Queen City Tune-Up

Here's a really dry recap:

21 people on Penn Void this weekend took the 11-hour drive down to Charlotte for the Queen City Tune-Up tournament, aptly named because Charlotte is known as the Queen City (I don't think I would want to live there). We went in as the 16th seed overall, which I found absurd...

We were in a pool with Georgia, Ohio State, and William & Mary. Georgia and Ohio State had made Nationals last year, so this tourney was a sort of measuring stick for us.

Saturday: To start, winds were about 20 mph, making everything difficult. We played zone defense most of the day, and we faced zone defense most of the day as well. In our first game against Ohio St., there were numerous drops and errant throws, but we were neck-and-neck the whole way with a nationals-caliber team. In the end, they capitalized on our end-zone turnovers and took the game 13-10. Georgia was next, and we came out very flat. Making more bad throws and numerous drops in the wind, we got hammered, 13-3. Against William & Mary, we shored up our offensive woes (at least as much as we could with the winds) and took a gritty match 8-6 on hard cap. Technically we had broken seed...

In our crossover game, we faced Virginia. The winds had died down, and we rode our momentum to a 7-4 halftime advantage. We came out flat the second half and eventually lost on universe point 11-10, setting up a morning match with Michigan Magnum...

Sunday: Winds had picked up to about 30-40 mph, making Ultimate really crappy. We had a tough match against Michigan, who had played well on Saturday, with a 3-1 record (losing to North Carolina, a nationals team, by 1). Play by sides was sloppy, and Michigan held a 6-4 advantage at one point, threatening to pull away. But we regathered and took half 7-6, and eventually took the game 11-7, a huge win - also a turnaround and a wave of momentum we hoped to carry to our quarters-match against Pitt.

We played poorly against Pitt, a Nationals team in our region. We went down 3-0 early and never really recovered, losing 12-7. But we did show that we could play with them - the 3 point lead never really grew until the very end.

Though we didn't play particularly well, we finished tied for 5th, a great showing considering we went in as the 16th seed. I would give us a 50-50 chance of making Nationals. Delaware and Pitt made it last year, but Delaware looks awful so far. It's going to be between Penn and Cornell for the second spot to Nationals...

Also, on the drive back from North Carolina, we almost hit a wildfire... we had to take a detour that set us back an hour. Just thought you should know.