Practice Recaps

10/22/07 Practice Recap

The weather again was brutal, but the attendance at practice was high. Coming off a tourney weekend, it would seem that FIST would practices their throws and have an easy practice. However, the captains had other ideas in mind. After tearing up the fields with some cut-to’s the captain picked teams to scrimmage each other.

This scrimmage would prove to be as intense as some of the more recent scrimmages. Pat captained a team (Murderers) that seemed to have more veteran throwers while Joel captained a team made of mostly rookies and few veterans (lets call them the Bloggers). As Joel’s team only had two experienced handlers, Joel played the up winders while Walden handle the downwind points. Both teams seemed equally capable of scoring up wind while the scores traded to 4-3. Then, the Murderers rattled off 3 straight to take half. During this sequence things got particular spicy as Leftsky decided to show up Pavan, with the Ripsky hand blow, after a crucial hand block. Pavan seemed irritated and never mentally the same for the rest of the game. Tempers seemed to be running high when Denis tomahawk spiked a disc after scoring another goal for the murderers. At this point, there was confusion about the score. Teams did not know if the margin was 4 or 6 points in a game to 11. At any rate, Joel decided to come back into the game after leaving earlier with an injury. His team rallied behind him scoring 3 straight. These points were intense and included Joel hand blocking Denis along with one of the worst collisions in practice history. Brad made an up line cut while Max was running hard into get the d. The two collided and both ended up on the ground clearly shaken up.

The murderers seemed to regain composure and put a few goals into close out the game with 11 points but the score of the other team still remains a mystery.

Highlights of the practice include a Jon H. layout grab for a big up wind score. Additionally, Chris (C-Lo or Eminem you pick the nickname) had a big shoulder high layout d for the Bloggers. Mitch also played a big role with a sick lay grab d and some up wind break throws to get the Bloggers moving.

All and All this was one of my favorite practices for the intensity reasons and conditions. But, remember we are a team, and while things get dicey in practice make sure to talk to the other team after the game. As Jake says, we need chemistry.

Practice Recap 10/24/07

The good early season weather seems to be catching up to the team as every practice seems to be really rainy or windy. Today the first 1.5 hours focused on throwing drills. We started with an inside out box to work on the swing passes and windy conditions. Then we moved to everyone’s favorite triangle of death. To make things easier the triangle faced downfield. One thing noticeable in the drill was people trying to over throw down wind hucks. Last year, Stupca would suggest taking something of the throw and putting it higher in the air and letting your teammates run to it. Another thing I noticed was people throwing bullets on the incuts. I think one possible reason for this was people wanted to put more spin on their throws. However, people were getting more spin by throwing the disc harder. We need to have touch on the down wind throws, so they are catchable.

After the triangle of death, the teams moved into a scrimmage with Jake and Dave picking squads. There was clearly a lack of depth for both teams as many vets and rookies were missing from practice. Both teams had handler problems which forced longs to come back and handle. They did a good job but with the veteran longs handling sometimes, that left the rookies to cut. This was especially a problem for Dave's team going upwind as the rookies did not know how to get open underneath. There was one point where Dave's team was just throwing it back and forth in their own end zone waiting for a rookie to get open. Eventually Walden went upline and unleashed a backhand bomb to Connor close to the endzone but they were unable to score. Now if Walden could throw a forehand, things could get interesting. There was another similar point but the upline pass floated in the air and gave Keenan a Callahan. Both teams were able to score upwind usually by a huck or two and then finally working the disc in. Downwind however, there were a ton of hucks by everybody. Most of them were completed but there were some D's.

Highlights

Keenans Callahan