Huck of the Irish - 2002 |
The Huck of the Irish
Baltimore, Maryland
March 16-17, 2002
|
| Players/Stats |
| Player/Position |
Assists |
Points |
D's |
Total |
| Adam 151 Riccardi - Handler |
8 |
4 |
3 |
15 |
| James Admiral Ambrose - Handler |
4 |
1 |
1 |
6 |
| David Poo Rag Bohnsack - Handler |
5 |
3 |
3 |
11 |
| Bret Lurch Herman - Mid |
7 |
7 |
8 |
22 |
| Jack Jakko Chen - Mid |
4 |
2 |
1 |
7 |
| Chris Cupcake Ferraro - Deep |
0 |
8 |
8 |
16 |
| Phil Nipples Schlansky - Deep |
2 |
5 |
2 |
9 |
| Hadi Pac Man Sattari - Handler |
7 |
1 |
2 |
10 |
| David Dixie Reynolds - Handler |
2 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
| Mark Pyle Schulz - Handler |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
| Yasu Secret Weapon Masuda - Mid |
2 |
1 |
2 |
5 |
| Matt Unk Morton - Mid |
3 |
3 |
2 |
8 |
| Pintu The Mouth Saha - Deep |
5 |
6 |
0 |
11 |
| Nick Chong Godinez - Deep |
1 |
7 |
1 |
9 |
| Sean Lu-Lu Quinn Mid |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Jeff Nickname Reinig Coughing |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| Elan Gonzo Sofer - Deep |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Note: Scoring stats were not taken for the final game of the weekend.
Blocks were only recorded for the Saturday games.
|
The weekend started on Friday, when 17 people piled into four cars and
drove the seven to eight hour trip to Baltimore. When the team arrived in
Maryland they found warm weather and no wind. Rather than sleeping, people
immediately moved to the parking lot to toss around and play 2-hand touch
frisbee football.
Morning came early, with Dave making wake-up calls around 6:30. What a
bastard. After a little breakfast misunderstanding the team rolled out to
the fields, arriving just after the host team. Sean brought gifts, and
soon the team was styling in their pimped out green jerseys. Green Eggs
and Ham was determined not to be caught flat so they started warming up
early with a few drills and a short scrimmage between lines.
The morning was warm, sunny and calm. They fields were soft without being
muddy, and they day was looking good.
|
| Saturday |
| Round 1: Carnegie Mellon University, Mr. Yuk |
So much for getting warmed up to avoid a slow start. Mr. Yuk rattled of 7
quick points and took halftime while UB stood around waiting for the game
to start. This was starting to look like a real ugly return to old ways.
Fortunately it wasn't.
UB took half-time to think about what had happened, regained their
composure, and got geared up to fight. The 7-0 deficit was too much to
overcome, but Buffalo did score 8 points in the second half alone. They
showed that they could play against this team, and they could play better
than this team. Buffalo's tournament cool was also tested with some
dubious calls and a poor-spirited clap spike*. To UB's credit, they never
let those things get to them, choosing to stay focused on the field and
take advantage of lots of points on the sideline to cool down.
During this game the team also solidified itself into two distinct lines
that would stick together throughout the tournament. The two groups grew
together as the weekend progressed, and team chemistry really started to
gel.
Final score: CMU 13, UB 8
*: To CMU's credit, the spike was legal, and the player came to our
sidelines to apologize for a less-than-spirited move.
|
| Round 2: Bye |
|
Disc golf, baserunning, naps, homework, throwing things at Pintu. Good times.
|
| Round 3: Towson University, Pandemonium |
New field, new wind (yes, it was starting to pick up by now), and a new
desire to win. Waiting until Wednesday to write up game recaps from
Saturday has left me with little memory of the details, but I think UB took
half-time. I know the game was close, probably with Green leading through
the beginning then slipping away as the game closed. Our defense brought
out zone for the first time here, and it ran well, offering us another
option to slow opponents.
Final score: TU 13, UB 10
|
| Round 4: James Madison University, Hellfish |
UB brought the heat early, winning the pull in a protracted RoSham/flip
series. Poo came out big to get us the RoSham point, and Dixie held up his
end by playing the flip off a bag to Buffalo's advantage. Green Eggs and
Ham continued fighting to get an early lead but the Hellfish didn't wait
long to fight back. JMU tied the game at 5 then took half (7-5?). This
game started late, so a time cap was put on and UB just couldn't close the
gap. The Hellfish stretched out to win in a game that saw its fair share
of rain and wind.
Final score: JMU 11, UB 7
A little bit of the edge that helped UB to come back against Mr. Yuk and to
fight Pandemonium so hard seemed to be missing in this game. Dixie stepped
up and gave a much deserved tirade, reminding everyone that this is the
most talent UB's seen in years and losses just show that there isn't enough
effort on the field.
|
| Round 5: University of Pittsburgh, En Sabah Nur |
Pissed off and tired of losing, UB marched up the hill to play their final
game of the day against another winless opponent. This game was tight from
the start, with no team managing to put together more than a couple points
at a time. End-of-the-day frustrations were also rearing their ugly heads
as questionable foul calls began to crop up from both teams.
Soft-capped at 11, both teams refused to surrender, instead battling it out
to a hard-cap at 14. With the sun down, all the other games over, and the
tournament director trying to take his cones and go home, UB and Pitt
continued to battle. Time after time the disc was pushed up the field only
to be stuffed just before the endzone. In what appeared to be the
game-winner for UB Ferraro rose up over a crowd of defenders and pulled in
a long, high pass. The play was called back on a catching foul and a few
possessions later Pitt burned deep to grab the game-winner.
This was easily the longest, hardest fought game of the day, and it was a
tough loss to take. But more importantly than the loss is that UB never
stopped battling for the win. They showed over and over that they were
ready to leave everything out on the field and it nearly paid off.
Pitt won the game, but that wouldn't be the last the two teams saw of each
other.
Final score: Pitt 14, UB 13
Nick O'Neil also drove out from Washington DC for our last two games. Nick
was the president/captain when I was a freshman, so it was nice for the old
guys to be able to catch up with him. He was nothing short of astounded at
how many people we had at the tournament. Buffalo ultimate has come a long
way in four years.
|
| Party: |
Crowded party with a long line to the keg. Buffalo made a solid showing,
sending 12 people to represent the Ultimate Way. Eager to show that they
weren't content to lose all day, Dixie, Nipples, Weapon, and Rag answered
the call of the boat races.
A four man relay to drain your beer and flip your cup over on your head,
and the first opponent was... Pitt. UB fought the good fight and had an
early lead, but Phil didn't want to run the risk of a loss, so he took a
sip and dumped the rest on top. Legal and crowd-pleasing: UB advances to
round 2 against Towson.
Playing the home-team is always a good time, but this race was marred by
accusations of cheating on both sides. Unfortunately, neither team felt
prepared to rerace, so Towson conceded that UB had cheated less and Green
Eggs and Ham moved on to the finals.
It turns out that Middlebury does everything well, winning the boat race
easily and eventually winning the ultimate tournament.
Final score: UB finishes 2nd of 6 in the team boat races. |
| Sunday: |
| Wow, it got really really cold on Sunday. High in the 40's with rain,
sleet, and wind. |
| Round 1: Franklin and Marshall |
| They bailed, so we moved right on to our second game. Well, we warmed up
in our cars for a while, then eventually played our second game. |
| Round 2: University of Pittsburgh, En Sabah Nur |
Between the boat race and the game the previous day, UB was 1-1 against
Pitt and looking to win the series. UB went out to the fields early to get
warmed up and used to the windy sleet. The map may have said Baltimore,
but the sky said Buffalo.
This game started out as a close battle, with the early score sitting at
4-3 Buffalo. A day early UB might have cracked under this pressure, but
this time they grabbed that lead by the hair and dragged it home.
Half-time came with a UB rally make it 7-3. Never relenting, UB fought
hard, driving the win home and proving that they were the better team that
weekend.
Final Score: UB 13, Pitt 4 |
| Round 3: Penn State - B, Son of Spank |
The winner of this game would be the winners of the consolation bracket
(the Chumpionship). PSU had played two games so they were already cold and
tired. Somehow, every point in this game seemed to drag out for hours.
UB's strategy seemed to be: make a poorly advised upwind throw into the
ground, then bust it out on defense and take another shot. These were
expected mistakes for a team that hadn't been outside all season. The game
had lots of lay-outs for wind carried passes and hot defense.
At half-time, with UB up 7-5 the captains struck a deal to hard cap the
game at 10 so everyone could go home. Well, UB took that as a signal to
just finish the game right there, so that's just what they did. With
little hesitation they marched onto the field and rattled off three quick
points, finishing Sunday undefeated.
Final Score: UB 10, PSU-B 5
These last two games showed that UB was willing to put that extra bit of
effort out on the line to battle in the cold, in the mud, through aches and
injuries accumulated all weekend, and to win. |
| Final Thoughts |
We've proven that we can win when we're ready to fight, and we've proven
that we can lose even faster when we aren't. Now we need to take all the
energy we felt this weekend and pour it completely into training and
practicing. Every scrimmage needs to be fought hard and smart. On days
that we aren't practicing we need to be conditioning. Having 14 players at
the tournament made everyone feel pretty good, but other teams will do the
same for sectionals, so we need to be able to beat them on more than bench
size.
So start showing up for track work-outs. If you can't do that, get
together with some other people on the team and train together. If you
can't do that, heckle and belittle your teammates until they're shamed into
training harder than you. Remember, any time someone else on your team
isn't working it's hurting your chance of winning.
For everyone who wasn't at the tournament, we're psyched up and ready to
keep winning, and we want you to win with us. Just because you aren't on
this list doesn't mean you shouldn't be on the next one.
Hell yeah. That's all I got.
-Poo Rag
"Good is the enemy of great"
David Bohnsack
President/Captain
UB Green Eggs and Ham Ultimate |
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