The College Championships - Oregon Fugue (part 1 of 3)

This post is brought to you by Lou Burruss, coach of Oregon Fugue and one of the great minds in Ultimate. His passion for the game is plain to see, and since I first met him at the 2008 Stanford Invite, he has motivated me to become a better coach and to contribute more to the sport on the writing end. Fugue's emergence from a solid regional team in 2007 to an appearance at Nationals in 2008 to this year's elite status owes a lot to the presence of Lou on the sidelines.

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GUEST BLOGGER: Lou Burruss

I want start with thanks. First and foremost I want to thank Fugue for taking me on a great ride; it was a wonderful, wonderful season. Thanks, Tobey and Megan for showing up in Columbus, carrying water and wrestling with the tent. Thanks, Guns for momming the team to victory. Thanks Luke, for filming all of our games! Thanks, Gator, for two games of SuperFan-dom. Thank you, U of O Senate, for bankrolling our trip to Columbus. And a huge thanks to all the parents who came to support their daughters and the team. Now to the tourney itself…

It’s hard not to feel disappointed. I know not to measure a season by the outcome of one game, but I can’t help myself. I know we had a shot to win it all, that we were playing well enough to win it all, so to lose, sucks. That said, I also know that as time stretches out, the scope of our accomplishment the last several years will slowly overtake the sting of losing. In 2007, we finished 7th at Regionals. To come so far in such a short span of time has been exhilarating and difficult.

There was a span at Nationals where we played some of the best ultimate I’ve been a part of: focused, disciplined and inspired. That run began Saturday morning with Dartmouth and carried us through the play-in game and quarters into the Semis.

The hardest work has been the mental adjustment to playing top-shelf ultimate. It is incredibly mentally trying to play great ultimate point after point, game after game. This is the challenge that Fugue accepted and met. Most of the season was easy. Prez Day: finals. Stanford Invite: finals. We worked hard, but we weren’t ever challenged mentally. Regionals: Lose twice, once to the UW and once to Stanford. Manage to gut out a win over UBC in the game to go. We talk a lot about playing tough and playing hard and that we actually have to play to win, that we’re not good enough to show up and win without trying. The last two weeks of practice before Nationals, rather than being the pleasant tune-up and taper you’d expect, were the hardest two weeks of the year. Physically, do we get anything out of them? No, it’s too late. Mentally, though, we raise the bar on effort and toughness. Still, we go to Nationals with a lot of questions about how good we really are.

Friday was perfunctory. We just went and did it, but without much passion. Lucky for us, our first game was against USC. USC looked just like we did a year ago in Boulder when we stumbled to a 2-4 record. Like us, they had challenged the top teams in some games. Like us, they’d failed to win any of those games. Like us, they’d backed into Nationals with the last bid. Like us, none of their players had been to College Nationals before. Like us, they thought their season ended at Regionals. Like us, they looked uncertain and like us, they played far worse than they could have and should have.

USC was one of the teams most affected by the weather. Lots of teams were affected by the heat, but USC was a victim of something more sinister: no wind. Not a puff. For a team that plays exclusively zone, a windless weekend is going to be rough.

The game was even early, then we straightened a couple loose ends and steadily pulled away, finishing 15-8.

Our next game was against Wisconsin. They’d beaten us in pre-quarters in Boulder, which was still stinging all of us. They’d also (justifiably) gotten a lot of hype as a contender and we wanted a shot at them. They played well, Georgia played phenomenal and we gave away a few too many plays. 10-15 Wisco. Damn. We didn’t say much after the game, just a reminder that our goal for the first half of the tourney was to make quarters.

Wisconsin would go on to be another victim of the doldrums. You never want to play a team from the Central on a windy day, but it wasn’t windy Sunday morning. Stanford and their Emily-Jenny-Elaine chip-and-putt is frustratingly difficult to stop in still air.

Saturday morning was a new day and we were a new team. This day would begin as lovely a streak as I’ve ever been a part of. We started with Dartmouth, a team that surprised everyone to finish 3-4 (and probably would’ve been the feel-good story of the tourney if it weren’t for UPenn.) They came out playing well on offense with Rohre Titcomb providing the poise and Molly Roy providing the legs with one up-the-line cut after another. I’m 90% sure we were tied at sixes. I’m 100% sure it was close late in the first half. We made a couple defensive adjustments, mainly a switch to The-Best-Defense-Ever, but also some match-up changes. This worked. They struggled to move the disc upfield and our depth let us cash in on their mistakes. Final score: 15-8.

Saturday afternoon’s matchup loomed: Colorado. This match-up had been looming since I looked at the schedule. Colorado and Oregon have had a love affair for a couple years now. Last May, we stayed at one of their houses in Boulder (thanks, yo!) and a couple Fuguers lived in Boulder over the summer. Courtney even came to my house for a barbeque! Plus, Tina and I have had a sneaky rivalry since Carleton and JoJah battled three Nationals in a row: 93-94-95 with the 94 match up leading to a Semis berth. This was a team that had knocked off UCLA twice at Regionals. Twice!

We came in flying. After two points we started playing The-Best-Defense-Ever and walked away from them. It was a bummer of a game for Colorado. A loss in this game is survivable, but it has to be a well-played loss if you are going to take any confidence into the pre-quarters. Tina was bummed about how they’d played and all of their players were looking pretty glum as they walked off to play UCLA. Final: 15-6.

Last game of the day with quarters on the line: Michigan. We came into this game playing our best ultimate of the season, confident in our path and physically rested. Our infrastructure was magnificent: tent, cooler for water, cooler for towels and ice, sandwiches and crazy helpers. Guns mommed everyone into eating enough food. Megan and Tobey had water for the players on the line point after point. It was awesome.

Michigan had just come from a devastating loss to UCLA in pool play. Michigan had their chances late, but UCLA pulled away down the stretch to win 14-10. Walking from losing in pool play to the play-in game sucks. It is one of the hardest tasks in ultimate. Welcome to the dirt road. This is where the weather made Michigan its next victim. They had to play a 10-14 heartbreaker and then walk. We played 15-6 and waited. Remember, Michigan played that UCLA game during Round 4 (3:15-5:30.) You think it was hot?

We played an almost flawless first half, which took 28 minutes and ended in 8-2. We played great defense (but not TGDE because I didn’t want to give Ebae a chance to throw her backhand.) They rallied a little in the second half and made a run, but we were able to answer each time they tried to make a move. Final: 15-7. Quarters, here we come!