RecapSummer 2018Ren vs Lady

Oh my God, it’s games like this when I feel bad for all of you, that I get the advantage of not knowing the score in advance of reading the recap.  It’s so much more fun when you don’t know the score, and you follow along with intensity, slowly scrolling through Christi’s recap to see who’s going to win.  It’s pretty exciting.  But it loses a little something when you already know the outcome.  Having said that, I still enjoyed “TITANIC” even though I was pretty sure the boat was gonna sink.  And I enjoy playing ping pong with Ethan Lacoe, even though I know how it’s going to turn out.  He’s going to beat me, and then he’ll tell me the merits of buying a more expensive paddle.  But I’m not going to Ethan.  I’m not gonna do it.

I put out a poll a few years ago, and you guys voted that you wanted to know the score before reading the recap.  So it shall remain….

Here’s Christi No More Betz:

I arrived at the fields at about 7:40pm, and the parking lot was PACKED. Cars were circling the lot, and jamming up traffic just waiting for spots. Apparently a lot happening at Rancho Cienega tonight. Definitely going to be an interesting night.

Lady starts on offense and we quickly do our Lady thing with an unforced turn, allowing Ren to strike first with a break. Balls. But something different was in the air tonight because all of a sudden, we were up 3-1! We’ve been keeping score with shoes, and too many of our teammates kept questioning the score when they’d walk by. Nobody could believe we were leading! One early point we had a deep shot to Stig, who was being marked by Kwok and they both went up for it, but Stig came down with it. It was a really beautiful play, and one of the non-frisbee men roaming the field saw it too. He was definitely impressed. +1 for Ultimate.

But of course, Ren wasn’t going to let us run off with the game and they worked their way back up. Tied at 7s, Greta has a deep cut to the endzone, but her girl is pretty close on her, and then Dory who was guarding me streaks deep to help, and then Colin and his guy come into the mix. Colin got the disc, but one of the Ren ladies (Ellen?) stepped on Greta’s foot/ankle and took her down hard. Greta had been on fire this game so apparently Ren decided to take her out. She sat out the rest of the game with her ankle on ice. On top of that, I don’t even remember what the call was, but Colin’s score didn’t count, the disc went back. We turned it, and then Ren took half. I smell sabotage.

Second half was much the same as the first. Everyone was playing to win, and Lady was looking pretty good! We tied at 11s and then all of a sudden it’s 9:58pm and the score is 13-14 Lady. Say what?! Game point?? AND the lights could go out at any second? Stig encourages us to get on the line so we can win this right and not let the lights decide it. And then the rest of the game goes something like this:

Tied at 14s

15 – 14 Ren (Please don’t let the lights go out yet!)

Tied at 15s

16 – 15 Lady (WHY ARE THE LIGHTS STILL ON??)

Tied at 16s

Final 17 – 16 Ren

UGHH sooooo close! But, like, we won the bar, so whatevs.

Question for Andy: At one point, a Ren dude marking a cutter D’d a disc with his foot. A foul was called for the foot block, but there was a lot of confusion if the no foot blocks rule is strictly for the Mark position, or if it applies across the board. Please advise.

Colin and Daniel did ask me about this separately in an email chain, so I’ll say here what I told them:

It’s an interesting situation. I guess my feeling is that people shouldn’t be kicking at all. A kick is more powerful than a punch, and the whole reason I’ve restricted foot blocks is I hate the fact that kicking is allowed in this sport at all.

I’ve had so many debates with people about this because I know my feelings are in the minority about foot blocks, but really the part I don’t like isn’t foot blocks per se but “kick blocks”. People who kick their foot up above the knee level to block throws that aren’t even that low is my least favorite part of the sport. That’s how wrists and hands get broken, and I’ve experienced it personally. I even watched a USAU video on how to be a marker, and one of the things the person on the video said was something like “if they go to throw it low, kick your foot over there. Once they see they can get their hand broken, they won’t throw there anymore.” That’s not the actual quote, but it was very similar to that, and I couldn’t even believe that was in a USAU video.

So yeah, I guess my feeling is all kicking should be inhibited so I’d probably call it a foul.