Hey Everyone--

Well here it is, the last email of the Spring WAFC season....and I'm pretty sure thats a really good thing, since at this point I think I've probably crashed your email inbox with the, lets say, plentiful supply of emails I've been sending regarding the tournament.  

For those who weren't able to make it on Saturday, we played three games beginning at 9.  The weather started off cloudy and drizzly but got sunny towards the end...unfortunately, the humidity never left us, making for a long, tiring afternoon.  Still, we were competitive in all three of our games, and especially under the circumstances I think we did well.  While we didn't win any of our games, we still played tough all throughout.

Our first game was less of a game and more of a series of arguments, confrontations, and inflammatory statements.  The captain of I Dunno wanted to play 5:2, but we only had 5 guys and 3 girls, so we decided to try and stick to a 4:3 combo.  The other team's captain then unilaterally declared that his team would be playing 5:2 regardless of what we did, and the game kinda went downhill from that point.  There were several stoppages of play, some pretty heated conversations, and threats of assessing points or halting play until the situation was resolved.  Ultimately, we played 4:3 throughout, and were totally competitive with I Dunno, but in the end lost due to that nagging habit of ours of shooting ourselves in the foot.  Still, we played tough even when the opposing team's captain was acting like an ass, and we kept it competitive.

The second game was a much more friendly game, which we played as offense dictates.  We went point for point with Whoville Whos for much of the game, only to again shoot ourselves a little bit in the foot at the end, just enough to see the game slip away.  Still, considering that we had almost no subs and the other team had whole lines to sub in, I think we played pretty well.

In our final game against Rubber Sheets, we jumped out to an early 4-2 lead, and kept the score seesawing back and forth between each team.  Again, great effort on the part of everyone who was out there, as we were dead tired and facing a team that had plenty of fresh subs to come into the game.  In the end, we lost by a score of 13-10, but we definitely held our own and were competitive.

In terms of individual efforts:

RAY:  Awesome diving defense at a number of points to knock the disc away from our opponents...and a great catch in the endzone, trailing his toes in bounds so that his catch would count as a score.  Great job, Ray...few people I know could have made that catch and stayed in bounds.

TOM:  Great mid cuts against the cup, as Tom served as the kind of middle man on offense who would make a beautiful cut, get the disc, and then get the disc downfield to a waiting receiver.  Great defensive play as always as well.

ANYA: One of our handler extrodanaires, Anya helped keep the offense going by cutting threw our opponent's cup or man defenses with her awesome throws.  Three cheers for Maine!

MEGAN: Megan played great in her role as a popper on O, making some key catches to keep drives going and our offense moving.  Her spirit was great as usual, too, as she helped lead the team with her calls for stacks and shouts of encouragement.  

JEANIE: Jeanie had some amazing catches, especially one that was of a throw by yours truly which was, lets just say, less than the model of perfection.  But Jeanie caught that catch as well as several others that were tough ones to grab...Great effort out there as always.

PAT: Many of us had heard stories about this ancient legend known as Patty Pants, however few had seen him this season...but we certainly did Saturday. Pat came just in the nick of time, coming to play in the third game as everyone was tired and wearing out from the other games.  Pat was all over the field, making some great (though I'm sure painful) bids and playing great man-to-man defense against Rubber Sheets.

ALAN: As always, great leadership on and off the field, and amazing play while in the game.  Great catches, great throws, and some nice defensive stops....not to mention carrying the argument against the I Dunno captain.  A fine effort in both games.

Special thanks goes to Rich, Maloney, and Kevin (known respectively as Galen, Tim, and Ben on this roster-only day) for showing up and playing with us in those last 2 games.  They all played well, and helped keep our team going when fatigue was starting to set in.  

Again, thanks to everyone for coming out to play this entire season.  Everyone really played an important role in the games they played, and I just want to thank you all for signing up and committing to play at the games.  Without that, we wouldn't have been able to do this. Thanks to all, and great play by everyone! Be sure to come back in the fall. 

I'm gonna share something that black pants from I Dunno told me on Saturday-- he said that he was shocked when he saw our record, that we were one of the toughest teams his team had played all season.  I think thats a pretty good summation of the quality of talent on our team.  Our talent level meets or exceeds almost all the other teams in our division. Our record this season doesn't show a lack of talent, or effort, or spirit.  It just shows the lack of consistency that comes with not having time to gel much as a team.  Its something we'll work on next season.  Still, I just want to make sure that no one gets down about our team just because of the numbers in our record.  As a team, we really have the talent and skill to compete and win a lot of games...we just need to be more consistent and play with each other more.  Again, we'll work on that in the fall.

Overall then, I'm really happy with how the season went.  We might not have won a lot of games, but I'd like to think that we had a lot of fun, and we certainly had periods of excellence in almost all the games we played.  All we need to do now to get a winning record is gain a little more consistency in our playing, and I know that we can do that.

We'll send you emails about the fall season in late August probably.  Until then, if you need to contact either Alan or I, please use our normal email addresses (30woods@cua.edu for Alan, and kipperdaves@hotmail.com for Dave) rather than the cuawafc one, since we probably won't be checking that much over the summer.  Keep an eye on your email for tournaments that might be coming up, and if you know of one in your area that you think CUltimate could field a team for, feel free to use the Ultimate webpage to email everyone about it. Check out the UPA website (www.upa.org) for info on leagues and pickup games in your area. 

Anyways, thanks for a great season and have an excellent summer.  See you either later in the summer or in the fall! 

Dave