Club Sectionals, Oxnard

Aaaah, club Sectionals at Oxnard. It was quite a fun experience for me, despite being unable to play on Saturday because I was Charley Horsed on my left quad during Thursday Rocketsauce. Watching a bunch of my Irvine buddies playing (Metro, Monster and Phil) as well as seeing all of the Irvine support (Annie, Atomic, Peter, Sara) was pretty awesome.

I was with the Long Beach mixed team "What the Funk," a team filled with fun people. Will was the only one on our team that actually physically embraced our team name by coming to the tournament with a mullet and crazy-shaved beard/mustache. He also dressed in short-shorts that were cut on the sides so he could actually fit in them.

We stayed at Katherine's place (CSULB girl) that lives near Oxnard, and her mom was super excited to have us. She cooked us dinner that included burgers and tons of freshly baked cookies, and she also made us breakfast that consisted of multi-grain pancakes with eggs and yogurt (hohoho! I bet none of you have eaten multi-grain pancakes!) Yeah, yeah that's right, you should all be jealous. =P

Saturday we didn't do so well, losing against Inferno, In-N-Out, and Metro. Inferno was a team we should have played much better against, but we just weren't clicking as a team during this first game of the day. I feel the game against In-N-Out was one we could have definitely won. If I remember correctly, we were in the lead for the first half, but In-N-Out began stepping up their game, and we began playing foolishly (e.g. Will attempting a between-the-leg throw at the endzone). Losing against Metro wasn't a surprise, but we did get a callahan that doubled our point total before we lost =P

Sunday we did significantly better, and I actually got to play (perhaps the two are related hahha j/k). We defeated OCD, which was quite an intense game, and Blowhard, but we forfeited our final game (that would have been against In-N-Out again) since people on our team had things to do (CSULB Fall classes have already been in session for 2 weeks).

On a personal level, I felt I learned a few valuable lessons from the mistakes I made while handling. The first point I played in against OCD, I juggled a disc that was thrown to me, then threw a backhand upwind throw that became a blade, that then hit a defender in the chest and ricocheted up, over and past him to Rory in the endzone. It was a pretty awesome assist, but I learned about my tendency to OI a throw with a defender marking me hard, which is a big no-no on an upwind throw. This is something I will be working on, ridding this OI tendency and mastering my backhand with a mark on me.

Overall, this tournament was quite a fun experience for me, and I greatly enjoyed seeing old familiar faces on the field, and getting to know many more (in particular from the Long Beach team). Considering that Long Beach won't really be losing anyone on their team, they will probably be Irvine's greatest rival in this upcoming College season. I am quite pumped for the new season, and I hope everyone else is as well, girls and guys alike. Yeeeeha!

Oh and this just has to go in this post. Our team (What the Funk) totally left Mullet Man Will behind at Oxnard. When T-Bone pulled into the parking lot in Long Beach, she received a call from him that probably started off with him asking "Where are you guys?" Oh and he was also drunk when he called (go figure), so none of us felt bad for him hahaha I'm pretty sure he just hitched a ride with someone back to Long Beach, so this story ends with smiles and laughs. =)