Nationals Recap – Day 3

Playoffs for the Mixed division began well into the afternoon on Saturday, as opposed to first thing Thursday and just after noon on Friday. This was fine with us; we were finding we were playing better as the day wore on, perhaps not surprising given the 2-hour time difference between Halifax and Winnipeg. As with the previous days, it was sunny and pleasantly warm. However the wind had picked up significantly. Any points scored upwind would be huge.

Game 7: The playoffs begin. Our quarterfinal placed us against Zen Asylum from Toronto. Zen was affiliated with Bombing Madd Fatties as effectively the B and A squads, respectively, from Toronto. In theory at least, this should be an easier matchup than our game against BMF on Friday, but we weren’t looking past them yet. And additionally, I was a little apprehensive about how the game might play out, given our experiences in the game with BMF. Undoubtedly Zen Asylum had heard all about it.

We started out on offence going downwind, and scored in short order. Next point on D, we generated some turns and pushed fairly far against the wind a few times, but could not quite capitalise and Zen ended up scoring eventually. The next several points were struggles – the wind was significant enough to be a definite advantage for the team attacking downwind, but not quite strong enough to make reckless hucks a viable strategy. We traded a few downwind and then Zen managed a break upwind. As the first upwind point, this was huge for them, and earlier in the season we might have folded – I recall we lost a few in Regina in similar fashion. However no one got down on the team this time – we stayed focus and upped te drive a little bit more, which paid off with an upwind point of our own to get back on serve. Before half we got another upwind to tilt the advantage decidedly in our favour. By the time we reached half we were already in cap, and now with Zen Asylum up against a wall. They never capitulated, but couldn’t break us and we traded a few downwinders to win 9-5.

The celebrations were brief as we had to switch fields and play our semi immediately. Our next opponent would be the winner of the matchup between Gecko and Rip. Given the performances on Friday it looked pretty sure Gecko would be going through – they were quite confident of themselves with solid play on Thursday and Friday, their only loss being a close game against top-seeded Camelot. However as we walked towards the field there seemed to be a lot of familiar Rip jerseys among the players on the field. As I walked up to the first player I asked in slight amazement “You guys took Gecko?” “Yep.” “Nice job!” Perhaps I was letting my elation show, seeing as we now had a matchup that looked quite favourable – we had easily handled Rip just a day before. But before the game, we were reminded this would be a very different game than on Friday. Rip obviously had come to play when it counted.

Game 8: Last step to the final. Again, we started out by jumping to an early but tenuous lead. The wind at this field was more sheltered, so while we scored an early upwind point, it didn’t mean much. A few plays later we lost this advantage and were tied at 3’s. We got back on track with a score on offence, then a few on D for a chance to open up a lead at 7-3. With one more score we could take half and really look to put them away. However they weren’t ready to roll over and pushed back, playing disciplined offence and capitalising on our miscues to storm back to 7-6. We refocused in time to take half, 8-6. As with the previous game, cap was in effect early – game to 10. We took a quick half and then back into the game. The lapse at the end of the first half was over and we were putting our all into finishing the game. We scored another on a huge sky in the endzone, which Rip countered with a score of their own. At our next chance we worked it methodically to within striking distance of the endzone, then a somewhat ambitious put… read perfectly and hauled in for a score. GAME OVER! We were going to finals! The team exploded onto the field in celebration. We’d been rushing the field all tournament but this time it was just instinct. Hard to explain the feeling or the general atmosphere, but everyone was in a pretty good space right then. Looking at the pictures later, the grins on the faces are more than evident.

We had a quick chat afterwards about the tournament so far… everyone obviously was very pleased, and we were pleasantly surprised with how the team seemed to be gelling at just the right time. We had already shown a lot of intensity, grit – heart, basically – and it was manifesting itself in a run to the final. Not to get too self-congratulatory, though, we hadn’t actually won the tournament yet, there was still a game to be played tomorrow. We were to take care of ourselves (and each other) until then – go to the Saturday night party if you want (this year hosted at the Citadel, towering over downtown – very cool location), but there’s a curfew, and don’t drink too much. I was singled out as the one to keep an eye one – evidently I hadn’t lived down my ’slow as ass’ performance on the Sunday at MUDI. We went back to the billets for a pasta dinner, got a bit dressed up and made a showing at the party, enjoyed a beer or two each, and headed back.

I went to bed, anticipating the final. With every vision of every play I might make, my adrenaline rose just a bit. Somehow though, I got to sleep, visions of layout Ds dancing in my head. Tomorrow, the biggest game of my ultimate career so far.