seVen at Regionals in Devens

The Fall seVen team travelled to Devens, MA (about an hour from Boston) to compete in the Northeast Regional UPA Tournament. We were originally ranked 12th going into this tournament after winning the Upstate NY Sectional tournament a couple weekends ago. We had a few last minute deletions from our roster as some people could not attend, so our final Regional roster comprised of: Geofford, Budgell, Batch, Keith, Evan, Luke, Adam, Damian, Nat Massé, Deb, Melody, and myself. Our roster was quite small compared to the other teams, but we would not go down without a fight :)

Game 1 vs Halibut – Saturday @ 8:30am
We again proved that we are not an early morning team. We gave up 6 points to start the game before scoring one of our own. We then scored a point, before they took half for a score of 8-1. At half time, Nat gave a great speech: “We are playing very tentatively, we are so afraid of fucking up that we fuck up, let’s fuck up for real.” I guess this really inspired us, because we ended up tying the second half at 7s.

Game 2 vs 7 Express – Saturday -> we had to win this to stay in the upper bracket and play on Sunday
We were now playing for the name. This was a much better game, everyone played really well. This team was a much lower caliber team, so it was a little easier. We took the half at 8-3, but let 7 Express get back into the game in the second half and the final score was 14-10.

I believe that it was in this game that Melody layed out for a beautiful D while she was in the cup (she is kicking herself, b/c if she caught it, she would have scored a Callaghan), but she ended up catching the disc for an easy score anyways.

Game 3 vs Slow White and the 7 Dwarves - This was a must win game as well to stay in contention to go to Florida
We ran out of legs in this game, this team didn’t play amazing ultimate, but we just could not run with them anymore. One of the girls had knocked me over during the previous game (I was in the air for a catch, and she couldn’t stop running, so she just ran into me, and I fell on my shoulder…) and then I was laying out for the disk, and managed to cleat myself which then caused my ankle to roll, so I took myself out, and we were only playing 3 girls. I think the final score was 15-6, and it was unfortunate, but I’m not sure if the team could have played a 4th game. Many of our problems were mental and just a lack of execution, but the thoughts were still really good.

Game 4 vs Sangria - 8:30 on Sunday
Another early morning game, but Sangria ended up being super late. We were worried that they weren’t going to show up. We were a little impatient for them to come, and slightly disappointed that they came because we wanted to watch the DoG/Goat Open final at 11 (but we thought 10:30). We managed to pull together and win the game 15-8, so that was good.

Game 5 vs Zumo - default win
I’m guessing Zumo was a little disappointed at their poor Saturday, so they didn’t end up playing on Sunday. Which was good for us, because we got to watch part of the I.C. vs Ambush game, even though they lost, it was nice to see the women play. We also got to watch Goat warm-up and we have a new warm-up drill, and we got to watch the first bit of the Dog/Goat final.

Game 6 vs Weapons of Mass Destruction - this was the game for 7th, we wanted to win so that we could say that seVen finished 7th
Their earlier game had gone a little long because there were a few injuries – someone blew out their ACL (on their previous opponent), so the game started a little late. We started really slow because none of us really wanted to be there. Some highlights – Mel and another girl colliding in the endzone and girl calling a foul, and Mel contesting because it was incidental contact – and then someone on the sideline telling us that in “high-level ultimate” that foul wouldn’t have been contested, but us thinking in our high-level ultimate, that foul wouldn’t have been called. The other team was playing a really funky zone, that we should explore for next year, which is pretty much guys covering girls and girls covering guys. The guys poach off the girls, so it looks like they are free, but in reality they are not. We kept on trying to huck it to the girls and it kept on getting D’d. It was pretty frustrating. We ended up losing 15-6 or 8 or something not so good.

Evan laid out for a point in the endzone which was quite amazing.



Fall seVen team @ Regionals