Colorado Springs, CO
July 5-8
Link to full results
Drag’n headed to Colorado Springs for the U.S. Open. With the wildfires from the week before being a national news story many people were worried the event might be canceled, but arrangements were made and we played on! Some athletes decided to make the trip out early to get acclimated to the higher elevation, while others thought climbing some mountains would be the best idea. A majority of the team left Minnesota a day before games started: I guess those people who left later have grown-up jobs. Weirdos.
The first game for the Drag’n Thrusters started at noon on Thursday against a higher seeded Slow White. It was a hard fought game but Slow White ended up taking the W 11-8; This was not the way the team wanted to start the tournament but we still had a long 4 days ahead of us. Drag’n played hungry in the next game and defeated Overhaul 14-5 as we made sure that we weren’t going to start off the tournament with an 0-2 record. The last game of the day was against our regional rivals CLX at 6:00 PM which we ended up winning 13-10. Despite the tough start against Slow White, everyone was happy with our performance against both CLX and Overhaul to end the day.
Oh, what’s up Friday morning? More Frisbee? Sounds good! Drag’n started off the day playing the last seed, Golden Spike, and secured the W, with a final score of 13-8. The next game of the day was against Euforia from Columbia. After multiple testing conversations and long points, Drag’n secured the victory with a 9-7 final score. The last game of the day was against the number 1 ranked team: Polar Bears. Unfortunately, Drag’n made a few too many mistakes and couldn’t upset the 1 seed, resulting in an 11-14 loss to end Friday’s games.
“No way, it’s only Saturday morning and I’m already this sore?!” The first game of the day or the last game of round robin, depending on how you want to look at it, was at noon against the Montreal team – Odyssee. We knew this was an important game; with a 4-2 record, we needed this game to guarantee us a spot in semis. We lost. The final score was 9-11. The whole team was upset and spent 15 min in uncertainty waiting to find out that we ended up with the 4th and final spot into semis and have received a chance to redeem ourselves against Slow White. Everyone grabbed their bags urgently and hustled over to the showcase field.
Everyone was super jacked to play Slow White for a shot at redemption. We all felt fresh and energized while Slow White looked slow and white in the face. D line came up huge, breaking Slow White over and over, and all of a sudden the score was 9-6. Right before Drag’n was about to pull, a lightning delay was issued and everyone had to leave the fields. The Drag’n athletes went to a nearby school’s locker room and tried to stay warm and ready to finish punishing Slow White. After about an hour wait, we were told that the game was postponed until Sunday morning at 8:30 AM.
Drag’n started hot on Sunday with a break, extending the lead to 10-6 with about 25 minutes remaining. There is no way Drag’n could lose this game! Oh, wait, we lost. The next 17 minutes were a blur because they happened so fast and almost everyone blacked out, except for T Pain I guess cause he remembered the next part. There were dropped pulls, dropped unders, and throw-aways, and all of a sudden Slow White was in the lead 11-10. “Uhmm, what?” Says you. “Yeah, I have no idea” Says me. O line was able to score the next point bringing the score 11-11 as the game clock simultaneously struck zero; game to 12. Slow White’s offense made universe point quick, but not painless, as they hucked it deep to a streaking woman who came down with it for the win. Drag’n lost by 1 in semifinals.
Overall, this was not the result we were hoping for, but we still played a pretty great tournament overall. The team gained a lot of chemistry both on and off the field and was able to find areas to improve on. This loss against Slow White may also be a blessing in disguise to prepare Drag’n for future tournaments, who knows. 😉
– Thanks to Ryan “T-Pain” Pekarna and Brian “Strings” Schoenrock for written contributions
