Fashionably Late to the MUDI Party

This past weekend brought the first tourney for the '07 version of Sub Zero. I think we've had a total of two weekend practices together as a team. Being as young a team as we are, we decided to nix the extra plane ticket for Boston Invitational this year. However, the powers that be decided that Regionals should be in Tulsa, which brings back that extra ticket that's actually more expensive than flying to Boston.

Maple Plain, no cloud cover, little shade, and a fairly heavy upwind-downwind. The ground was hard as ever, but I was very pleased to be back in a tournament setting. The first three games in pool play resulted in three quick wins and five total points scored against us. In the fourth, Goose Egg ran out a quick lead on us, as a foreshadowing for the finals the next day, before we reeled them in a won 13-8.

Day Two brought a shade more cloud cover, and a comfortable 11 AM quarters start. Blerge went down to the wire against TBA, leading to a 13-0 warmup to Winnipeg in semis. This wasn't the same General Strike as years past as the personnel has started to shift. We won 13-7 but they could definitely make a good show at Regionals if they're willing to make the 16 hour drive.

This brought a finals showdown against Van Buren Boys. I was glad that they made finals so I could play against a new unknown opponent. Plus, the crowd seemed very pumped to see them prevail. Now, there have already been many accounts written from the VBB side of the coin (seriously, VBB is dominating the blog scene right now, just edging out Moe).

My personal side of it goes something like this (in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way):
We start off slow and go down a break or two to start. Pregame, I would have said that their D-line's offense would be their weakness without any "take charge" handlers like their O-line has, but sure enough they convert a few in the first half, including up-winders. Our defense is not having much problems creating turnovers and converting either. I am very intrigued to see how our D-line handler set of Kevin Riley, Muffin and myself work out. We had a couple of handler cut miscues, but things were getting ironed out. Much like the Goose Egg game from the previous day, even though we were down a couple early, at no point did I feel like we were in trouble. I felt like we were going to continue to get lots of chances at breaks and that our O line would come around and be more consistent. Sure enough, down 6-7 with half at 8, we break twice to take half (even with some solid crowd heckling directed our way). We proceed to hit the gas from there and extend to 13-9. Our depth took over by the second half as VBB's were clearly more gassed.

Overall, BAT and Machine can't ignore Van Buren when it comes time for Regionals. As of right now, they still fit into the "dangerous if underestimated" category. They need to keep their play consistently good over a full game in order to beat a high caliber opponent. If Regionals follows previous formats, it would definitely help them by limiting the number of games played in order to qualify for Nationals to 6 or so. Also, keep in mind that it's only July, and this tournament will mean shit come September and October.

Parting thoughts: By the end of the weekend, there were more guys on SZ reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the sidelines than not. This is my third title in a row including Come Inside Where It's Warm, and Winter League Playoffs. After those, ECC should be a walk in the park. Also, blogger doesn't recognize sarcasm html tags, so I leave it to you to figure out where those would apply.