RecapSummer 2018Scooby Doo vs Dynomutt

Hanna-Barbera, who pretty much owned animated shows in the 70’s and 80’s that didn’t have Bugs Bunny in them, had a Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour in 1976 on ABC, where the two teamed up together to solve crimes.

Here’s the theme song:

I was 4 years old at the time. I vaguely remember this.  It does give me a lot of joy to bring back these characters four decades later in Summer League.

I secretly hope my two dogs will team up together to fight crime.  Mostly, the crime of home invasion.  It’s nice to have a dog that barks a lot.  But she’s a small dog so I don’t know how intimidating her barking is to a potential burglar.  And she’s easily distracted by treats.

Scooby and Dyno were on oppo sides last night.  And Scooby’s Seth Gillum is here with the narration:

Scooby Doo vs. Dynomutt. In Santa Monica. Fascinating thing about our last two games on the westside. Traffic has been really good. A charming surprise. But let’s get to the game.

Scooby is short on women, but thankfully Buster and Sherry ride to the rescue, giving us 5 women for the night.

Game feels tight. Trading points to 4-4. Scooby got a lot of D’s, but it seemed we gave the disc right back. I knew the Dynomutt team pretty well, and in theory I knew what we wanted to stop. But knowing in theory is one thing, actually stopping the Dynomutt players is a different beast. Only after the game did I realize that we didn’t turn the disc on Offense at all. Which would have been an encouraging sign had I noticed. But instead it felt like we were one mistake away from being in trouble. We gave em some triangle, thought about the wall (but heard they played against it last week to a 15-8 victory) but decided person to person D would be best. But it’s tough. You know Julius will put it and go get it. You can count on Maggie breaking the mark with a step around backhand, You know Marcus is going to grind out open side cuts, et al.

We worked hard to take away some of what they wanted, but – you know- they are good. And you can’t take it away all the time.

Our Scooby O was on and off smooth. We are getting more continue cuts. And we didn’t trap ourselves on the sidelines very often. Which is fantastic to see the improvement over the past two weeks.

Noteworthy plays – Sooo many. Robin with a nice diving grab that I think was out of bounds, but an unbelievable grab. A guy from Dynomutt seemed to magically get in front of John Worden for a needed grab early in the game (I was already counting that D solely based on positioning). The ladies of Dynomutt did a little too well for my liking against the triangle. With throws and patience, they always seemed to be able to get the disc off of the trap side. Derek threw a monster forehand from the power position to a streaking Molly which broke the game open for us. It was so exciting to watch, I think it fired us all up. We ran our first pull play of the year to Justin (who is very fast). That one went just as we drew it up. Two throws. It felt a little unfair, because we hit him on the break side as well. It’s one thing to have to chase the team’s fastest player, but to the breakside… that’s almost impossible to D.

But the big plays don’t tell the story of this game. Everyone on Scooby touched the disc, made important plays, adjusted on D and all in all did more than I could hope for. There’s a lot of under cuts and swings that are vital to our team success that you don’t really write up. But they are really important to the game. Even turning to get the disc off the sidelines early in the stall count. That can be a difference maker. But who wants to read, “player x really bounced that disc off the line consistently”?
But the little things matter. And Scooby did a lot of little things well on O and D.

Hats off to Dynomutt. They played hard. And were far better than the final score reflects.

One very sad note. Sherry, who was fantastic for us as a sub, got injured last night. Our thoughts are with you, and all of us on Scooby Doo (and I’m sure so many more) are hoping for a speedy recovery and look forward to buying you a drink/playing with and against you again soon. Heal up.

Provided by one of our two injured players (Cam Armstrong) who came out to support – but also took notes. I thought the final score was 13-6. But I’m going with the note taker!
2-2
2-3
3-3 Seth to Brad
3-4
4-4 Seth to Erick
5-4 Derek deep huck to Molly
6-4 John to Erick
7-4 Foo to Derek
8-4 Erick to Molly
8-5
9-5 John deep huck to Justin
9-6
10-6 Seth to Corey
11-6 John to Brad
-Sherry injury-
12-6 Erick to Corey ??

Brad Rosen! Getting it done in the end zone!

The Sherry injury is really unfortunate.  She helped put together the new LA women’s club team Rampage this year and her injury will be a big blow to them.  So I second Seth’s words for a speedy recovery.

Interestingly, her injury comes right after the important deadline for replacement players.  Sherry plays on Ren.  Since they have now lost their first rounder to injury, they will get a temporary replacement for the next few weeks which is very likely to be fellow Rampage player Dory.  But if Dory wants to play in the tournament, she’ll have to go into the replacement draft on August 3 and then could be selected by another team.  These are new rules for this year to help prevent the drama that happened at the tournament last year.  (Although that’s hardly the first time that I’ve mistakenly given a team a replacement player who’s a lot better than the person they’re replacing, and it’s caused some tournament upsets, most notably Joey Chestnut in the Men’s division in 2012.)  I want to make replacements more fair and give more power to the captains.

Meanwhile, Scooby Doo is now 6-0 and continues to move closer to the potential immaculate season.  They are very unlikely however to break the record for greatest point diff.  They’re at +36 and the record is +81, Clarence Boddicker from 2016.  They would have to win by an average score of 15-3 in their final four games to beat that record.

But that’s not all.  Two and a half weeks later, we have another recap, from Dynomutt’s Michael Miller:

The air was thick with tension as the brave Mutts stepped up to face Scooby Doo. This was going to be a day to remember.

We started off with the disc, but slogged through a chaotic point of turnovers and great plays, before Chain punched it in with a throw to Dan. 1-0

And then the trades began. When Dan let fly his beautiful endzone throw over a mosh pit of brave dogs on both teams into Chain’s expecting hands, some swear the disc twinkled with the fleeting light of heaven itself. Yet this only counted for 1 measly point. Jamie’s professional put to Comet made the game look easy, while Dan’s gorgeous pulls made the enemy Doo’s have to slog every foot of the field to catch up to the Mutts. When it seemed we would get broken, Robin’s layout D allowed Ben and Julius to finish the point off with style, bringing the score to 4-3.

It was then that a fell glow began to illuminate the eyes of Scooby Doo. With a hideous cry, they threw themselves back into the game with a vengeance, bringing their score up faster than we could count. 4-5, 4-6, 4-7, and finally 4-8. It was a shocked pack of bionic pups that gathered at the half. But with an inspirational speech by Dan, they remembered their training, and entered the second half howling for a fight.

The brave DynoMutts got a break with an amazing hammer from Marcus to Jon, bringing the score to 5-8. We traded a bit after that, and Julius and Maggie made another one. 6-8. The sun had long set, and the lights letting the game go on would not last much longer. With the coming darkness came more loss, in the form of three more points handed over to the Mystery Gang’s dog.

And 5-11 is how the game ended. The DynoMutts played valiantly, with gusto and spirit. May we triumph another day.

I got the score 12-6 from Seth.  Since the two point diffs are the same, I’ll stick with Seth’s score. Also it’s hard to argue with a note taker.