RecapWinter 2020Animal Style vs Plenty of Boba in the Tea

Hello Winter League 2020!

It’s a new decade. It’s a new season. Andy is off enjoying recapping retirement. And I guess this is now something I have to do? This kinda reminds me of that episode of Wishbone where he goes to talk to Atlas and ends up getting stuck balancing the entire world on his nose. Anyone? Just me? Okay…

In case you’re not entirely sure who the “just me” actually is. I’m Christi Betz—LAOUT Board member, and one of the handful of redheads that gets mistaken for other redheads. If you don’t know me, come find me and say hi!

And without further ado, here’s our very first Winter League recap of 2020 from Chain, not Ben.

Ah, winter league is here again. Boba is back for another year with plenty of new milk teas to share. We lost some faces but gained some new ones and were eager to build up that boba chemistry that is always so tasty.

Team huddles and we begin the team building.

We were facing a tough regular winter league challenge in animal style. Their squad loaded with experience, athleticism, and just pure sexiness. It was going to be a good test. I was just hoping they were still feeling the leiout hangover. We also were low numbers for ladies. Skittles took one for the team despite being sick from leiout, came out and put in a shift. What a trooper!

Game begins and we play hard points but go down early. I just remember getting absolutely roasted by X, no surprise there. But we were not phased, boba loves a good comeback, the kick of an aftertaste that lingers. We then began to roll and get some points with animal taking half.

At halftime we decided to share our favorite boba treats which actually says a lot about you as a person if you didn’t know. Turns out a couple teammates are not fans of boba, blasphemy! We also realized that many people call me by my fake name (Ben) and not my friz name, Chain. Chicago then began to understand that i need to play more like Chain and not like Ben; Ben is a safe and risk averse player, Chain is a fuck it huck it player. I took that advice and let loose to middling success, sorry Sara, Jo and Alex. I did get a couple shots in with a sweet grab by Skittles who is always amazing.

Anyway we lost and I don’t remember the score but it was a fun and spirited game. Shout outs to animal, snatch doing snatch things, their ladies were so calm and solid, shout outs all around. Also everyone stay healthy, lots of things were going around at leiout apparently.

You heard it from Dr. Chain, everyone. Stay healthy so you can come to all your Winter League games!

And here’s a recap from the Animal Style side of the game, courtesy of Joanna.

Winter League 2020 is finally in focus and it wouldn’t be LA Ultimate without a little hiccup.  Not only has the red tape to even get to the fields had the board and staff feeling like:

But when we get to Rancho we had to have a standoff with some soccer players about using the field.  I’m always torn when it comes to how to handle sharing the space.  They were given a hard time by the parks department about where they were allowed to kick a ball around in their own neighborhood recreation complex, but we too work year round to find space for our 700 some members from all over LA to get to run around and throw a frisbee.  It’s only getting harder and harder as people in general try to stay more and more active and the price of fields keep rising at about 30% every year (how’s that for inflation?).  Basically what I’m saying is, who wants to go in on a bunch of Powerball tickets with me so we can buy LAOUT it’s own set of fields when we win?

Anyway, the physical permit finally gets to make an appearance and the game only starts about 35 mins late.  Soooo, basically on time.

Both teams have history in LAOUT, but each needed some extra time to introduce the newcomers to the mix.  First game of the season, new dynamics, this could go many different directions, but Animal Style picked up some old friends and some new solid players who don’t let a little stranger danger keep them from dominating.  Maybe it helps that we have so many people with the same names that they felt right at home (2 Devins, 2 Gabes, Dan and Dani, Nahall and the soon to be discovered male Nahall).

Games begin with a warning that the teams are well matched and that we won’t let anyone take advantage of any post LeiOut fatigue.  If you ask me, you couldn’t even tell that people had just spent an entire weekend playing in a most amazing and indescribable beach tournament. Animal Style takes the firs 4 points. Snatch to someone (he thinks), Showtime (Gabe S) to Dani, Ted hammer to Gabe H, Snatch to X.  Flow is happening!

Boba isn’t happy with this and puts it into second gear taking just about every other point until half.  Chin to Jo (4-1), Nahall (5-1), Taka pulls it down over Ted (5-2), X to Claire (6-2), Chain to lady I don’t know (6-3), Boba score (6-4), Snatch to Me (7-4), Jo to lady I also don’t know (7-5), Snatch to DCon for half (8-5).  At least that’s the score according to Dan and Flexx’s crazy binary disc score keeping (fortunately for me and my “old school” style, my phone also said that was the score).

Both teams are firing on all cylinders now.  We’ve got the perfect mix of handlers and cutters, and handlers who like to cut, and cutters who like to handle, that I don’t think in the history of Animal Style has ever happened.  That’s six years y’all.  It took this long.

After a quick half, Boba comes out raring to go. They take the first point, but for another new experience, Animal Style immediately doesn’t take kindly to that.  Claire to Ted (9-6), X to DCon (10-6), Snatch to Dani after Devin gets a no look d (that’s right, he can be in the way of your throw before either you or he even realizes it) and Erwin gets another D over Chin (11-6), Judge to Claire (12-6).  Boba gets one more point I hear attributed to Skittle before Animal closes it out with an iffy throw from Ted to Snatch, an Erwin-X connection, and a Devin to DCon score to end the game 15-7.

The night was topped off with an inaugural trip to In N Out for the new comers and the famous Vanilla vs Chocolate milkshake challenge was administered.  Gabe was shocked at just how hard it really was to tell the two flavors apart.  Told ya!

What is this nonsense about chocolate and vanilla milkshakes tasting the same at In-N-Out? That sounds absurd, but I’d buy. Everything from there is meh, anyway. I will never understand the obsession.