wow, the chicago bulls warmup anthem is still ringing in my ears.  in
unprecedented fashion, at least in this writer's experience, harvard
ultimate played until sundown on sunday, finishing the day with a
thrilling victory in a game to the wire ... too bad it was the b-pool, but
in this year's Purple Valley tournament, that was nothing much to be
ashamed of.  Harvard finished the weekend, 5-2, including 5-0 against
college teams and two 2-point losses against Williams alumni teams.

The weekend truly began at the break of dawn with a 3-hour foggy drive
along route 2 to Williamstown.  Several team members had the good fortune
to visit Springfield, arriving just in time for our face-off with the
old-old school Williams alumni, eventual surprise tournament winners.  
The Red Line was clearly the more athletic of the two teams, and took a
7-5 lead at halftime behind aggressive defense and efficient offense.  
But helped by a narrow, short field, the old dudes slapped together a
fancy zone, forcing several turns, and broke through our d with repeated
quality break mark throws.  Final score, a tough 13-11 loss.

Next game, the UMass Zoo Discs, seeded 2nd in the pool to our 3rd and
coming off an easy game against Williams c.  A tough game for sure, but
Harvard's non-stop defense pushed ahead to an 8-4 halftime lead, and we
took an 11-4 lead as the run continued into the second half.  The Red
Line, avoiding a last-minute collapse and weathering perhaps the most
frustrating point on record, finished it up at 15-12.  Harvard polished up
a 2nd place pool finish against Williams c, in a game which introduced
palm-pilot ultostats to harvard ultimate (results will??).

The next several hours, at least for me, were spent with tom the beer
baron, toby, tyler, and will, watching a good brown-wesleyan game,
throwing thumbers in the wind, driving around and around the block, eating
cold chicken wings, downing a whole lot of english beer, and eventually
passing out in the middle of the world series only to wake up half an hour
before sunday's first game.  The Williams schedulers, good guys that they
are, had us playing another Williams alumni team, the younger old guys.  
Not quite as good as the old old guys, but once again, their experienced
zone gave us trouble, and a 5-3 first half lead somehow turned itself into
a 7-5 halftime deficit.  Harvard came out strong in the second half but
couldn't get the big upwind break, and hurt by a cap at 12, took the loss
at 12-10.

The good part of the day was fortunately yet to come.  A 13-5 thrashing of
the Yale Superfly in b-pool game 1 was followed by a showdown of sorts
with Middlebury.  The super-tall dude on Midd played big in the first
half, leading them to a 7-5 lead.  But big d stop after d stop and several
big hucks led to an 8-1 second half run.  Final score, 13-8 Harvard.  
Last game of the day came against Dartmouth.  A back and forth game
throughout, Dartmouth was helped by several improbable hammer scores, and
had a 10-9 lead with the soft cap to 11.  Yet Harvard dug down deep and
refused to go down, tying it up at 11 behind big d plays by Dave and
Skinner.  Later, with the score 12-11 Dartmouth and the hard cap to 13,
Harvard put together two pressure-filled big points, with Jeff's big
interception at the goal line giving us a 13-12 win to end the day.

Play of the weekend ... several candidates for sure, beginning i guess
with the three d's against dartmouth.  Dave's full extention block and
Skinner's denial near the Dartmouth goal led to two crucial easy scores,
and Jeff's play, well, nothing to say but clutch.  Will had several great
hucks against Middlebury, Andrew had a hot layout grab in the endzone
against Midd, and there was the rookie to rookie connection against Yale.  
But nothing quite stands out to me more than our pressure team defense,
overcoming often chaotic offense on our part, to keep us in all our games
this weekend.  Let's keep it going!!  Great weekend!