Purple Valley 2004, 10/2-10/3

Disclaimer: Reading this may make you wish that you had come with us. Too 
bad for you. Also, the only numbers that should be taken as true are 13 and 
0, because I am terrible at remembering scores. I'll start writing them down 
or something if I plan on writing another report in the future. 

We awoke on a chilly Saturday morning and met at 6 to go to Williams College 
in Williamstown, MA - about three hours away. Sprecher was late. Jack, Will, 
Teddy, Aaron, Jay, Dave Liston, Mike MacKenzie, Sprecher, Manoah, and me 
cram into Jack's Suburban, and we had an overly cozy but otherwise 
uneventful ride and arrived on time, ready to play. We are the #2 seed in a 
pool containing the Creaky Kraftees (Williams Alum Team), us, Middlebury, 
Columbia, and BUFO 2 (Williams B-team), in that order. 

Our first game is against Middlebury, which has Will and eventually the rest 
of us fired up. Apparently, we don't like Middlebury for reasons which I 
still cannot understand stemming from 1) Josh McCarthy's wife having gone 
there and 2) their team name being the "Pranksters." Whatever. The highlight 
for them is some guy playing a point in a clown suit. I guess it was 
amusing, but we rolled them to a 12-5 or so victory with the hard cap, since 
we started a little late. It was a great way to start the day, and we were 
all pumped. 

Our next game was BUFO 2. By some means, I managed to convince them to do a 
team hand-stand contest for pull, with the team with the last man standing 
winning. I swear, I had no idea that Jack Marsh could do a hand-stand. We 
control the temp o for most of the game, and steamroll them to a 13-1 (or so) 
victory. Similarly to the Middlebury game, we play hard man defense and mix 
in a 1-3-3 zone for a few points. 

Columbia is up next, and we are a little worried about this game, but fired 
up nonetheless. We came out strong and fast, basically scoring at will. We 
take half 7-1, and we continue with the momentum to win it 13-2. At this 
point we are 3-0 and going to face the #1 seed in our pool and the #2 seed 
in the tournament. What started as a clear day was slowly getting cloudier, 
and the PM showers forecast looked pretty accurate. 

The Creaky Kraftees are one of two Williams alum teams, the one with the 
older guys. They are what I would describe as a typical old guy club team, 
except for one 17-year-old who likes to run fast. They love to throw hammers 
and are pretty darn good at it. So we jump out to an early 1-0 lead before 
dropping a couple points and we're eventually down 3-2. I believe that they 
take half at something like 7-3. A lot of mental mistakes and a ton of 
missed scoring chances leave us with a lopsided half. We come out a little 
stronger with some good defense, including a layout D in the end zone by me 
and we bring it to something like 8-5. We're getting back into the game when 
the rain starts coming down. We trade a couple more and then they start 
pulling away when the lightning horn sounds. It was 12-9 (thereabouts), and 
we decided to just call the game and get out of there. Not to make excuses, 
but the field was ridiculously torn up and muddy, with random puddles 
everywhere that screwed up all our cuts. Whatever. 

At this point we were 3-1 and thankful as all hell that we had a last round 
bye so we could get out of there, shower, and get to dinner. Our living 
quarters weren't bad, albeit a little tough to find. We showered and hit the 
road to go to a supermarket before dinner to pick up the likes of donuts, 
pop tarts, and frozen pizza, all for breakfast the next morning. Manoah got 
two cookies. We then went to dinner where they served a combination of subs 
and pretty good selection of Chinese food. Teddy's girlfriend, who plays for 
the Williams women's team (and has a huge ass, according to Will Chen), 
helped hook us up with some more food. 

The party. We arrived to discover that we were the fifth seed on the 
re-seed, which meant that we had a first round bye and didn't have to play 
until 11:30 the next day, which was AWESOME. If you don't know about the 
theme, it was cartoon characters, which was completely awesome. After much 
coaxing, we finally got the entire team to go, with the likes of Inspector 
Gadget (Jack), David the Gnome (Will), Bam-Bam (Dave), some weird Superman 
variation (Jay), Quailman (me), and OPTIMUS PRIME (MacKenzie) making 
appearances. I'm sure Mike has pictures. Teddy claims he was there as Babs 
from Tiny Toons, but he was with his girlfriend the whole time. 

The Tufts women had challenged us to a boat race. We knew we had to kick 
their asses, which we did, despite their strategy of having one girl pour 
her entire beer over her head, which was disgusting. We then had a 
Harvard-Yale boat race, which we won handily. (They say they want another 
piece of us at The Game weekend, but they'll get killed again.) Everybody 
but me, Mike, Jack, and Dave left a this point, so we were shorthanded when 
Brown challenged us. We offered to go fours or have me and Jack drink 
extras, but Yale stepped in instead and gave us three. Two of their guys 
completely sucked, but our guys really picked up the slack. Dave Liston is 
going to become a very good boat racer in the future. At some point in the 
party, I witnessed some indecency which I am not permitted to speak of 
directly. 

We left the party at around 11:30, but when we got back and changed we 
decided to go back again. So Jack, Mike, and me walked back for about 
another hour and did some more pimping, pimping, and boat racing, 
respectively. We returned and were asleep pretty soon after. 

Our first game in the morning was the quarterfinals against UMass, a team 
which had a very full squad (we were outnumbered 20+ to 10), which may have 
doomed them. They never really got into any sort of groove offensively in 
the first half, dropping passes all over the place. We take half 7-3, mostly 
due to unforced errors on their part. We play a little better defense in the 
second half which counters their stepped up O, and we win it 13-7. We made 
some great individual plays, including Jay showing off what appeared to be a 
40-inch vert to get a D, Sprecher making a huge layout D and nice endzone 
grab, a great sliding catch by Dave, Mike MacKenzie making his first "true" 
layout for a score, which was an incredible one-handed, full layout grab, 
and Will Chen making a second opportunity catch which can only be described 
as twisting, spwarling, and awesome. 

We go to the semifinals for a rematch against Creaky Kraftees, who were 
re-seeded as #1. We were determined to play better, and we did. Despite a 
slow start which gave them something like a 5-2 lead, we storm back until 
they take half 7-5 (possibly 7-6). Our tight marks and good man defense 
really helped us out. Shortly after half, Sprecher goes down on a collision 
for the dump, hurting his knee. Although we find out it is nothing too 
serious (no breaks or tears), he is out for the rest of the day. Despite 
losing his on-field wiles, we eventually tie it up, 9-9. We then continue to 
trade points until 11-11. We get some Ds, including a huge hand-block by 
Aaron, but turn it over with some offensive miscues, and they eventually win 
it 13-11. The favorite play from this game, and probably the entire weekend, 
was a beautiful huck from Will deep to Jack... and Manoah. There was no 
defender within 30 yards of either of them when Jack finally got it in the 
end zone. 

Although they won, the Kraftees didn't want to play another game, and told 
us that we were playing Brown for the finals. OK, so we're going to the 
finals. We come out fast and score the first point, but I would say that our 
hearts weren't really in the game. It was an extremely low key, low energy 
finals which Brown eventually won 13-3. The game wasn't very eventful, 
though Manoah did make some great plays that fouls were called on. But 
whatever. We came in second at a tournament that we brought 10 guys to, and 
we were outnumbered, but not outmatched, in every game. 

Afterward we head over to a sandwich shop, which was awesome. Like, amazing. 
A couple rousing games of Botticelli made the car ride back go quickly. 

My favorite moments from the weekend: 
1) Mike MacKenzie, upon seeing all sorts of cartoon characters on the dance 
floor at the party, saying "This is what my dreams look like." 
2) Will Chen, upon seeing the size of Teddy's pants and mistaking them for 
his girlfriend's pants, saying "Your girlfriend must have a huge ass!" Teddy 
then stands aside to reveal his girlfriend standing right behind him. 

Hope you enjoyed. Only a report this long could even attempt capture the fun 
that was had a Purple Valley. 

-sk 

"One time Regina George punched me in the face. It was awesome."