RecapSummer 2018Brian Griffin vs Blue’s Clues

Right behind Scooby Doo are four other teams at 4-1 right now, Brian Griffin, Underdog, Ren and Nyan Cat.  So even though we have one undefeated team, this season is still wide open.  If Alex Carey was doing a power rankings, he would’ve noted that Scooby Doo has only faced one team so far with a winning record, which is Princess Unikitty, currently in 6th place.  Scooby Doo still has Ren and Brian Griffin to face on their schedule, and both of those teams are looking good.

Here’s Brian’s Stephen Thies to discuss their most recent victory:

Team Brian, not to be confused with player Brian on Team Brian, took on Blue’s Clues and captain Bryan Last night.

Wait, time out.

Andy, what’s the most popular men’s name in LAOUT? All these Brian/Bryan’s has me confused, but I feel like it’s nowhere near the amount of Andrew/Andy/Drew’s or I’m inclined to believe it’s Steve/Steven/Stephens, but I may just be overly aware of other Steve’s because it’s my name and why I go by Thies on the field (can I bring back one of my college nicknames? Jello or Scuba?)

Anyway back to the game.

We started off by cheering “Brian! Brian! Brian! Brian! Brian!” and Bryan Devore was getting super pumped up, so we had to stop. Luckily for us, it pumped us up more than him. Team Brian started on O and scored the first two points of the game. The first point was pretty hard fought with a lot of turns, but eventually TB was able to overcome.

Blues Clue’s responded and scored the third point, but things were just not going their way last night. TB took half at 8-2.

TB talked mostly about having fun at half and going over our Ho-Stack briefly, while I’m pretty sure Blue’s Clue’s timeout must have looked something like this.

And it “mostly” worked.

Blue’s Clues came out with plenty of energy and a strong zone D in the second half and TB came out with little energy. It was not a great combo for TB, but luckily TB had built up a decent cushion. TB got complacent on O and we didn’t really work their zone and Blue’s Clues was able to get some pretty easy turnovers and convert them to scores.

TB took the game, 15-8 (I think?) but the second half was obviously much closer than the first.

Shoutouts on TB

KB with some great mark defense, Joy for digging out my garbage throw for a score, David and JJ for pulling in big scores to keep the momentum on our side during long points and a HUGE shoutout to Skipper, Jeni, and Molly for playing with us since we only had two of our own ladies for the night. They crushed it.

Shoutouts on Blues Clues to all their ladies who ran hard and touched the disc all night and the guy in the orange shoes and socks who the offense seemed to run through.

Good question about the names.  I know you asked for men’s names, but I’m including women’s names too.  Most common are:

6 of Alec/Alex/Alexa/Alexandra
8 of Breanna/Brian/Bryan
6 of Chris/Christi/Toph
7 of Dan/Daniel/Danny
7 of Eric/Erica/Erick
8 of Joanna/Joanne/John/Johnny/Johnson/Jonathan
6 of Matt/Matthew
7 of Stephanie/Stephen/Steve

There are 11 derivations of Andrew/Andrea.  Andre Xiong, Andrea Rosas, Andrew Goh, Andrew Grangaard, Andrew Kalicki, Andrew Schwartz, Andrew Tight, Andy Bandit, Andy Brown, Andy Hasler and Drew Conley.

But the winner is the 13 derivations of Michael.  Michael Cotter, Michael Miller, Michael Russo, Michael Schwartz, Michael Theologidy, Michael Wilson, Michael Zurer, Miguel Cuevas, Mike Del Spina, Mike Dow, Mike Dykes, Mike Peebler and Mike Schlesinger.  Probably because Mike is so common, 11 of these players go commonly either by their nickname or last name.  And there were no Michelles.

You cannot bring back either Jello or Scuba without explaining what they mean.

Next up is Bryan DeVore from Blue’s Clues’ side:

I’m sitting at home digesting the night with a quart of ice cream in front of me. That sounds worse than I mean it to… I love Blue’s Clues and everything our team is. I also love copious amounts of ice cream.

For Blue’s Clues, the game was rough. We didn’t play the ultimate that we have been playing for the last 5 weeks. We seemed to forget everything that we had worked on the previous weeks. Radka pointed out that we don’t have the normal handling core that we have grown accustomed to and that contributed to some scrambling on the dump sets.

We win the flip and come out on D. A lucky drop nets us the disc and we take a shot to the end zone that is a bit too far. Brian battles back to take the point. We play the next offensive point and Skipper gets a hand block almost on the goal line and they convert for an easy point.

Blue and Brian exchange deep shots on the next point, but none can connect. Eventually Blue converts through stringing together a few hard cuts.

2-1 Brian

This is where the game gets out of hand. A few turns on dump sets and Brian’s smooth offense nets them a few points. We kept meticulous score on the board as always, but it’s a blur at this point. The next score I remember is 6-2. All credit to Brian for their offense after a turnover, but Blue gave them many free opportunities to score.
Half at 8-2(?) Brian

I gave the most ridiculous half time “pump up” I could muster. I can’t remember everything I said, but it involved a control panel of emotions in your brain and Tom Ford. DShu would have been proud.

After half, we start throwing zone and it works in our favor. A drop after many passes leads to a turnover. Next point, Holmes makes a great play on a swing and we punch it in. Radka D’s a pass that tries to go through the cup. Converted. We end up trading points or close to it after half and end at 15-8 Brian.

The difference between the first and second half was remembering a bunch of the things that we have talked about and playing ultimate like we’re used to. As a team, we agreed that the score doesn’t matter and the only thing that does is getting better for the tournament. If we had played the first half like we played the second half, we had a shot at winning the game.
Hats off to Brian though as they brought their A game from start to finish.

Shoutouts:
Steph had a layout for a huck that was so close to being a score! Love the effort!
Brian Griffin had a bunch of lefty throwers that all abused our marks and broke our downfield defense. Damn you Snacks, Brad, and whoever else I’m missing. Lincoln isn’t a lefty, but he threw basically whatever he wanted so maybe he goes in that category….
Skipper absolutely shredded our defense and did it all with the biggest smile. Definitely the kindest person on the field, but brutal when she is playing against you.
Radka continues to breathe life into our play with a huge bid to save possession and multiple Ds
Every member of Blue that continued to push as hard as they could through thick and thin to make meaningful contributions to the game. Great team effort and wonderful sideline involvement.

Joxers:
Blue is undefeated at the bar. In fact, I’m not sure a rostered member of Brian Griffin made an appearance. Really a sad day because I met a total of 0 new friends. I think that 14 Blues made it out to the bar. They could’ve joined us for picklebacks, tequila shots, and lots of beer! I’m pretty sure that Blue should tone it down a bit in Joxer’s after pokey in the bar. Luckily, we don’t return there this year, but I’m hoping that we didn’t ruin the great service for everyone else.

They were probably just wondering where Lu was for the lap dances.

I’d write more, but everybody’s watching England vs. Croatia on my floor.  Don’t people work around here?  Oh wait.