, and finishing 14th out of 64 men's teams.
The B-squad, playing for 49th, lost to Stanford B, then won their next two games against some team, and Berekley B, giving them a 52nd place finish.
All in all it was an awesome weekend. We played hard with a fairly small squad that wasn't in fantastic shape and had only practiced outside once. There's only room for improvement and as the snow finally seems to be starting to melt, we might get to have a few more practices under our belts before we head down to Atlanta for Terminus.
-TK
1/29
The first tournament of the season is under our belts and it was a classic Hib tourney for sure. Much like Pres Day '05 Storm C managed to track us down in Santa Barbara.
We rolled in on Friday afternoon, set up our tents, grabbed a bite at the usual Woodstock's Pizza and headed over to check out the fields on campus where we were going to play the next day. We had a three hour practice, making that our second practice of the spring season and our first outdoor practice. Despite a dead seagull in one of the endzones during our scrimmage the weather was beautiful.
At about 12am that night we're lying in our tents and it started raining, and it didn't stop the entire weekend. We got up early Saturday morning and headed to fields. Our first game of the day was against Humboldt on Santa Barbara's turf fields. We traded a couple points but the offense looked was shaky and some unforced Hib errors led to them going up on us 5-2. They had definitely added some height to their roster since we played them the year before. We got two breaks to bring it back to 5-4, but they ended up taking half 7-5. The second half turned into an upwind/downwind fest and while the offense started clicking and scoring with ease the defense couldn't manage to score upwind with the wet conditions and young players. Humboldt ended up taking the game 13-10.
We had a second round bye then moved over to the mud pits that were their grass fields for our second game against UC Santa Cruz. Both they and Humboldt were in our pool last year and we expected this game to be very similar to the game we played with them previously where their main two or three players would carry the load for the team. We started off with a strong O point then a defensive break put us up immediately 2-0. They fought back hard and got several breaks on our O that had trouble finding its footing in the 3-4 inch deep mud. The defense played a lot of zone, but their key throwers learned where the holes were and we were slow to adjust to their short over the top hammers. We had never played any of our three zones before except indoors which made the adjusting very difficult. They got several breaks back and took half 7-5. In the second half we tightened up with man defense hoping to wear out their three main players who played 95% of the points for them. DA and Big Dave shut them down most of the half but their young tall players stepped up and held their offense up. Our offense meanwhile, continued to struggle and the Slugs ended up winning 13-9.
Our last game of the day against the boys from Claremont who upset us at regionals last year. A lot of us were pumped up to go into the game, but the conditions were horrible, the wind was blowing hard and those coupled with the rain the mud that covered most of us, we agreed with Claremont that we'd only play to 9. They mostly played their rookies and we did the same. The whole tone for the game was set on the first play of the game when Kyle dropped a shoulder height layout D on the goaline of their first pass. The rooks never looked back from there, taking the game 9-4 with minimal support from the vet throwers. Props to Claremont for a good game and we look forward to playing our full squad against theirs.
Saturday night we got a hotel room as many of our tents were wet and Sunday morning we got a late start to the fields but showed up in time for a decent warmup before our game with Arizona. The game was intense and the fields were even worse than the day before. We had trouble stopping their deep game on defense and our offense gave them several unforced errors to let them jump ahead 8-5 at half. We tightened up the line calling in the second half, keeping about a 10-12 man rotation in on O and D, but the cap went on and we didn't have enough time to mount a full comeback. The final was 11-9. We should have had two more games after that but the fields were absolutely destroyed and the tourney staff told us that they weren't playing out any brackets except the finals.
So we packed up our stuff, jumped in the showers and headed home. It was a bit of a dissappointing 1-3 weekend, but we consoled ourselves with the fact that we were out of shape, had no practices under our belts, and that we managed to have relatively close games with every team we played. Every tournament this season we're going to get better and better, and everyone's excited to head back to Vegas next week.
-Tim
1/11
There is a new section up for the Rocky Mountain Invitational on the left, which we are now accepting bids for. A couple other sections have also been updated including the roster, practice times and tournament dates.
As far as general news goes, the big blizzards that hit Colorado in December are doing a pretty good job of waylaying our outdoor practicing. We're going to roll into Santa Barbara with only indoor practice under our belt, which should be interesting; we're just trying to make our season similar to Wisconsin's I guess.
-Tim
12/7
We're winding down for the winter here in Fort Collins. But we're excited to head to Santa Barbara and Vegas shortly after we get back into school in January.
-Tim
10/10
Tryouts for the A squads and B squads are this Saturday (the 14th) beginning at 9am. DO NOT BE LATE! Anyone with ultimate in their veins is welcome to attend. Bring cleats, a white shirt and a dark shirt.
They will be at the corner of Mulberry and Jackson on the City Park fields (the southeast corner of the park). Announcements about team placement will be posted by Sunday night.
Any questions can me emailed to me (Tim) at shinji@verinet.com. See you Saturday.
-Tim
9/7
Hat tournament this Sunday! Everyone is welcome! We'd like everyone to be there at 11:30am on the IM fields. There will be free pizza, soda and a sweet showcase game at the end by Hibida and Hibida alumni.
Hope to see everyone out there!
-Tim
8/21
Fall Practice Times (starting Tuesday August 29th):
Tuesday 4pm-6pm-Field 6 (im field next to the baseball field)
Wednesday 6pm-8pm-Field 4 (two fields east of field 6)
All new players and welcome and encouraged to come out and check out what's going on at practice. Bring cleats (if you have them), water, a light shirt and a dark shirt. The first part of the fall will be dedicated to fundamentals of how to play the game (on the college competitive level) and how we play here at Colorado State so come out and learn.
On Sunday, September 10th we will be have a university wide Ultimate tournament for anyone (guys and gals) who likes to throw a disc. It will start at 11:30 and go until about 5:00. We will provide free pizza and soda after the games and put on a showcase game for everyone to enjoy with their food later on Sunday afternoon.
Everyone is welcome even if you aren't interested in playing competitive ultimate. It will be a good time, and we'd love to see all the people at CSU that enjoy ultimate to come see what we're all about.
-Tim
8/17
Fall season is about to start and we don't quite have our practice times yet. But we're planning a big CSU hat tournament for September 10th. Everyone is welcome (guys and gals) and we're going to have free pizza, beverages, and a sweet showcase of hib guys and hib alumni.
Stay posted for more information.
-Tim
6/5
Various parts of the site have been updated with the biggest one coming on the other college teams link on the right. I updated the section with the webpages of every team we played this past season.
-Tim
6/3
The news from this past season has been archived here.
Well there's a bit of down time here at Hib central. It's the summer and a lot of people are gone. A few of us stragglers are sticking around playing club and summer league.
As far as all other things Hib go, we're already hard at work ironing out strategy for offense, defense and recruiting for next season. We graduated a lot people this year so we're looking forward to molding a lot of our younger players into bigger role players now that Chad, Zwick, Zach, Brett and Corey are gone.
If you have any questions about this upcoming season (like you're coming to CSU and you want to play) or about CSU ultimate in general shoot me an email from the Contact Us link on the left.
-Tim
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