The College Championships - Oregon Fugue (Part 3 of 3)

GUEST BLOGGER: Lou Burruss

First of all, I want to congratulate the Burning Skirts on being very deserving champions. They handled every team they faced in Columbus and were never seriously challenged. They did it with poise and class. Nice work, UCSB.

Unlike the Ottawa game, our game against UCSB doesn’t fall into a sequential narrative sequence. It is a jumble of moments and ideas and realizations, so forgive me for jumping all over from here to there.

The biggest thing single factor we faced was fatigue. I went through and added all the scores up for us and the Skirts. By the time we started semis the Skirts had played 109 points of ultimate; we had played 141 points, enough extra for a 17-15 game. I am not making an excuse here. The Skirts took care of business in pool play and quarters in a way we did not. The Skirts rightfully earned the one seed and the easy road by winning their Region, Prez Day and Stanford Invite; we came in third in our Region. You have to play the hand you’re dealt and win with the hand you’re dealt. Also, we’d been the beneficiaries of an exhausted Michigan team that looked nothing like the team that gave Washington a hell of a time Friday afternoon. Anyway, all that said, we were tired and it showed. We had number of unforced execution errors that we had not had in since Friday. We made decision errors that arise from fatigue: rushed hucks, hucks to the wrong part of the field or to bad match ups.

Defensively, the Skirts did a great job of limiting our deep game. Some of that was the fatigue of our cutters, but some of that was just plain good defense. We were really able to work it short on them and nip and tuck for ten yards here and ten yards there. Still, when you are tired, small ball is a bad way to try to play. They also did a really good job of preventing us from scoring easy goals. We gave them a couple easy ones. In a game that was all about pressure (no team lead by more than 2 until 13-10,) easy goals make a huge difference.

I spent about five days after Nationals feeling pretty good about the season and finishing third and all that we accomplished. Then I found a scrap of time between work and the kids and I made the mistake of watching the highlight video on the UPA web site. 11-10! We were at 11-10! Argh! Looking back, I made three mistakes.

Mistake number one: losing the forest for the trees. This is the one I was angriest about because it is the most basic: the strategy that is most likely to score you the point is not the one most likely to score you the most points. At 10-9 or 11-10, with a team I knew was exhausted, I should have taken chances and played deep into the bench on defensive points. This rests the main players three or four points down the stretch. If you trade all the way out to 14-13, then you go back to stacking lines, but your players are that much fresher. Honestly, I don’t know if I would have hit on this in the moment, but I am mad that I didn’t remember the basic adage.

Mistake number two: Most of the time in good college ultimate, it is very clear who scored and why. It is very clear who is winning and why. You make a mistake, they score. They make a mistake, you score. We had been playing that level of ultimate all weekend and the other teams had abided by it. When we got in to the UCSB game, we (unknowingly) had stepped up a notch in quality of play. As well as we were playing and as well as the Skirts were playing, both teams reached a level where you do everything right and still get scored on. I played on the Sockeye D line for nine years, so to be in a game where you do everything right and get scored on was no big deal to me, but I only realized later how weird and frustrating it was for my team. So my mistake is in not recognizing this (I saw the frustration, just not the cause) and acknowledging it to the team. It was one of those moments that just required us to recognize it and then we’d have been okay with it.

Mistake number three: We didn’t do a great job of matching up defensively. UCSB has some nasty match ups and their offense allows for some real opportunism on the part of its main players (stay and handle, cut deep, run the lane,) which in turn makes matching up a lot trickier because a defender has to be good at guarding all threats. We have a deep, athletic team with a bunch of great defenders, so we didn’t get ruined by matchups; we just missed occasionally. Andrea Romano, Kaela Jorgenson and Carolyn Finney gave us trouble the whole way, but Marie Madaras played great and we never accounted for her.
In the end, the game was decided by two UCSB runs. We played wonderful, gritty ultimate to open the first half and took leads at 5-3 and 6-4. Then UCSB ran off four in a row to take half. We opened the second half with a break and then traded all the way out to 10-11. Then UCSB ran off three in a row. 10-14. Final: 11-15. Damn.

And now, some odds and ends to close up with. This year was really cool for women’s ultimate. I think the top of the division was stronger than it has ever been with six teams having a real shot at the finals (us, UCSB, UW, UW, Stanford and Ottawa.) This is the first year I’ve ever seen the women’s field stronger than the men’s field. I think the men’s division is still deeper, but the top of the women’s division was better this year than the top of the men’s (Florida and Oregon were missed.)
The weather was a huge factor in the success or failure of a lot of teams. Everyone was ready for the heat, but the total lack of wind was incredible. We played one windy half (first half against UCSB and both teams were so good at that point we just ignored it,) but the rest of the weekend was still, dead air. Who did this help? Us, Stanford, UCLA. Who did it hurt? Wisco, Ottawa, USC. It probably hurt the AC teams.

Lastly, I want to complement the UPA on a wonderful event. Hands down the best organized and best run tournament I have been to. (That’s out of ~300 tourneys, 14 College Nationals, 8 Club Nationals and 2 World Clubs.) Every year it gets better and better. This year the big improvements were in the quality of the observers and the schedule. I saw three missed calls all weekend in all games I watched and coached. I still have reservations about a four day Nationals (it is at such a cost to school, work and family,) but once it is underway, it is lovely. Two games a day makes for excellent ultimate, lots of socializing and lots of spectating.