Pres Day Invite 2011

February 19-21, 2011

Ottawa goes to "sunny" California for the second time in two years, to be greeted by rain and hail...again.
 Not to mention a missing coach, captain, and starting player for Day 1 of the tournament (darn those airline delays). 2 of 3 co-captains Sonia Komenda and Kaylee Sparks were given the joy of dealing with all the logistical issues while the other leadership members had all the administrative papers. All travel and weather quirks aside, congrats to Michelle Ng and Without Limits for running another great tournament!

Day 1 was played off-site at the back-up fields location due to weather conditions. After flights and driving, 17 of 19+coach Gee-Gees laced up for Day 1. The Gee-Gees met day 1 with round robin play against UCSB, UNC Colorado State, and California-Davis coming out of the cold and unpleasant playing conditions with a 2-2 record.  The game against UNC, who played a zone defense we had not encountered yet this season, was by far the toughest game of the day and the biggest loss. Other games were tight (vs UCSB and Colorado) or won more handily, as lines were rolled and Ottawa got into gear for playing outside once again.

Day 2 of Pres Day welcomed Coach Ken and Kpoh and Gab who got in late the night before. Re-seed pool play games (not having made power pools) were played, where the Gee-Gee's were at the top of the pool. To have the chance to play into quarters, both pool play games were required to be won. The day started late because of the weather, which was lucky for the team who had to travel back from San Bernardino to La Jolla to finish the rest of the tournament back on UCSD campus. Game 1 was played against Southern California who, even though coming in at 17th seed, gave the Gee-Gees a wake up call that it was time to start playing our game if we wanted to have a shot at achieving our tournament goals, a challenge that got stepped up to. The Ladies squeezed out a win just before hard cap. The 2nd game, against host team California-San Diego was a much better game (a team that was more athletic and more talented than S. Cal, even though the game was won more handily). The Gee-Gees won with a score of 13-6, which brought them to the quarters-play in game.

Still Sunday, the Gee-Gee's moved fields to warm up for the play-in game to quarter finals, against Florida. Arriving at the field, Florida's team was tall and athletic. The wind was different at this field, and luckily we had some time to practice throwing with the new wind before starting the game. The game was a great one for our team, and players really stepped up making big plays on defense, and working hard on offense. Final score, 9-6 Ottawa. We're in quarters baby!

Quarters on Monday was a re-match from Saturday's pool play game against UNC. While the weather conditions were far better, the game result was much the same with a final score of 13-4. The score however, does not fully reflect the play on the field: after picking up the style of zone defense, the Gee-Gee's worked out a strategy to capitalize on the UNC zone and broke through the cup easily afterwards. Too many long looks, and not enough patience in the red-zone led to the UNC offense capitalizing on our mistakes. This game was a learning lesson for our team.

Next we played UCSB, also a rematch from Saturday's pool play. This time the result was not so close: a complete drop in intensity left our team without the required focus, and the Gee-Gees lost 6-13 to a, not untalented but, much more determined UCSB team.

Unfortunately, Sonoma State chose not to play the 7/8 game due to lack of healthy bodies. Completely understandable, but we would have loved to have another game. A first tournament of the season finish of 7th place, with a long way to go still and a lot of excitement to get there! Especially great job to all the first-year players who traveled to San Diego and got their first taste of USA College Ultimate - a completely different game than the 2 month university ultimate season played in Canada.

Stay tuned to hear about results from our next tournament, Philly Classic (April 2/3)