RecapWinter 2020Ninja Squirtles vs Scoober Divers

As you should all know by now, Culver City High School fields have been very strict about our permit times. Since I live close to the fields and had a bye this week, I figured I’d head over and make sure everyone was good about not going onto the fields until 8pm and getting off promptly by 10pm. During that time, a few other things happened.

Here is a rather generous exaggeration of the details from Eric Brach of the Ninja Squirtles team.

Some times, there’s a frisbee game in which someone makes it immediately apparent that they are unstoppable. They are the MVP, the Baal Shem Tov, and the uncoverable spirit of Jeff H. Chai all rolled into one.

There was someone at Culver City last night, and her name is Christi Betz.

The Ninja Squirtles and the Scoober Divers arrived to Culver City High School last night to find some flag football players on the field. No biggie; that happens all the time. But at 8pm, those footballers were still busily at it. A quick check determined that yes, they planned to keep playing, and yes, they had permits! Worst of all, they were only using half the field, but they planned to expand to the second half of the field in a short time, too — meaning that there would be nowhere for the Ninja Squirtles and the Scoober Divers to chuck discs.

So what happened? Did we pout? Did we fight? Did everyone go home?

No. Christi Betz stepped onto the line.

In short order, Christi negotiated for the football folks to delay their second game until 9pm, so at least Ninja Squirtles and Scoober Divers could get the first of their game in on a split field. Quickly, the Ninja Squirtles and the Scoober Divers started to play. Halftime did indeed come at around 8:45pm, calling near the specter of 9pm and the looming prospect of being relegated to a partial-field game, with space for only 5v5 (if that). But once again, Christi thought quickly and RE-negotiated –echoes of Andy Bandit-level genius here — orchestrating a double-swap that sent BOTH fields of flag footballers over to the smaller lacrosse field and moving the other frisbee game over to the football field, allowing both frisbee teams to share the football field — and to both finish their games! — while the smaller-field flag footballers split the lacrosse area.

Everyone, regardless of their team or sport of choice — finished their games last night and woke up today happy — save the Culver City High School permit office, who will surely be getting an earful — and every point of sportsball played owed its very existence to the STUNNING efforts of Christi Betz. She didn’t even need cleats to dominate the night.

MVP! MVP! Christi Betz! MVP!

(Also, Scoober Divers and Ninja Squirtles traded ’til half, 7-8, and then Squirtles pulled away. Lots of people played well and everyone seemed to have fun. But let’s not lose focus. In summary: Christi Betz, 2020. Vote early and often.)

Occasionally people make mistakes and double book fields. Last night happened to be one of those nights. Rest assured, we’ll be sorting through this with Culver City to make sure we’re all squared away in the weeks to come. For now, just remember to check your field number when you’re playing at Culver.

Field 1: Lacrosse field (far field across from the football field)
Field 2: Football field (main field with the big stadium bleachers)
Field 3: Football field (if this is scheduled, there will be two games side-by-side on this field)

And in case Brach’s recap left you wanting a little more details on the actual game, World Famous Maria Duke of Scoober Divers has your back.

Hello!

After the reaming I got for the inaccuracies in last week’s recap, I crowd-sourced all the below game-related information from my team in the post-game huddle. Any ultimate-related inaccuracies are 100% Mr. Brock (our fearless captain’s) fault. Feel free to shame him in the comments. Any pop-culture mistakes are completely my own. Onto the ‘cap!

Monday night was high intensity and action-packed from the moment we stepped on the field. It was also action-packed about 30 minutes before we were allowed to set foot on the field, as there was a flag football game happening on the same field and everyone had permits. I’ll let Christi go into more details here if she feels like it. At 8pm sharp, we finally stepped foot on the field and after strenuous warm-ups which included (among other things) running around the aforementioned field, halfheartedly throwing the disc to each other, and S.H.A.R.D. complaining about her hip, we were ready to play! Scoober Divers beat Ninja Squirtles on the flip, Mr. Brock decided we were on defense and called a line, and the game began! Now, if there’s a fandom that I know, love and am 1,000% a part of, it’s Pokemon! After collecting cards for exactly 1 year (looking at you, 2005!) and pooling my pennies with my twin sister to buy a Gameboy advance + Pokemon Sapphire (our first and last game), clearly those pocket monsters are near and dear to my heart.

The game started out close with NS and SD trading points. For one brief moment, SD was up 2-1. Once SD hit 3 points, however, things started to take a turn for the worse. The Ninja Squirtles became Ninja Blastoises’s, re-evaluated their throws, and vowed to catch ’em all. Undetered, SD vowed to…. stop ’em from catching ’em all. NB pulled ahead 3-7 and things were looking bleak for the Divers. Mr. Brock called a timeout, we came up for air, and vowed to ELOOOOONGATE the game. We went on a 4 point run, but alas the Blastoises’s took half 7-8. Both teams ran vert stack for the entirety of the game, but SD didn’t always have the rocket power necessary to close the deal on their deep looks.

After a shortened half, each team sent 6 more players to the line, and like the scrappy underdog, Ash Ketchum, SD resolved that this would be our half and that we would be the very best. Unfortunately, the Ninja Blastoises had other plans, and through incredibly smart offense and a discomfiting amount of break throws, they evolved into Ninja Wartortles! The Scoober Divers remained Scoober Divers and catching discs remained our real test. Training Devin to go deep was our cause. Despite every challenge along the way, the time was right for the NW, and they beat SD 15-10. Arm in arm they won the fight. At the end of the day, it was their destiny. GOTTA CATCH EM ALL, POKEMON!

Bar-Cap:

SD was incredibly boring and mostly sat by ourselves and re-hashed our season. Strengths, weaknesses, strategies, lessons learned. Truly nauseating.

The Joxer Daly’s bartender was very nice to me and re-filled my pitcher of water. The “is he creepy” debate continues.

Reed has a sister named Suzanne! I got to meet her AND she’s delightful AND she lives in my old neighborhood in DC. Move to LA, Suzanne!

AND THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE!