Practice Recaps

Practice Recap 10/29 and 10/31

Numbers were a little low at the beginning of practice, but picked up as time went on. I think a lot of the people were in class. We started out with some cut-to. The drill is not as crisp as it could be. There veterans and rookies a like who do not run hard all the way through the disc. The drill can be used to help your catching. If you sprint as fast as you can it makes the catch harder, and it will prepare you for game speed.

We moved to a hucking drill with a defender similar to Sunday’s practice. Having all team members throw helped make this more of a conditioning drill. There were some good plays in a lot of the pairs and competitive battles for the disc. Pat and Pavan seemed like they were having some fun going after the disc. Also, there was some trashing talking between Joel and Rip as they raced down the field. Kyle and Kurley had the speed vs. height battle going on. Waldo and Brad battled for handler supremacy. LT and Anthony had a good rookie battle as well as Zac and Connor. After forehand and backhand hucks, Illinois scrimmaged to finish off the practice.

10/31

Halloween’s spookiness could not keep the boys from the ultimate field today. As practiced started the fields seemed to have a crosswind going, but the wind seemed to die towards the end of practice. After a long inside out box drill, Illinois split into a Dutch drill and a zone defense drill. The Dutch drill exposed some of teammate’s weaknesses in throwing the short forehand pass. This is a difficult and often over looked when practicing your throws, but it is very important.

The zone drill pitted players against some of Illinois’ defensive line. For the most part, I think there were only 2 scores were the zone did not get at one d. The majority of the points had the zone getting a d, usually on a throw away by a handler. Mitch looked solid getting quite a few d’s playing the weak side flat.

One potential problem area with our zone seemed to be the handler crashing then the cup getting broken after that. It felt like maybe the cup would hesitate to stop the crasher and get caught in between jumping that cut or repositioning the cup for the new thrower. I think more practice and suggestions may help improve the cup. For example, I was thinking maybe if we see a team crashing a lot, we could pinch the middle flat in tighter and have the weak side flat pinch more towards the middle of the field. I do not know if this will work, but it might be something to try.

After the drills, Illinois played a rookie vs. sophomore game and a junior vs. senior game. The elders won in both matchups. The sophomores ran a zone against the rookies taking away their athleticism and capitalizing on their poor throws. In the junior senior game, the seniors were more effective at moving the disc, as they were handler heavy. The seniors brought out the old school playbook to try to confuse the juniors, but poor execution was the junior’s downfall.