Sept. 12, 2001 Tournament

Players:

Dave "Poo Rag" Bohnsack
Pintu Saha
Dan "Autostick" White
Sean Quinn
Rob "Disco" Atkins
Tom "Clutch" Rosch
Dave "Dixie" Reynolds
Jack Chen
Mark Shultz
Chris "Cupcake" Ferraro
Eric Lind
Andrew "Bad Andy" Mason
Hadi Satari
Bret Herman
Elan "Gonzalez" Sofer

Saturday:

Game 1 vs. Syracuse (Scooby Snatch)

This game showed with unmistakable clarity that this was our first game of the year. Dropped passes and uninspired defense left us undeserving of a victory. Appropriately, we lost this game 15-2.

Game 2 vs. Buffalo Club (Freezerburn)

We played substantially better against Freezerburn, always a nice team to look good for. Some monstrous defense by Pintu and the rest of the team led to some marathon length points, most of which we couldn't clinch. Bad Andy got a taste for scoring and "It felt good," much like his pizza. Overall, Freezerburn's experience and deep bench won out over our youth and desire. 15-3

Game 3 vs. Rochester (Hugh Jorgan)

This game was way better. Hot D continued, and offense started to click. This game was not so good for Bad Andy as he injured his ankle on an end zone D that would have been way better without the injury. A lot of great things showed up in this game, offensive flow and aggressive D looked real nice. They beat us, but we scored 6 points, a better showing for us.

Game 4 vs. Sinister (Hamilton, Ontario)

They were good. Like many Canadian teams, they sported a starting line that was tall, probably no one under 6 ft, and fast. An intricate zone defense left us unable to move the disc upfield, and their offense didn't waste those chances. The game ended with us scoring 2. Note: Sinister only allowed 12 points all day Saturday so they weren't a team to be embarrassed about losing to. Sinister went on to win the whole tournament.

Day Recap

Saturday basically showed all the things that only improve with tournament play: nervous drops, lazy D, uncalled picks and fouls. Fortunately, all those things improved throughout the day, showing that we just needed to shake off some summer rust. On the upside, Hugh Jorgan, Buffalo, and Sinister all made it to the semifinals the second day, so they were obviously good teams that we shouldn't be ashamed of losing to.

Party:

Good time. Pintu and Disco Rob made it out with a nearly full bottle of wine for the road (not the road, they just took it home). In some friendly after party competition Capt Dave defended his title as team disc-drinking champion. Big props to Hadi, Ferraro, and Sean for hanging in there, you're real troopers.

Sunday:

A smaller squad (9) made it out for Sunday's games. While their teammates slept and caught up on studying, Dixie, Autostick, Cupcake, Poo, Eric, Bret, Disc, Gonzalez, and Hadi showed up in a big way.

Game 1 vs. Mr. Yuk (Carnegie Melon University)

This game was hotly contested all the way. We came out to an early lead with all around solid play but a CMU time-out and rally gave them a little momentum. We took half at 8-4, then they rallied and closed in on us. Play was hot and tough the whole game, but the second half saw Bret disable one player on a defensive lay-out and Poo caught his marker with his follow-through and gave him a bloody nose (oops). Another rally by CMU left us stuck at 14 for a long time, but we finally clinched the deal and won (!) 15-12. Big props to Chris and Bret for receiving for the most points (3 each) and Eric for pulling in the game winner.

Game 2 vs. Dennison College

Dennison came to the tourney with 8 players, and one got injured Saturday. After beating RIT without subs they were pretty well drained for the game against us. We maintained our high level of play and took half at 8-4. A bad fall just before half-time left them even more battered and they conceded before starting the second half.

Result:

UB Green Eggs and Ham wins the consolation pool, effectively finishing 9th of 12 teams but looking and feeling like a team that was much better than Saturday morning's scores indicate.

A Few Notables:

Bret played great all weekend, a definite asset on defense and reliable look on O. Bad Andy and Eric had stand-out tournaments, showing immense improvement from last year.

Everyone else played awesome too, especially the people who were there Sunday. You should all be really happy with how you played, I know I am. Just so it doesn't sound like I'm just saying that so you'll be my friend, Graham, Jay, and Pat from Freezerburn all went out of their way to tell me that we're looking good out there. So get psyched!

All the new people that are coming in, this is what awaits you. I can't wait to see how all of you perform in a tournament setting, there's a lot of promise here. So let's keep practicing hard. Now that we've tasted our first wins we should be motivated to go harder and faster to take out that next tier of teams. Hell yeah.