RecapSummer 2019House Tully vs. House Tarth

The 1v2.  You gotta love when that happens so late in the season.  There’s been some epic battles fought between the top two seeds in the final few weeks, sometimes with records on the line.  Most notably I remember 2013 in Men’s Division between the #1 seeded Wisconsin Whitewater Warhawks and the #2 seeded Texas Tech Red Raiders on the second to last week of the season on Party Friday.  Man do I miss Party Friday.  That was a good tradition.  It’s almost worth putting up with the gopher holes at Balboa for one day.  Anyway, White ended up beating Red by a score of 17-9 which significantly took away Red’s chances of breaking the record for greatest point diff in Summer League history.

Last night’s game didn’t have as much on the line, but it was still fun to see 1v2.  So let’s hear from Jackson Tully with the story:

This recap begins not on Thursday night, but 12 hours earlier with Buster and I discussing subs and talking about our upcoming opponent. Much of the conversation revolved around Buster mentioning how fast Tarth is across the board, and me responding with things like, “we can play zone” or “we’ll be fine”. Maybe Tarth is faster and taller than us, but we have the overblown confidence of a middle-aged white man. We’ll be fine!

It was not fine. They are so fast. Holy crap. We tried zone and other defensive looks, and they were content to work it up with the field with swings and little inside looks. So many high release backhands.

We managed to go up a couple breaks early by taking advantage of the rare opportunities given to us by incredible Ds or Tarth miscues, but every time we thought we were pulling away, Tarth came back with a vengeance, bringing it to 7-6 and 12-11 before we finally put the game away 15-12. The game got a little physical at times and there were some dicey foul calls, but honestly everyone kept their cool and was able to play a really focused and intense game without things getting chippy. Shouts to Tarth for spirit, I would expect no less from the Pink team.

Also shouts to the hedge knight Nugget from House Baratheon. She put in work for House Tully tonight at a time when we needed the help. The Tully women embodied the true fierceness of Catelyn Tully tonight, but they appreciated the extra set of legs.

With this win, House Tully, the self proclaimed White Bread of Westeros, now has the most claim to the LAOUT Throne.

It is true.  They have emerged from among the crowded 5W group to be the sole 6W team.  Two more games to solidify bragging rights.  Buster captaining a team to first place while I sit at second to last in Men’s only tells me I really should’ve listened to her more when we drafted a team together last year.  Sorry.  My bad.

Beware of Tarth though.  The color with the most tournament wins in Summer League history is Pink.  (With 4.)  For the record, the color that has had the most teams to never win Summer League is Orange.  21 teams have been Orange.  Zero tournament wins.  Just stuff for future captains to think about.

And how can you have a Tarth game without hearing from recap legend Reed Tarth.  Here we go:

Prologue:

I was so pumped for my first Thursday live band karaoke night at Joxers that I took off work to attend.

There was a really good beer tasting down the street at Vendome Toluca Lake that I HAD to attend right before our game. (This part is just for Chris Walthers, Adair and any other beer nerds: two great Cellador ales, and FO on the list, all bottles/cans on the list at 15% off. Let’s go before a game sometime (I can’t believe that FO is available on shelves now after years of F5ing bombers and driving to Anaheim for pickup.))

Steve Austin’s 3-16 Stone Cold facts about tonight’s game/bar:

• Brandon went to his first bar ever!!!
• Joxer’s’ Live band karaoke takes a day off every 2 months or so. Tonight was that “so” and I am still very pissed. I have so many songs inside me.
• Maria Duke IS Stephanie “Mandell” Schaffer. They’re the same person, but one of them time traveled 11 years forwards/backwards, depending on which multiverse/reality/timeline you believe you inhabit. Either way…they are the same person.
• Maria Duke formulated a 10 year plan with the aid/observance of her future self. Dictated by Armand DeBose:

(The numbering errors on this 10 year plan was prob a formatting error on Armand’s part, but I’m going to choose to believe that he left Maria a “gap year” between age 30-31 for some eat pray love walkabout spirit quest Rumspringa type journey.)

• Stephanie Schaffer already told her former self that “year 9” could be skipped and her signature drink is “that champagne cocktail with a number in it…65…72?

Me: “A French 75?”

Steph: “YES!”

• I have to admit, great signature drink for a person that doesn’t drink. Just obscure enough to appear exotic/high maintenance, great tasting, relatively low ABV, classy to slowly sip at a party.
• At 33 I have already accomplished 5/10 of Maria/Steph’s 10 year plan.
• House Tarth DOES NOT have a target on our back. Look, we started off strong and grabbed the no. 1 spot early, but we just lost 2 in a row and are happy with losing out and going into the Tourney as underdogs. So don’t feel like you have to play super conservative and tight against us. Just chill and let’s do the summer league casual huck it away thing. We’re cool?
• Tully is a really good team and Armand is a legit hucker. That guy is scary good. And you can’t rattle Buster by making her throw lefty flicks. I tried. LA lefties are getting better.
• Pre and Steph are really fast, never get tired, and it might be Tarth’s downfall. It’s just too tempting to throw bad hucks to them.

Brandon is the smilyest guy ever

• Tarth won the bar. No contest.
• An absence of karaoke did not stop Maria Duke from singing her T R U T H

See year 1 of the 10 year plan

• Armand was the first to name 5 Chinese dynasties and I had to buy him a drink.

• Armand lives in K-Town now.

• I confidently beat my first zone as the center handler. It was a 6 person zone BUT IT STILL COUNTS DAMMIT!

Lanz showed up boot free, in street clothes still on the IR, but drew a great courtroom sketch of our game on the dry erase board. (it was really well done with a good forced perspective, but I just went to look and it had been erased……)

OK enough fun facts, here’s some pics:

A study in time travel:

The rest is all a blur!

Oh and while I’m here, pics from the end of Jo’s 30th a few weeks ago:

Tully captain with a mysterious redhead resting on her shoulder:

A mysterious redhead silencing a blurry  X-Man…

Me and Jo violently attacking the same dummy

Passive aggressive ending to an otherwise jovial recap:

If you have giant pieces of metal bracing the joints on both your knees, please exhibit more body control and field awareness when throwing yourself about the pitch. For your own health and others.

Epilogue:

 I friggin love my team and am totally cool losing out with them. In fact, we might just peace out and start a beach Badminton team, sipping French 75s for the rest of the summer. Live that L.A. dream, really grab life by the shuttlecock.

I’m in for the badminton team.  Or was that not a full community invite? I’m just saying, there needs to be more badminton. Have you ever watched slow motion Olympic doubles badminton?  It’s like ballet.

Maria Duke’s karaoke performance when there was no karaoke is for the ages.  I approve.  I love that Joxer’s is the kind of bar that will let you go on stage for the hell of it.

I’ve only done 4 of the 11 things on her list.  Unless my swim trunks count as a 1-piece.

I actually edited a David Reed recap.  And it feels weird.