Kaimana 1

I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man.

pic from Kaveh Kardan

(Back: Trey, Raja, A.Peters, Eug, TP)
(Front: Rob, dusty, Tim, Jamie, Butter, Furf, Jimmy)

Semis? That's not too shabby. We played some terrible games and lost, some medium games and won some, some good/great games and won.

10/12ths of our team smiled in the picture (see above).

2/12ths of our team+1 were in a fender bender due to "kids in a bike in a field across the road who later pointed and laughed at our dented bumper... And rightfully so." The American Dream was rumored, at the time, to've had a beverage here man. But not the driver. Who wasn't driving.

3/12ths+3 of our team spent the pre-KK22 week in Kaua'i. BeautifulGreen. I still prefer the Big Island's massive views, but this place was right in its own right. The glass sand beach is strange enough to have been compared to a marketing gimmick of the highest order (as a compliment) by Poppa Bear while not wearing his hair in JayBay-coined "L.A. Douche Bag style."

Kaua'i: Notes
Waimea Canyon: Virtual Infinitude of roosters.
Kalaheo Coffee Co. & Cafe: Breakfast.
Kalalau Trail (Na Pali Coast): Difficult at night.
Hanakapi'ai Falls: Worth the hike.
Koke'e Park: Hike-n-sleep w/ Full Moon.
Hanalei Bay: Nice, quiet little beach community replete w/ real reactionaries.
Ninini Point: Sweeeeet.
Po'ipu: Sunsets.
Princeville: Unreasonably inflated gas prices.
Any Fresh Fish Market: Buy poke. Drink White Wine. Repeat.

9/12ths+8 of our team went to a beachhouse on the North Shore post-KK22. Edward PairedPseudoSub-40hands, Caserace pilots, "Shu, shu-shu, shu-shu-shu-shu [BUTTER!]," beaches, cliff-jumping, sunrises, beers, hangover cures, kegs-n-eggs, drinking asshole, shooting the moon many times (and still-owed drinks), making ice-blended drinks out of whatever, too many hamburgs/hoddogs not enough poke/seafood, and so forth. Good times with folks from Philly I don't see often enough.

?/12ths +? of our team then went to Maui. Some Philthy/Phine/S.Dandys rumored to convene upon and/or win local hat tournament. Fun times, but I didn't make it this year. The expense-approval dept. doesn't appreciate the new $15 per bag convenience fees charged to the working press's line of credit to pad ledgers at failing airlines everywhere.

Anyway, snap back to reality.
We write about ultimate, right?

Game 1: the Stanford.
The college team. They had some runners and a couple clearly more experienced players. I'm assuming that this is not their full college team because we beat them pretty easily in the end. They could have beaten us-- we played very averagely in this game-- but they didn't. There were good individual plays on both sides. Good teamwork on the whole on the part of the Stanford.

Game 2: Skeletor.
Joined by one-time Philthy codefendant Toonsky, Skeletor remained skeletal. Toonsky, after passing on his chance to hitch his wagon to a PHILTHYstar, faded into obscurity by later joining a third team (Voltron) which didn't also win the tournament. This was after Skeletor and the Stanford later became one team after The Pulse got stung by a scorpion. Or sprained his ankle. What I'm trying to say is that the guy was a lopsided Hopalong Cassidy when we played the Stanford.
As Skeletor can confirm, Philthy did not play well in this game. Whether this lack of goodness was due to them or us is up for debate: I would say mostly us, they might say them. We lost by one.

"Kevin Der says hi."
"Nice! He should be here to tell me his own damn self."

Game 3: Bag-O-Wine
Game played during a box of rain (and wind). They ran some zones that we busted by mixing deep strikes and quick movement. Their man D, though very tight/aggressive, had consistent weaknesses. Their offense started out not turning it. Then their offense started and continued to turn it. And we kept scoring... eventually. We started to nail down the correct pace as a team (downfield and behind the disc) during this one. Timing works both ways in ultimate-- from handler to cutter and from cutter to handler.

(...much of the difference between positions is due to the importance of a player's throws on the run v. a player's throws on an established pivot...
...a better handler than a cutter, for example, reads the field before catching the disc and moves the disc before...
...primary cutters get in-cuts and then turn upfield to assess predetermined flight paths...
...[3rd?]...)

Game 4: Aloha Spirit Team.
The opposition included some more familiar faces. We got this win too, though there were some ridiculous(ly exciting?) deep throws on both sides.

Sweet. 3-1 is rarely a bad day.

Simultaneous to our Aloha Spirit game, as I learned later, the Stanford beat Skeletor (Which gave the Stanford sufficient confidence to bail on the power pool and combine with Skeletor to form "Some super loser team"* as Philthy Santa Cruz alums informed me) which made us #1 in the pool and the Stanford #2. On Day 2, after another first round bye, we would crossover with Ono and Sanban, the Japanese team.**

The night included much cross-cultural exchange.

That night, the Stanford was unable to sing American Pie. Unacceptable this tight to the anniversary of the day the music died. Will should cut each and every one of you.
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* - Unlike Voltron, which combined to form some super loser team without the blazing sword of their namesake. Else they would have dispatched Team UPS in the finals circa 1/3rd of the way after the third commercial break.

**- Which, now that I think about it, might mean that we played one more game than everyone else in our power pool, and that everyone in our power pool made the semis which all sounds perfect to me.
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(Kaimana Preface)
(Kaimana 2)