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Arctic Vogue - Feb 14-15, 2009 in Cincinatti, OH High Tide - Spring Break, Jekyll Island, GA Chicago Invite - Mar 21-22, 2009 in Chicago, IL Huck Finn - April 4-5, 2009 in St. Louis, MO Lake Superior Sectionals - April 18-19, 2009 in Whitewater, WI Central Open Regionals - April 25-26, 2009 in Northfield, MN |
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Officers:
Links Section
Captains:
Thomas Barsella
Luke Dwyer
Catherine Relation
Laura Nelson
President:
Christopher Lindsey
Vice President:
Laura Nelson
Treasurer:
James Brennan
Secretary:
Emma Cotter
UPA HOMEPAGE MARQUETTE WOMENS ULTIMATE BIRDHOUSE IN UPA MILWAUKEE CLUB ULTIMATE MARQUETTE YAHOO GROUP MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY
Spring 2008
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Arctic Vogue - February 9-10, 2008
Cincinatti, OH
Recap by Patrick Betcher:
For those of you who were in Cincinnati this weekend, read no further -- you know what happened.
So we made our guacamole and hopped in Gordy's car. Six hours away in the beautiful state of Ohio stood our first test of the Spring season. The trip went quickly, mostly because Mikail was driving and since his Southern American expedition he has all but completely shed his social responsibility to law and order. Regardless, we made it to the Capri Motel in one piece and ready for some tournament action.
Saturday started as it usually does, as we left our motel later than we had hoped and with empty stomachs. The forecast called for temperatures in the mid 40's and steady wind at about 15 mph -- pristine conditions compared to the Sunday forecast. We set up shop at field 3, where we would play against Anderson, a team from who knows where. We pulled to them, and piled up a series of breaks that put us in the driver's seat. Everyone was getting in on the action, as we were able to move the disc with a good amount of efficiency. We ended up pulling it out, 13-4. Our next game was against University of Cincinnati, a team who paid less attention to their game play and much more to our jerseys (which, by the way, made their first appearance this weekend and looked pretty classy). Their lack of concentration proved to be their main downfall, as our cup was too much to handle and Hammer's giant pull-downs kept us ahead for good. 13-3. Our third game of the day was against Ohio State's B squad. Brendan Timmons pulled in his first score of the Spring season with a routine (but still wicked) one handed grab in the endzone. Caleb Vick stalked the right side of the field as a hammer stop and tallied D after devastating D. He brought home the D-Mug after a solid day of ultimate. Next we were to face the 1 seed, a group of seasoned veteran players who have played together forever and always end up in the finals. They went by the name "Smiling Joe's" and drove Volvo's, Volkswagen's and Honda's. These guys clearly were to be respected. It was a back and forth affair, and we found ourselves in pretty good position for a W, until we let them score 4 straight. The score was tied 11-11 late in the game, and we battled for Universe point. Unfortunately we tripped up at a few chances near our endzone, and ended up on the short end of the stick, 11-12. The Joe's gushed about miracles as we walked to our cars, but also showered us with compliments. We ended the day with three wins and a loss.
Most of Saturday night was spent worrying about the weather conditions for Sunday. We knew that our focus should have been elsewhere, but wind gusts up to 50 mph and temperatures well below freezing had us pretty pissed. When we arrived at the fields, Mikail's phobia of port-a-potty's was strengthened when he noticed both of them had been tossed by the wind. There was poo everywhere and he really had to go. He worked something out and we played out our games. Our first two games of the day have blended together in my mind, mostly because my memory was stunted by the howling wind and our cup was equally dominant in both performances. We made pretty easy work of Toledo and then a club team from Indianapolis. We waited for the winner of Michigan's Magnum Reserve squad and DePaul, and ended up with Magnum Reserve. This was the semi-final game of the tournament, and we waited in our cars until we put 7 on the line (Well...) The wind was really moving at this point, and the game turned into a punt and cup affair. The game eventually got capped, and we ended up winning by 4. Noteworthy: Adam got his head stepped on, so make sure you say something about the bruises on his face. He also took home the game disc, due to sweet D and some timely snags that no one would be expected to make.
CHAMPIONSHIP -- The Smiling Joe's (as expected) were waiting for us on field 1 to play for the championship. They had a fire-in-a-barrel rolling on the sideline, which was giving off some pretty substantial heat. At this point the cones had turned into tumbleweed, and bricks were used as field markers. Again we put on our zone, and had a good amount of success. The seasoned veterans who made up Joe's were baffled at how well we could shut down their punts and swings. We forced turn after turn and cashed in on breaks all game long. Anything that turned swilly was eaten up by Justin, and the old guys just couldn't hack it. We ended up with a redemption victory as well as our first Tournament Championship of the Spring.
It was a great start to the Spring season, and I'm so proud of how we played. Everyone came with enthusiasm and a good attitude, and it truly helped us make it through the ridiculous cold. We were down a few men, which implies that we're still going to be on the rise. I look forward to practice this week, as we have a good idea of what we need to work on. Thanks for a sweet weekend, guys.
Love, Pat
Frostbite - March 1-2, 2008
Springfield, MO
High Tide - March 11-13, 2008
Savannah, GA
Recap by Patrick Betcher:
I sincerely apologize for the agonizing suspense we have been putting you through. This recap should have come out three days ago.
The drive was long. Fortunately, we all made it to our final destination of Tybee Island, GA. We enjoyed a stop along the way in a beautiful State Park nestled in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Here, we shared merry and a handful of us fell into the quick-moving creek that bubbled us to sleep at night. This may have been due to inebriation, but I would argue that none of us were ever intoxicated throughout all of SB08.
Home life on Tybee went as expected. Peter wowed us with his special alfredo sauce while X-Factor danced on the countertops... Mikail dropped a Lazy Boy on CPatrick's foot, which turned an interesting shade of indigo... Timmons pleaded with everyone to apply aloe to the back of his legs, which took quite a dose of sun during his little beach nap... Puke fit himself into the pink "Princess" rocking chair, likely because he was only wearing boxers, which turned out to be a questionable decision as we all watched him shiver like mad... Fran "won the party" through pure strategy -- taking cat naps while everyone else watched X dance on the counters... And Wellman wasn't there, which we were all very sad about. Naturally, there is much more, but I trust that word of mouth can take care of the rest. (Right, Kara?)
The hat tournament was lame. My team didn't make it to the finals, and my guarantee fell through. But in all seriousness, I think I speak for everyone when I say Rich and Relation made us all proud. They made it through the stiff, drunken competition, and took home a hat tournament victory. And the tournament was not lame, it was quite fun and we sold hundreds of discs for arbitrary price amounts.
As usual, I cannot speak for the ladies team, as the facilities were huge and often times Marquette Moxie was very far away. Perhaps a supplemental word can be shared by one of the ladies with a memory as keen as my own.
Tuesday started tournament play, and Marquette was ready to show off our jerseys in the warm weather as well as play some decent ultimate. Our first day would bring us Colgate, SUNY Stony Brook, and Amherst. We were able to spread out playing time pretty well this first day, which brought us a lot of success and set us up for even more success later in the week. The wind was howling in a corner-to-corner manner, which was ideal for running an L-Cup re-introduced to us by A.J. We found a flow within our cup, as Justin had a field day eating up swilly garbage as our deep. The only thing more entertaining than his slam dunk contest D's were the faces he made just prior to take off and slap down. Speaking of which, the D-Mug belonged to Justin on both day 1 and day 2. Nice job, tiger. Anyway, we won all three games, 13-9, 13-8, 13-8, respectively. Taking things one point, one half, and one game at a time was our plan, and we finished day one with a record of 3-0. We rested up on the island and had virtually no social interaction, which was fun for the introverts of the group. Day two was re-seeding, and we knew we would be up against somewhat better competition in the form of John's Hopkins, NYU, and Rhode Island. We were feeling a little more tired than we had felt the previous morning, but Zahner made sure to wake everyone up way too early and we made it to the fields with plenty of time to spare. We ran a great dump-swing drill to get ready, and followed it up with a huck drill in which we were skying our defenders all over the place. In reality, we run this drill without a defense, but I still believe it helped our self confidence in ways that would manifest themselves on the field. (The fields, by the way, were the most horrible patches of "grass" I have ever seen. It was more like weed ground cover with anthill landmines planted everywhere. If the TD weren't such a nice guy or such a Christian, I would have definitely taken up issue.) Anywho, day two was seamless in many ways. Our offense and defense really came together, as we essentially rolled through day two on our way to the championship bracket. We watched as our potential RRI skyrocketed toward the Georgia sun, which was effectively giving me the reddest neck on the team, and won our games 13-2, 13-2, and 13-4. It is important to note that in each one of these games we gave up points early, but stifled any chance of a comeback in the end of the first half and entire second half. Rhode Island was being toted as one of the toughest teams in the tournament, but we did our job and came out showing everyone who the team to beat really was. Needless to say, we were all pretty pumped about Thursday, a day which had the familiar feeling of the past two years. Going into championship Thursday with a 6-0 record was not a foreign feeling to us, but we wanted to see what an undefeated tournament tasted like. Our first game was against New Hampshire, a rowdy group of guys with athleticism and ambitious throws. Again, we gave up a few points early on, but turned on the heat as the game progressed. The wind was less of a factor than it had been the previous two days, which gave us an opportunity to test our man defense and open up our offense a little bit. Mikail got huck happy, which ended up working in our favor, and in the end we dismantled New Hampshire 13-4. The big victory was a definite positive, as it allowed us to catch our breath and scope out our potential competition. We would play the winner of Grinnell and Colorado State, both teams with some height and senior leadership. It was a back and forth affair, but Grinnell ended up taking Colorado State by 2. Again, we ran our warm up drills and got set for Grinnell, a team we have played a handful of times before. The game was close at half, but again, we morphed into the second half team we had been all week, and put down a great-spirited team in Grinnell, 13-8. We all had fun up until the end, but found ourselves in the championship game against St. Johns, a team that was definitely hitting its stride as it made its way into the championship. Laura Nelson gave team massages as we got ready to play a championship game to 15 in front of thousands of ultimate fans. Way to go, Laura. When we took the line, there were spectators as far as the eye could see, which was very exciting to us Marquette folk. Everyone seemed to be backing us, except for the a-holes from Minnesota-Duluth. They chanted blasphemous phrases about Brett Favre and tried their hardest to rattle our freshman handler, Luke "SweetTart" Dwyer. Considering that Luke is a rather fragile creature, I was worried that he might buckle under the pressure. But with a stroke of his mustache[s], he was able to gain the composure he needed in order to not eff it up. Nice job, little guy. From the first pull we started strong, scoring a few times and looking somewhat decent. We had more turns than we would have liked, but things seemed to be working out. A few drops here, a few throwaways there, and we found ourselves in a new reality. This is when things began to get hairy. We found ourselves down 5-2, and watched as St. John's poured energy from their sidelines into their players on the field. It's a good thing we have such a positive bunch, because any other outlook would have put is into a first-half grave. We gasped for air and threw a few points on the board, but St. John's took half, 8-5. At half we talked about a lot of top-secret shit, and decided that we would stop throwing the disc to invisible players and would even play a little D. Our spirits were down but not out, and we came back looking for a tournament victory. We traded points with St. John's, and found ourselves down 11-8. We scored another point, but still had to deal with unfavorable odds. All was not lost, however, as we put first year player Rich Shook on the line, hoping for some good D and solid dumps. What we didn't expect, despite our shouts from the sideline, was that he would streak deep an a crossing pattern and be the target of a Tom Barsella huck. We could only watch in disbelief as TomB received the disc, threw caution to the wind, wound up and launched an o-i forehand above and around the sidelines. Rich, donning his white cleats, was TomB's only chance for team forgiveness, and dove in for a score to make it 11-10. The sidelines went crazy, along with the thousands of screaming fans, and we got the boost we needed to make the championship game a real treat. Solid ultimate ensued from that point on, and one more break knotted it up. Gordy got booed by Minnesota-Duluth for attempting but not executing a one handed, other hand on the hip, one eye closed, moon-walking catch in the endzone, but made up for it with a sweet layout D on the sideline that got everyone buckwild. We traded points, and tied the game at 14 -- universe point. We were pulling, knowing exactly what we had to do -- and not do. St. John's liked to huck it deep, so with our legs in a questionable state of readiness and a tall St. John's team, we knew we had to shade the over and look for a more crafty D. In a boring reality, St. John's main handler threw a forehand to their best cutter, and he dropped it about 15 yards outside of their endzone. I made eye contact with Mikail and smiled for the first time in days as he made a face only a mother could love. Mikail spun the disc on his finger like Pistol Pete, and threw a ridiculous backhand air-bounce break to me on the home sideline. Typically, I would have loved to throw a low percentage hammer to Justin in the opposite corner, or try to throw a forehand to an obviously covered Zahner. Instead, I swung it and the disc ended up with Mikail in the center of the field. Gordy, still being booed, was waiting in stealth mode just past the endzone line, and Mikail sent a laser-beam toward his chest. He caught it with two hands and both eyes open, and much celebration ensued...
HIGH TIDE CHAMPS 2008!
I would like to say thank you to everyone for a great trip. It was good fun and a positive biproduct was the High Tide victory for the men. Great support from the sidelines and the ladies kept us at the level we needed to be successful. I would also like to congratulate Brendan Timmons on receiving the trip-long game disc. Also a freshman, Timmons showed that despite his terribly sun burned legs, he too is able to sky for a disc. It's no small feat to come home with a game disc, and he showed over break how far he as come playing frisbee at Marquette.
SBO8... GO TITTIES!!!
Respectfully, Patrick Betcher
