Back row: Crossie, Cath, Hammer, Kez, Molly, Tegan, Gaby, Ash, Shaz, Alex
Middle: Lila, Kylie (coach), Maylin, Keato, Hayley, Liz, Keah, Emer, Erin
front: Mica, Rachel, SPillar, Hebs, Liz
For many of us the first adventure was arriving in LAX after 13+ hours on the plane to find a monstrous queue at customs and not much time to make connecting flights. Ash and Shaz were the lucky ones, but many of us found ourselves stuck in LA for a few more hours on standby hoping to get on the next flight. Fortunately we all got on the next flight and so arrived in Seattle mid afternoon. At least we got to the US on time unlike Lila who with a misplaced passport didn’t get there till Friday night.
Picking up the cars we hit another snag. Somehow Thrifty failed to have enough GPS units and so we had two cars but only one sat nav. The helpful advice from their staff was to “why can’t you just go to Wal-Mart and buy a map”. Kylie took charge of the Chevrolet Suburban with the GPS unit, and Kez got the car and the plan was to follow Kylie. That plan lasted all of 5 minutes out of the airport when we got separates at traffic lights. Kylie’s van had a minor detour back to the airport from taking a wrong exit but that was nothing compared to the traumatic adventure the others found themselves on. I’m not sure I can do the story justice given I wasn’t there but after visiting the bogan outskirts of Seattle, a fender-bender, police interview, a replacement car but still no GPS, they eventually arrived at Britta’s about 5 hours after leaving the airport.
The rest of us were occupied with shopping at REI and wake-boarding at Britta & Kevin’s. Liz, Hayley and (someone else – sorry I’ve forgotten who) did a stella job in sorting out some roast chooks and salad for dinner. Post-dinner Britta’s latest toy got a workout – the dancing game.
Friday we got a little bit of a sleep-in as the first game wasn’t till 10:30 and the fields were nearby. A longish coffee stop and a tour of the fields meant we weren’t there quite as early as planned. First game we faced Seattle Underground. This was a good game for us to start with – an opportunity to clear out the jet lag. It was tight early on but Underground had a large number of unforced errors (mainly drops) which we capitalised on and so took the game 15-9.
| Day 1 | |
|---|---|
| v. Underground (Seattle) | W 15-9 |
| v. UNO (Japan) | L 9-15 |
| v. Brute Squad (Boston) | W 16-15 |
| Day 2 | |
| v. Huck (Japan) | L 11-15 |
| v. Fury (San Francisco) | L 5-15 |
| v. Slackjaw (San Francisco) | W 15-2 |
| v. Scandal (D.C.) | L 9-15 |
| Day 3 | |
| v. Zeitgeist (San Francisco) | W 17-16 |
| v. Huck (Japan) | L 11-15 |
| v. Nemesis (Chicago) | L 9-15 |
| v. Brute Squad | DNP |
Second game was against UNO from Japan. As expected their speed and precise hucking was a challenge to us but it was a respectable scoreline of 9-15.
Third and final game of Friday was against Brute Squad from Boston. Crossie had a personal vendetta to settle against them after playing them in Prague and challenged the team to help her. We had a good first half – up 8-4 at half. Brute Squad looked a little shell-shocked but they picked up their game after half and brought a lot more intensity. Eventually we were locked in a universe point game which we ended up on the right end of 16-15.
During one of Friday’s games (can’t remember which) Keah took a ridiculous layout goal from a hammer helixing away from her. It was one of the best takes I’ve seen.
We elected not to go to the showcase game but return to Britta’s (some of us via a little shopping expedition for new cleats) for more wakeboarding and dance game action.
Saturday came upon us all far too early as we had to leave at 5:30am. The tournament was a bit over an hour north of Seattle in Burlington and our first game was 8am. Arriving at the fields they looked lush with long grass cover but we were soon to discover the long grass was covering a surface that wasn’t unlike concrete.
Saturday went like this:
There were 16 teams, split into 2 top pools of 4 and 2 bottom pools of 4. We played the other 3 teams in our pool plus a cross-over against our equivalent seed in the bottom pool.
Game 1: Huck (Japan) – we gave them a 3-0 lead early on after a bit of rabbit in head lights action. We got over that and clawed back to 12-10 before eventually going down 15-11. It felt like a game that got away.
Game 2: Fury (San Francisco, USA). We got to change our shirts twice before this game since their captain didn’t quite understand we only had one set of shirts with numbers on… so made us flip for shirts, then got us to change back once their coach (Matt) realised what had happened. The only game where I felt we were outclassed – reflected in the score line 5-15.
Game 3: Slackjaw (San Francisco, USA). This was a cross-over game against the bottom pool team and the scoreline reflected it. We put the game away comfortably 15-2. Some of you will remember playing Slackjaw in our pre-tour in 2008. They rolled out the slackjaw dance again – Keah put in a memorable performance, and Liz Dodd gave it her best shot.
Game 4: Scandal (D.C., USA). Scandal had a very close game with Fury so I was a little concerned we were going to get another lesson dealt to us. Scandal had a very tall team but didn’t really use their height. We were close but just not close enough to quite be in it going down 15-9. Liz E unfortunately landed very heavily on her knee (on aforementioned concrete-like ground) while getting a layout block to save a goal and so didn’t play the end of the game. This left us as seeded as 4th in our top pool.
We headed off to our hotel for the night, getting there just in the nick of time as our booking was in the process of being cancelled and rooms being given to other people. Fortunately only one room was lost so we were pretty happy having double beds to ourselves. Back to the fields for the salmon dinner – long queues meant we didn’t get to see all of the boys in the showcase game.
Sunday’s schedule was a round of 16, quarter-final, semi-final then final/placing. The round of 16 was against Zeitgeist, the top of one of the bottom pools. We had another slow start (a bit of a theme for the weekend) – this time really slow being down 6-1. We found some fire and pulled our socks up and found ourselves in another universe point situation, which we won 17-16. It was great to see the intensity brought by everyone in the team to take that game. Zeitgeist were pretty upset.
We had to pick up our gear walk to our next field to start immediately. For reasons I still don’t understand we were playing Huck. I don’t understand how they did the draw because a normal quarter-final would’ve had us playing UNO (top of the other pool). We thought Huck’s 12 sets of legs would be weary but they still had plenty of gas to burn us deep. We didn’t adjust our man-to-man defence well enough and went down 15-11. And so finally we ended our 3h15mins of straight ultimate. The highlight was post-game – Shaz decided to herd all of the Huck players together so that they could leap for our Aussie souvenirs. Not realising that Maylin was still a way off so Shaz had to keep them all herded together – with the language barrier they had no idea was going on. Then Ash hoisted us one of their shortest players on her shoulders to give her a chance of catching something.
We should have played Scandal next but Scandal thought (and we agreed) it would be better to try and mix up who we played so Kylie did some wheeling and dealing and negotiated us to play Nemesis (Chicago) instead. We lost 15-9, but a good challenging game. Liz E cleated up and played the last 3 or 4 points as some of the swelling in her knee had gone down – managing to score a goal the first point she was on.
Finally we were meant to meet Brute Squad again in the 7-8 playoff. They had just finished a long game against Scandal and had a number of injuries so weren’t keen to play. This was disappointing for the team as almost everyone was still keen to play. However, it meant we could watch Fury v Riot in the final (Riot won in universe point for the record). Most of us headed back to Britta & Kevin’s after that where we went out for cocktails and burgers and finished the night with more dancing game and rockband.
Everyone played solidly and had some great moments. It was great to have a 22 person roster – it was a challenging schedule and you really need a roster that big to be able to play properly for the whole tournament. We played in three subbing groups which I think worked fairly well with managing play time.
Other comments about the tournament experience:
- I like the UPA pick rule - personally I would support a change to the WFDF pick rule
- Aussies are pretty spoilt with tournament food & facilities – there wasn’t necessarily water anywhere near the fields. Food consisted of bagels and bananas. (oh and the port-a-loos were pretty gross too)
- We had a lot of post-game awkwardness as the US teams just do a “great game” cheer then slap hands.We never quite worked out what to do. we had spirit circles with a few of the teams which were also a little awkward but I don’t think we insulted anyone… We started a trend of throwing our gifts in the air and making the other team fight for them.
- We barely got to see the boys play given we had such a full schedule.
Big thanks to the following people:
- Keah & Kylie for organising most of the logistics
- Liz & helpers (Hayley, Hebs & others) for organising dinners on Thurs & Fri night and lunches
- All of the drivers (Kylie, Keats, Keah, Crossie, Gaby, Kerry, Ash) – personally so very grateful I didn’t have to drive
- Ash for organising the shirts
- Liz & Keah for running warm ups and warm downs
