College Nationals 2005 5/27-5/29; Corvallis, OR. As written by Red Line freshman Dave "Sparkle" Lipson (through the UBC game, then Jack Marsh takes over because Sparkle had to leave early for his sister's graduation) --------------------------------------------------------- Nationals The 2005 UPA College Ultimate Championships began for the Harvard Redline as early as Wednesday morning at 4:45 when about half of the Redline, clad in their newly-arrived and utterly sweet redline hoodies (thanks Dennis). Fortunately, no one gets profiled as a terrorist (not even Karim, who was sporting a mind-boggling Fu-Manchu) and everyone arrives safely in Portland. Seven of us move on to Corvallis and [prepare to take exams the next day. We are rewarded with the arrival of Phil and Zuckerman who have managed to road-trip the 3000-plus miles to Corvallis without killing each other. We study late into the night, and early into the morning (Manoah), exams get taken, and probably passed, and the relief of completing them, plus a vigorous game of Marco-Polo in the hotel pool get us ready to compete Friday Morning. We entered the tournament seede 14th our of 16 teams, the 4th seed in pool B. We all know that we are underseeded, and are hungry to get out there and make some noise. Friday Morning The Redline assembled at the gorgeous fields to prepare for our first game of pool play, against the Wisconsin Hodags, the #2 seed in our pool, and the 7th seed overall in the tournament. We warm up well, and perform a spirited haka, but run into some trouble in the first half. Perhaps suffering from a momentary bout of “happy to be there” syndrome, and perhaps feeling the absence of coach Jeff Graham, we quickly give up two breaks to the hard man d of the Hodags. The offense then finds its legs, and the R-E d-line, comes out firing, forcing a turnover and exploiting it on offense to get one of the breaks back. We trade points for a while, occasionally breaking, but the Hodags strong man d breaks us just as much, and despite our evening the score at 5-5, they take half 8-6. We regroup and take the field again, but the Hodags haven’t lost any of their intensity over halftime – they put on a quick four-point run behind strong defense, and relentless, athletic cutting. Down 12-6, Harvard refuses to admit defeat – no stranger to big second half comebacks, having overcome a large deficit against Northwestern at presidents Day and an 8-4 halftime deficit against Dartmouth in the game-to-go, we know we have the mental strength to get the job done. Also, we seem to remember the attitude instilled in us by coach Josh “Frutz” McCarthy – that the game was winnable, and we were going to come out flying, give it everything we had, and see what happened. The defense kicks it up a notch, forcing a bunch of turns, and Steve punishes the Hodags questionable offensive decisions by swatting down a bunch of floaty hucks. The D then finds their offensive form, rediscovering their deep game with smooth shots by BJ and Dennis deep downfield to Manoah and Steve. Our defensive rampage results in a 5-2 run, but we needed more – we had closed the gap to 3, but the score was still 14-11, game point Wisconsin – do or die. Our sideline and fans are now fully into the game, and fire up our defense to force and exploit 2 more turns. 14-13, and everyone can feel the shift in momentum. However, 3 straight was probably too much to have to ask of any defense, and Wisconsin’s O finally punches it in to take the game 15-13. Disappointed that we couldn’t pull it out, but feeling good about how well and how hard we played the second half, and reassured that we can obviously hack it with Nationals-Caliber teams, we move on to our second round matchup with Stanford. The Stanford Bloodthirsty, a perrenial championship favorite, entered the 2005 College championships no differently – number one seed in our pool, and the second overall seed in the tournament. We knew Stanford would give us a challenge, and that’s exactly what we got. Stanford comes down in a relentless man d, and the offense again struggles to find its rhythm, and we again find ourselves down two quick breaks. But the offense responds, and we go back to our strengths – Jack putting it deep, and Mike Mac making mind-boggling grabs – The Collector pulls this one down after being knocked to the ground, calling the foul, having the disc macked by a Stanford defender, and then making a one-handed grab while stationary, on his back. And one. However, our offense continues to have trouble beating their D, a combination of Stanford’s pressure and our own deep game not clicking like it usually is. One unfortunate lowlight of the first half is Stanford’s Danny Newman going up for a disc, and coming down writhing in pain, the later diagnosis being a blown-out ACL and MCL. I guess that’s God’s way of telling us all to never EVER try to sky Ryan Davies again. Anyway, the injury makes us all appreciate having all our various ligaments, and makes us feel better about being down 8-3 at half. At halftime, Josh “Goaltimate” McCarthy gets us refocused , and encourages us to worry less about our opponents and our score, and just play within ourselves, and play the kind of ultimate we know how to. His speech hits home, and basically everybody picks up their own individual game, and we play a stronger second half, eventually losing 15-8. We have our bye after the Stanford game, which some use to get (delicious) sandwiches from a local deli, and others use to watch some of the other pool-play games going on. Those of us that stick around notice a number of things The Colorado coaches are dicks The Colorado players are also, but to a lesser extent, dicks Washington’s cheer is really dumb (“U-dub” x5, “ultimate”) Carleton obviously wasn’t anticipating the weather in Oregon when they ordered long-sleeve jerseys Sandwiches arrive and are consumed, and we cleat up for the biggest game of the day, Queen’s. Although much had been made (Mostly by morons on RSD) of Queen’s undefeated record and players with Club experience, Coach Josh “Candlepin” McCarthy had kept us grounded, reminding us that they were, after all, just dudes in shirts. So we send our seven dudes in shirts out into the now intensely hot conditions, to battle for a spot in the championship bracket. We trade a few ugly points, and begin to realize that the fatigue of a full day of ultimate, and the over-90-degree temperatures have turned this game into a real slugfest – each team is turning the disc more than usual, and it will simply be a matter of who has the legs, and the desire, to grind it out. Our defense’s deep game doesn’t click right away – a couple of execution errors mean we don’t exploit the myriad turns we force, and we trade points and breaks to 5-5. However, a few offensive execution errors opens the door for Queen’s to ride a few more breaks into taking half 8-6. Down, but not dispirited, we recognize that we have what it takes to win this game – all our tough conditioning work on the track over the winter was paying off -- Mike George admitted afterwards, “I still had legs,” and Steve showed more effort cutting than we had seen from the laid-back Californian all season. Keyed up for the second half, Will Chen sets the tone by inflating his balloons and running Queen’s highly (overly?) hyped handler Adam Melnyck into the ground. We stick to our game of motion offense and hard in-cuts, but our deep game still proves elusive – our percentages were just not what we wanted. This scoring draught, and the multi-turn points it produced wear down the Redline physically and mentally, and the game begins to slip out of control. Despite the much-appreciated cheers from alums Andrew Fleming and Mark Zuckerman, and a die-hard few from the Tufts women’s team, the Redline simply can’t make the most of its opportunities, and Queen’s eventually takes the game 15-11. Despite our disappointment at not making it into the championship bracket, and at not winning a game we knew we could win, the team refocuses around Mike George’s patriotic post-game speech, and recognizes that there was still a lot to play for in the consolation bracket – 9th place, possibly a strength bid for next year, and pride. We had come to Nationals to make some noise, to show people what Harvard Ultimate was about – and we knew we could – and would – do that on Sunday. Sunday Morning We take advantage of our 11 o’clock start time to sleep in and arrive fashionably late to watch some of the pre-quarter between regional rivals UBC and Washington, the loser to play us. UBC loses a heartbreaker on universe point, and all of a sudden, due to the unpredictability of sports, the stage is set for a matchup between the underrated Harvard Redline and the much-hyped UBC, the 5th seed overall in the tournament. We didn’t expect to see such a high-caliber team in the placement bracket, but it gave us only a bigger opportunity to turn some heads and make some noise. Our O scores it’s first point like clockwork, then UBC’s Oscar Pottinger shows why he’s a frontrunner in the Callahan voting by putting up a perfect 60-yard forehand on the first throw, for a goal. But rather than discourage us, it seems rather to pump us up. The cooler conditions, and perhaps a certain amount of acclimation to the nationals atmosphere seem to have given us a mental stability lacking from Saturday – our O recovers from turns, and our defense scores more than the day before, with the result being that we play UBC tighter than many of the teams we had played up to this point. Nevertheless, UBC manages to get just a few more turns, score a little more frequently – they’re up 6-4. At this point, the Redline seems to have gotten sick of playing from behind, and kicks it up into another gear – we go on a 4-1 run to take half 8-7. Everyone’s pumped up, and you can feel the shift in momentum. UBC refocuses at halftime, but the Redline is undeterred, and we carry over the great playing and high energy that we ended the first half with into the second, and our offense fights through a marathon, multi-turn point to keep trading points with UBC for the entire second half, until the cap goes off. We couldn’t have asked for a better situation. double game point. At Nationals. Against a top caliber team. Unfased by the pressure, the offense puts together a clutch drive, fuelled by hard in-cuts and smart dumps and swings by our handlers, just like we had all year. UBC tries to break up our flow by making some ticky-tack calls, but Steve calls a prompt time-out, and the O gets a chance to take a breath and re-establish the flow. After the restart, smelling victory, the Redline continues to do what we had done all season. Jack puts up a bladey forehand to willy for the goal. Game Over. Harvard Wins. Callahan-hyped Oscar Pottinger goes home, Harvard moves on to play for 9th. Our last game would be against Michigan State's Burning Couch. We come out still fired up from our double-game-point win against UBC and storm out to an early lead, our defense breaking quickly and efficiently. We build an 8-4 lead into halftime and feel good about our level of play. Too good, perhaps. Michigan State comes out strong in the second half and we let our guard down. They pressure us on defense and we make uncharacteristic mental and physical mistakes. All of a sudden we are in a tight dogfight with them, but we never quite get it together. Despite some inspired defensive play including a huge game-saving block in the endzone by Kolthammer, Michigan State pulls out the 15-13 comeback victory. Certainly a disappointing game to end our season on, but a minor disappointment compared to some of the great things we've done this season. We finished the tournament in 11/12th, tied with Carleton and ahead of Pittsburgh, UNC, UBC, and Queens. We hung out, watched some exciting semis games, went out for dinner, and partied in our hotel room saturday night after hearing reports of a lame tournament party. The D line took the O line in a boatrace, Tiger lost to a girl in a wrestling match, and John Lai's stomach will be red for another 2 months after an epic late-night bellyflop into the hotel pool. Sunday we got to watch an exciting finals, as New England representative Brown took tournament favorite Colorado on double-game-point, after staging a late-game comeback. At halftime of the finals, we were awarded the Spirit Award for the tournament, which is truly an honor that we should all be really proud of. Credit everyone on the team for respecting each other, our opponents, and playing the game the way it was meant to be played. From there, we took the drive back up to Portland, and headed out. Thanks for an unforgettable season, everyone.