News from UPA College Nationals - June 2001:
*Warmoms finish 12th in country, Earthworms finish 63rd*
Swarthmore Earthworms (Men's)
Sat:
Swarthmore 15, Rochester 10:
We opened up against Rochester, a good team. We played them closely in the
first half…I don’t remember what the score was at half (which we took). In
the second half, our hot play continued and we won 15-10, I believe.
Upenn 15, Swarthmore 7:
We were all excited going into this game, the rematch of the sectional
championship game to show Upenn that we were better than we played last
weekend. We came out flat and nervous, though, which led to drops and other
unforced errors. Upenn played solidly throughout the game to win by a
healthy margin.
This meant that in order to make Nationals, we had to win 5 more games in a
row...
Swarthmore 15, Penn State 9 (or so):
We were all down after the Upenn loss, and it took a lot out of us
physically and mentally. Still, with the 2 hours we had to relax, we were
able to regain our composure, and came out running on all cylinders against
Penn State. Jenny wanted us to win as long as we didn’t embarrass Harrison
too much…well, Spratt forced a turn when Harrison tried to break him, and
Chaz skied Harrison for a huge D in the second half. While Brandon guarded
him, I don’t think he even touched the disc…I don’t know if that means
embarrassment or not, but the most important fact is that the Earthworms
played very well to stay in the double elimination tournament and keep its
dreams of making Nationals alive.
We went home after that, some via Hoagie Haven, some directly, and some to a
Guster concert. I tried to get some of the Bucknell women to come back and
check out Margaritaville with us…then Brandon and I seriously considered an
invitation to crash with the Bucknell teams in their hotel…in the end, we
came back and I basically passed out from exhaustion at 10 pm (and that was
after only 3 games of Ultimate!).
I’m sorry for not elaborating further on Saturday play -- honestly, I have
little recollection of the day in general.
Sunday: the Day of Dreams and Heartbreakers:
Swarthmore 15, Salisbury State 9.
The wind became more of a factor today, so we were very aware of the
upwind-downwind points in our first game. We were also keying in on their
best player, Danny, who can sky like no other. We received the pull and
promptly scored downwind. After a huge D by Mule on Danny, we scored the
next point, too, to get the first upwind break. We got the next point to
take an early 3-0 lead, as Brandon mentions the possibility of shutting out
Salisbury State well, that didn’t quite happened, but we continued some hot
play. They couldn’t handle our zone at all upwind, and we played even for
most of the rest of the first half, although they broke back to make the
score 7-6 (or something like that). Working it upwind again, we took half
on a huge sky by Spratt over 3 Salisbury State guys on a floating throw to
reestablish our lead. 8-6 Swarthmore at half.
In the second half, we pulled away, scoring upwind and downwind points
without so much as a flinch. I can’t remember any other highlights of this
game, except for Mule’s muling of Danny on a beautiful huck from Misha.
That’s one Callahan nominee muling for Mule today (and counting).
Swarthmore 15, Maryland 10:
We got crushed by them a month ago at the Maryland Invitational without
their Callahan nominee, Jason Grove. We came out strong against them again,
I think taking half 8-5 or something to that effect. Grove was injured in
the previous game and didn’t play in the first half. However, seeing his
team getting schooled, he started playing in the second half, making his
presence felt with some beautiful layout D’s and pretty offense. One thing
he couldn’t prevent, though, is Mule’s second Callahan nominee muling of the
day. One on one in the endzone, Grove elevated to knock the disc away,
tipped it, and Mule caught it, as we all knew was going to happen! Mule did
it to Tiny, too, a couple of points later! Great team effort to pull this
one out.
Following our game, we waited and watched to see who our next opponent would
be as Princeton and George Washington battled it out to stay in contention.
Princeton seemed to be down and out when they dropped an easy one in the
upwind endzone, allowing GW to extend its lead to 14-11 (or so). However,
Princeton came back to score 3 in a row to even the count at 14, next point
wins! I don’t remember how many turnovers there were in this point, but
there were plenty of ooohs and aaaahs coming from the spectators after a
layout D by James (Princeton) among others that kept the point going.
Princeton had worked it 2/3 of the way up the field through a combination of
quick swings, upfield throws through the zone, and even some high, floating
hammers, when Pete, handling at the time, turfed a swing pass back to James
at apex. GW capitalized and won the right to play Swarthmore in the
back-door semis, 15-14.
Swarthmore 15, George Washington 9.
We were worried that GW, high on adrenaline but low on reserves otherwise,
would ride their emotional high to victory. So, our plan was to take it to
them, scoring the first 5 or so and bury any hopes they had of victory.
Well, we started by dropping the first two, a downwinder and then an
upwinder, to get into a hole quickly. However, we fought back, scoring our
first point on a Callahan goal by Murphy (tipped by Badger on the
dump/swing). We scored another downwinder and another upwinder to take a
3-2 lead. After that, both teams showed great composure in trading upwind
goals all the way to halftime (Swarthmore up 8-7). We scored the first
point of the second half, dropped the second, then ran off a string of 5
straight to put the game out of reach. They scored one more before we won
game point on an upwinder to a wide open Spratt in the endzone.
Upenn 15, Swarthmore 8?
We got our third chance against Upenn in 2 weeks, this time in the game to
go to Nationals. I don’t remember much from this game, except that they
jumped out to an early lead and never looked back (8-4 at half, I think).
We all wanted it so badly, but it made us a little too eager to go for the
long throw and the quick score which resulted in a lot of turns. We played
good D on them, too, forcing a lot of turnovers, but they played solidly,
beating us a third time this season.
Warmothers Results (Women's)
Round 1
Swarthmore (15) JohnsHopkins (1)
Quarterfinals
Swarthmore (15) Towson (2)
SemiFinals
Swarthmore (15) Salisbury (5)
Finals
Swarthmore (15) Bucknell (14)
Final Places
1. Swarthmore
2. Bucknell
3. Salisbury
4. Columbia
5/6. Delaware/PennState
7/8. Cornell/Syracuse
9-12. UPenn
9-12. Princeton
9-12. Towson
9-12. GW
13-16. Maryland
13-16. Haverford/BrynMawr
13-16.American
13-16.JohnsHopkins
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