Ryan has posted on his personal blog a quite detailed account of his experience at the YCC tournament this year. Check it out by clicking here.
some excerpts -
Denver was a team that relied a lot on their handlers and big receivers going away from the disc. We were able to limit the damage their handlers could do with give and gos and upfield resets, while taking away the deep options with our marks and shutting down in-cuts with our legs. Standout players on Denver were handlers #8 and #12, along with #10 who was their go-to guy downfield. He came up huge on a lot of early grabs, although we thankfully managed to limit his damage later on. We did have two ridiculous plays of our own - Jesse hucked backhand around a forehand forcing mark, throwing a bullet to the breakside of the endzone, which Stephen tracked down, utterly roasting his defender. And earlier, Jake Rainwater annihilated his defender on a jump ball just outside the endzone, for his first real sky of the weekend. We called the play "Make it Rain."
[...] (<< this means a lot of text was in between these two quotes and they have nothing to do with each other, other than both regarding the YCC tournament.)
During that point, incidentally, I saw/heard some of the nastiest and really uncalled for comments by some Paideia parents. When Noah made a clean bid on Michael Terry (nearly getting the D), his momentum caused him to roll on the ground afterwards, coming up on Terry's ankle/achilles from behind. Mike Terry crumpled to the ground and had to take an injury after this accidental and freak injury. But the Paideia parents accused Noah of trying to injure him, saying that he'd been making reckless and unspirited bids all game, which was just a ridiculous claim. First of all, Michael Terry had taken injury subs earlier in the game after no contact with Philly players, meaning he was nowhere near 100%, and also, Noah's bid was completely clean, as were all of his during that game. It wasn't a no-chance bid where he landed in his knees from behind, it was a legitimate bid where he bumped him from behind after rolling on the ground. Rob Olson and I got loud and obstinate defending Noah at that point.
read the whole account of the weekend cover to cover by clicking here.
7 comments:
I have a slightly blurry picture of Noah's bid, and it's pretty clean. You can see that he is clearly trying to bend around his guy and then reach in rather then going through his back.
Also have a shot of Noah and Grant's "tie" which, while not conclusive, shows that Noah almost certainly got the disc first. To Grant's credit he simply heard Noah out and gave him the disc.
Also a shot of Noah catching our last goal, with his foot clearly on the ground with the disc in his hand. Several Paidea parents were trying to claim Noah jumped and "landed across the line" and was therefore not in.
Overall spirit from Paidea was very high however.
I have never posted anything to this blog, but since I am one of the two players involved in the single incident that Matt chose to highlight from the mixed final (among the many other great, positive things that happened), I guess I should say something.
And, what I want to say is this: That play doesn't matter. The game is over, and although my injury kept me out of the last few points, my ankle will recover, and the outcome of the game was probably not affected.
I could talk about what happened, but I won't. There is no need. This was truly a great game, in a great tournament, so let us remember it that way. There is way too much bickering and other pointless stuff on this blog already (which is why my brother, John, and I started our own site). We don't need another 40 comments of back and forth nonsense about this.
Ultimate is a great sport. Although I started several games as a freshman on my high school's varsity soccer team, I left to play Ultimate. I love the athletic part of the sport, obviously, but the essence of the game also appealed to me, which is that winning only matters if you do it right. I am glad we won, but more than that, I am glad that we did it by respecting the game, the rules and the players that played.
I have had so many great memories (some that I will never forget) that involve Pennsbury/Philidelphia. Spectacular plays, relentless effort, and even sideline conversations. Throughout all of the games we've played against each other there was so much good spirit that it is hard to remember anything bad. It would be sad if one point in one game overshadowed the many points our two teams have played the last couple of years.
I want to help grow youth ultimate, and emphasizing only one negative thing about a game won't do that. I want to remember George's pulls, Noah's bids, and the amazing heart and determination shown by both teams. Let's get past the conflict and get back to the game.
Good luck to all the Philly (and other teams’) graduating seniors. Hope to see you all in a couple of years at college regionals.
Michael Terry
I thought that Paideia's spirit throughout the course of the whole game was great, and George sure is good at talking people out of foul calls or contests. The only reason that I wrote about that at all was because it stood out to me as something that I'd never seen at an ultimate game - it reminded me of opposing parents at a soccer game complaining about clean slide tackles, and I thought that it was so out of the blue and uncalled for that it deserved a mention.
it was one of the two incidents i chose to highlight, first off, and i quoted it because it was something interesting that i hadnt heard previously.
the purpose of this blog, while creating a ton of content on its own from wonderful contributors whom i cannot thank enough, is also to link to interesting things regarding youth ultimate posted elsewhere on the web.
ryan's whole writeup was thorough and great, and i hope as many people read it as possible, which is why i tried to quote some of the more exciting passages.
i dont want it to seem like i was singling you our michael, or paideia, because it wasnt the case at all, as ryan mentioned and others as well it seems as if Paideia's spirit throughout the whole game was very good, just wanted to clear up that it wasnt an ad hominem attack.
-matt
This probably doesn't even deserve a response, but the comments were from one parent (not all of the parents) and one who was the father of a non-Paideia player on the Atlanta team. I talked to him immediately afterwords to help him understand the sport.
Just trying to get the facts out there.
-Kyle
nashville should have played
Kyle,
Thanks so much for your comment. I know that it's an isolated incident, and everyone acknowledges that the comment didn't at all overshadow the overall great level of spirit exhibited by Atlanta, but I have to admit, it stung pretty badly to hear that on the sidelines. I'm really psyched you were able to work it out with the parent.
-Rob Olson
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