Jack, Kolthammer, Mike Mac, and Willie drive up to Maine early Friday
afternoon to get in a round or two of disc golf before darkness sets.  Due to
complications including Willie's room door falling off the hinges and not
being able to find Kolthammer, we get started pretty late and only are
able to play half a round on the beautiful course up in Brunswick.

Back to Willie's house in Falmouth, ME for dinner.  Dennis, Mike George,
BJ, John Lai, and Chuck Lei meet us and we barbeque up some (very tasty)
chicken and steak to go along with some lasagna, salad, bread, and Maine
microbrew.  Having expected 14 on that first night, Willie's mom had
bought a whole lot of food, so (shockingly) we didn't eat all of it.  We
then watched the Mean Girls DVD (including deleted scenes and outtakes)
and went to sleep.

Saturday morning, Eric, Will Chen, Karim, and Grant wake up super-early
and meet us at the fields for the first game at 9.

Our first game puts us up against Jerk Factory from Fredericton, New
Brunswick, the 3 seed in our pool to our 2 seed.  We come out pretty fired
up and play with intensity that we kept up all weekend and cruise 15-4 or
something like that.

Game number two featured Canadian team number two, and smooth victory
number two.  They have a couple of fast guys and a solid thrower or two
but they never really get it together.  Mark Zuckerman shows up
fashionably late in the middle of our second game.  He proves to be the
difference, and we win it 15-4.

We get a bye during the next round during which includes sandwiches from
the nearby deli ("The Playground"), watching other games, and lying around
in the sun.  We know the big challenge is to come, our third and final
game of the day against Jackhammer, a Boston club team who beat us last
weekend at Club Sectionals 13-9.  They come into Clambake as the #2 seed.
We aim to take that 2 seed from them.

Jackhammer is pretty short-handed, so we come out running.  The first half
looks good on O and D, and we take it 8-6.  Jackhammer steps it up a notch
after the half, and evens it up.  We trade for a couple of points and then
Jackhammer pulls away to 14-12, game to 15.  However, our smart, quick
offense and hard-working defense prevails and we punch in 4 straight
scores to take the game 16-14.  We quickly take a celebratory shotgun in
the woods, and then head back to Willie's house to shower and get ready
for the party.

At Willie's while waiting for others to shower we watch some key Mean
Girls scenes, listen to some Dido, and watch some of Eliza Dushku in Bring
it On.  It was awesome.

The party is pretty solid.  The food is good, even though they didn't have
any real hamburgers and only John Lai and Karim got lobsters.  We don't
stay for too long, but it was long enough.  First we hosed Brown in a
boatrace (by at least a full cup) and then avenged our Clabake 2003 loss
to Williams by torching them by about 2 cups.  Both teams swear they will
get vengeance at Purple Valley next weekend, so bring your game-face.

Despite not having a game until 12, we have to wake up at 7 to get back to
the party-site to clean up and serve breakfast.  We all looked very
pretty.  There are plenty of pictures that'll be available soon.

Our quarterfinals match pinned us against Red Tide, the Portland club team
and hosts of the tournament.  They came into the tournament as the #1
seed, but we draw them in the quarters because of their pool play loss to
Chowdaheads.  We come out pretty strong, and go up an early break.  They
break back, and we trade points until half, 7-6 us (game to 13).  We come
out of the half trading points.  Then we trade points some more.  Then we
trade more points.  Finally Red Tide cracks and we capitalize and take the
lead 12-11.  On game point a hard mark and smart, hard defense on the dump
forces a first-throw turn.  We call time-out, draw up a play and punch it
in for the ballgame.  Harvard is going to the semis.  The highlight of
this game:  late in the game, Will "Balloons" Chen's man takes him deep
and they put it up.  Balloons goes up with a monster 5-foot-high
horizontal bid and catches it over his man.  Chen runs up to the line to
start the offense, checks it in on the ground and it comes right out of
his hand.  If you looked up "conservation of greatness" in any sort of
scientific journal, it would point you to this play.

In the semis we face yEUTH-ANd-Age-SIA, a semi-pick-up team from Boston
with a lot of disparity within the team.  There is extended controversy on
the flip, finally settled by a handstand contest.  As it turned out, the
battle over who would be white and who would go dark was the only aspect
of the semis that would be contested, and we roll 15-5.

We are psyched as hell for Harvard's first finals in about a year
(except for sectionals).  Our opponent is Those Magnificent Bastards, who
have beaten us in pretty close games in both Clabake 2002 and 2003.  They
are coming off of a 15-9 win over Jackhammer, so we know this isn't going
to be an easy one.  Our gameplan is to play a lot of man, and run these
old guys like crazy.  We come out very strong, opening the game with a
break.  We keep rolling and take a 4-1 lead early on.  We had zero turns
in the first 6 or so points of the game.  We get a bit sloppier on offense as
the game progresses, but our defense is stifling.  We take half 8-3 and
are still pumped up.  The Bastards don't like what had happened in the
first half and come out strong to start the second.  More strong Harvard
defense and (relatively) smart offense keeps us rolling through the second
half and we out-do ourselves, taking the Clambake finals 15-4.

The victory earns us all individual trophies with a little guy throwing a
disc on them, as well as possession of the bigger trophy for the year
along with our name on the trophy.  Harvard Red Line becomes the first
college team to win Clambake, and our name goes on the trophy with the
likes of DoG, Boss Hogg, Red Tide, and others.  Club nationals here we
come (just kidding, we aren't going to regionals).

Before heading back, we take a trip to a nearby tavern/restaurant to
devour some well-deserved burgers.  They cap off a great weekend of great
weather, ultimate, food, and Mean Girls references.  Great playing guys,
congrats.

-Kevin Gnapoor