Gandy Goose Tournament Wrap Up

Saturday Only (more to come)

Saturday AM brought a stiff wind. At least it wasn’t pouring like last week.
Our first game was against Kaboom. They have won the tournament for the past 18 years straight. The UCLA of central Oregon ultimate.
As we were taking our warm up lap, their team looked a little shaky. Three high school kids, Doug G., a guy they were teaching what “force” meant, and Alyce who just had a kid. A teammate asked me why they were supposed to be good, and I said just wait, they’ll get better. Eventually all their Open and Acme players showed up. They started looking like the perfect mixture of old people to throw the disc to young people. And that was obviously their plan. Talbot, Luke Smith, and Doug feeding the disc to high school kids that still must do track workouts.
Luckily for us, there was a Harsh Wind, almost directly down field. It equalized their height advantage on us, and gave both teams lots of zone practice. At 6-6, we were realizing that we can play with the quality teams. Kaboom eventually got that elusive upwind point to take half at 8-6.
The 2nd half saw some more free flowing offense as each team got more accustomed to the gusts, they got another break, we got one back, then they rode the arm of Talbot’s hucks into the wind to 15-10 victory.

Second game against 1Miss.
Can you get more intense? 1Miss just delivered a 15-3 pounding, and have been waiting for our game to end for half an hour. By this time the weather has calmed. There is still a stiff breeze that compliments a zone, but scoring upwind won’t be impossible. The game starts as a classic match up of height versus speed. They threw over the top, we threw underneath. Savvy handling against our zone was key for the Red team, going over instead of around. Overall a good looking game, with both team’s offenses running efficiently.
I don’t think either team built a lead of more than 2 points, but after 1Miss went on a late 3 point run, we climbed back, highlighted by Adam’s final burst layout on a huck, and Steve’s layout Callahan on an upwind point. Final score in an instant ESPN classic, 15-13 The Coltrane.

Final Saturday against Roots.
The day had not been kind for the Roots, outscored their first two games by scores of 30-5. I’ve never seen this team before, and I didn’t recognize a single player. Maybe it was a hangover from the previous game, but they were working it against us. Somehow I couldn’t cover the 300 pound man, Pat got skied by a 50 year old, and Tony was letting the disc get to one of the Hobbits. The Coltrane as able to minimize the damage from the main players, and force turnovers from the weaker players. We ended up rolling to a 15-2 win. Capped of the victory with a rousing game of LookUpLookDown. Very productive day, and a great start to the weekend. Up next was going to be beers and a hot tub.