Burning Ring

Back on top again


And all is right in the Midatlantic.

Congrats to qualifiers Ring, Truck Stop, Oakland, Southpaw.

This weekend I played with Ellis Kim's Seatless Bicycle. Or, 9 no 14 no 13 no 7 no 8 /27ths of our roster. That is to say, At sectionals we had about 13 guys. Which was good. At Regionals which was on October First and Se, no Oct. Eighth andbutsoitmightbe October First still in Kennett Squa... no, definitely October Eighth and Ninth in Poolesville as was originally planned as a backup. No, we're going to Kennett Square probably this weekend.

Point is, we went from about 27 guys on the roster (at least 4 of whom we never saw all year) to expecting 24 for Regionals. Then we were expecting 14 maybe 18 for Regionals when it was rescheduled. Then we gained or lost depending on where it was that weekend and how late we found out as the weekend approached.

We had 14. I think. A guy from Fishtown in my car forgot his cleats. But he remembered his Roots and to lock the front door. Beam to North Philly for the never-materializing-for-club-ultimate-"Dundee", fly to west Philly for Cuatro and Smellis and then back to the beginning of this sentence. Back to Fishtown.

95 to 322 to 1 to the game just started over there versus Cash Crop.

We have possessions on O and D that end in drops. Some in the endzone. Some just bizarre. Finkbot is overheating. Some multiple-drop points on our side. Too many points are being played. We lose 15-8.

Next round versus Medicine Men. We have more drops. We are down at half. Then we go on a mini-run to start the second half. How many drops? Too many, money. It was unreal. Surreal. Hyperreal.

No, just really actually normal real. For a team with no pracices and too much rain everywhere to play anything against other teams... it was expected. Irene knocked over the goddamn Bike.

Med Men win 15-8.

Cash Crop plays like they know they're good.
Med Men play like they have to prove to you and each other they're good.

They're both not bad.

Through two games, we found one consistent way to fail.

We play competent defense and messy though competent offense.

Then we get a sectionals rematch vs Hypnotoad who is clearly more excited to play us this time around than they were at sectionals. And we are clearly less excited to be playing them at this point in the day. We get out to a couple of leads, and then have more drops and they put it up with enough success that that convert some of their break opportunities on the key notion that most of us have already played far more points per hour than this contract called for. Some guy had to farm. Another guy is working in Illinois. Some gotta do grants and shit. Some have wife-passes that turn into pumpkins and some's wife-passes contain no-raincheck clauses. And then there are guys who can't spell their own first names.

Oh, and it definitely didn't help us that our biggest cutter and most reliable deep threat, Nick Scheiner, seemed to have definitively hurt his knee going up faaaar too early for a disc and getting undercut by a defender. Yikes.

Then a Sectionals Rematch vs the three seed from another pool: Bearproof. This is like the adult version of Hypnotoad. This does not end well for EKSB since we have lost our will to actually run deep on defense and attempt to substitute "stand rather deep and hope they don't throw it" which doesn't work against a team that it used to winning or losing by throwing it anyway and our deep defenders are like 5'10". Loss for us, with fewer drops, 9-15.

And now we're eliminated from the series. Series results:

7-15 L Southpaw
11-15 L Bearproof
15-8 W Gavel
13-2 W Princeton
13-5 W Hypnotoad
13-5 W Lehigh Alums

8-15 L Cash Crop
8-15 L Medicine Men
15-13 W Hypnotoad
9-15 L Bearproof

5-5, played against 2 teams outside our section. Tomorrow we play in the kiddie pool!

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Most of our team declard themselves out for the next day. We talked some of them back into it... but... One of them had to get to a hospital the next day... Anyway, a crazy trip to the beer-excellent Pinocchio's Pizza was undertaken.

The next morning had us pitted against Queen City Thunder who were unsure if we would show. I too was unsure. We got 7 on by about 9:15. On o the guys who didn't get on was from Rutgers and was there before the rest of us. Not Smellis.

They were up pretty big. I think still up big at half. Maybe 2-8 or 3-8? Then we were up 9-8.

Then we traded and went on mini runs or something until it was 11-12 and they were pulling to us. I got it and overthrew a 55yd blade to Venose. Which is hard to do. They scored to make it 11-13, game to 14. Some cap something was involved in there, not sure when, but this was the correct result.

We scored, they scored, game over.

Yay, we finish 13th?

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Wait, we finished sectionals and regionals without playing a single team from western PA? No ugly-since-1995 game against Pittsburgh? Weird.

Southpaw and Oakland are real.

The difference btw Southpaw and Oakland is vast but little.

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Update of Southpaw's record, into tiers:

to make:
0-1 v Chain, Furious, Revolver (-22 pf diff, -7.33 per game)
1-3 v Ironside (-18 pt diff, -4.5 per game)

2-4 v PoNY (-11 pt diff, -1.83 per game)
0-1 v Voodoo, GB, Ring (-5 pt diff, -1.67

2-1 v Cash Crop (-1, -.25)
3-0 v Oakland, NexGen (+6 pt diff, +2 per game)

2-1 v MedMen (+9 pt diff, +3 per game)
1-0 v Truck Stop (+4)
1-0 v Dire Wolf, Hypnotoad, VA Squires (+16, +5.33)
1-0 v Bear Proof, EKSB (+15, +7.5)
2-0 v Philly Gavel, QCT, Swell(+34, +11.33)

Looking at that, knowing that they're going to Nationals, what might you wonder? How did they do against Truck stop at Regionals? Never Happened.

How about now that Cash Crop isn't there? Cash Crop v Truck Stop never happened. At all. All season. How about Cash Crop v Ring? Never happened at Regionals.

In the Sunday 1pm round, 4 teams all played nationals-level games. They all proved theselves worthy. Ring and Truck played a great final. 15-14. Oakland and Cash Crop played a great 14-13 game next door. All of those teams are Nationals-level.

Southpaw is Nationals-level too. But Medicine Men were not up to the level of play that equals that round in the bracket. If you're playing, you're playing either "Finals" or "Game to go" or "Game to Go Home". There are 4 teams alive for 2 spots. After this round, There will be 2 alive for 1 spot. Losing 15-10... puts you in the place you were before regionals. Just like you were the round before, losing 15-10 to the Haiders. Even EKSB playing savage only lost by 2 that round! I mean, if you're gonna upset the pool, do something with it.

Cash vs Southpaw in the game-to-go was predictable. Cash needed to take Oakland's path to advance. They didn't have the depth to stay with Southpaw in the 8th round of the weekend. Speaking of which, how cool would it have been to be the 8 or 9 seed in this format?? Basically play a 17pt exhibition game against the 1 seed, get a bye, and play one game that has no consequence w/r/t elimination? Sweet, right? Well, the Squires got rewarded with Pool D + W v Bear Proof (L to Oakland, Southpaw) to get Eliminated. Dire Wolf beat Swell and Capitol Punishment to lose to Med Men.

Or how about the notion that 6/7 Founders Teams, if seeds held, would have rematches on the first day. One for an elimination game. c3vb3. one for the last game of the only two eliminated teams on day 1: c4vb4. Someone in there could have been switched somewhere, right? Some matchup up or down one?

Anyway.

Southpaw might still be your 2011 "litmus test" AKA "TMITIU".