Sunday began way too friggin early for the intrepid eleven bound for Bowdoin: Myself, Aaron, Dan, Jie, Phil, Eddie Lee, Eli, and Alice, Jen, and Anna of Quasar. Eli rides (macks?) with the ladies in Eddies car, and the rest of us pile intom Jack's Astro-Van, a decision some might later regret... About a half hour away from Bowdoin, with Jie, Phil, and Dan racked out in the back seat, Aaron remarks to me that the van is suddenly being very unresponsive. He's right, as the van gradually slows, the power steering gives, and the van eventually rolls to a stop. Fortunately it was an easy fix - put more gas in. Apparently the little yellow part 2/3 of the way down the gas gauge on a Chevy Astro means "you're out of gas", not "you're almost four gallons away from being kinda close to out of gas" like it does on all other cars. Fortunately we were only a few minutes away from our exit, so, with the help of a friendly motorist and a state trooper, Aaron and I hitch a ride down to the gas station and back, fill up the astro, and we roll on. Our newfound mobility and four repetitions of Jack's Dookie tape have us fired up and ready to play. Fortunately, this was an ultimate tournament, so it didn't start on time. We arived in plenty of time to warm up with Eddie's carload, who had decided to take the less adventurous (i.e. boring) route. Our karma improved again at this point - we meet Ian, Whit, and Deb, 3 club players from the Portalnd area whose team decided not to show up. Someone proposes that they play with us, and all agree. Ian had solid throws, and helped out with handling duties, Deb was a solid cutter who gave the Quasar ladies some much-appreciated extra rest, and Whit, well, we'll get to that... With the squad re-united, and bolstered with new faces, we get ready for our first game against a high-school team named Eutrys or Eutyrs or Eutristryrystisyr or something - they turn it on the first pull of the game when one of their players knocks the disc out of the air, and onto the ground for some reason. This set the tone for the rest of the game. We exploit their inexperience with awesome D, hard cuts, and laser-guided puts, rolling to a sexcellent 13-0 win. Our next game is our first real test, against Northeastern A. Not quite calibrated to playing against people who know what they're doing, we end up letting them take half by a couple. We fight back in the second half, with sweet end zone cuts by Aaron and sick one-handed grabs by Anna, and the entire team digs deep on defense over some marathon points, but we get thwarted by the soft cap, and end up losing 12-9 or 12-10. Our last game of pool play is against University of Main at Farmington. Encouraged by our solid play in the last game, we trade points with them, then put together a run of 2 or 3 to take half 7-6. Highlights included a nice catch-D by Anna, a foot-block by me, hard, solid cutting from Jen and Alice, and a precision-executed dump-swing from Jie to Phil, resulting in a 25 yard backhand up the breakside. Everyone's fired up. UMF strikes first in the second half to make it sevens. Evryone feels how big the next point is. Then Whit happened. On the pull to us at 7-7, Whit, for absolutely no reason, decides to pull a goofy soccer move and kick the disc out of the air for a turn, giving UMF posession 10 yards from our end zone, which they quickly punch it. After that, some execution errors and some confusion about which way we were forcing gifts UMF some points, at which point we get screwed again by the soft cap. We put a run on though, and the final ends up being (again) a very close, hard fought, 12-9 or 12-10. With one win and two losses, we somehow end up reseeded 4th overall, and thus qualify for the semis (we seriously think they seeded by total point differential, so our 13-0 spanking of Stupid High-Schoolers was big in retrospect). We're matched up against Chum, a Portland Club conglomeration. A little fatigued, we play a flat first half, which Chum takes 8-2. We then play an awesome second half, playing them even to a final of 15-9. Highlights include Dan catching a sweet hammer, and our team Zone O mercilessly piercing their cup over and over again, thanks to smart popping by Jie and Alice. After the game, Chum offers us free access to their full bar, as well as to their hot apple cider (note: this is not an innuendo at all - they actually had cider - it was delicious). We then find out that UMF has left, thereby forfeiting the 3rd place game to us. So, team Suckwagon, with a final record of 1-3 takes third place at Frozen Butterball '04! Eschewing further pick-up with Stupid High-Schoolers and Other Equally Crappy-Looking Team, we pile into our respective vehicles and head back to the safety of Cambridge. Some Angus Burgers from Burger King and 2 more hours of Dookie take us home. It helped to have enough gas too. (written by Dave Lipson '08)