TOURNAMENT: Santa Barbara Invite, Jan 24-25 2009

This past weekend PrettyFly went down the coast to Santa Barbara for our first tournament of the season. It was, in one word, awesome! Your coaches were blown away by your intensity, ability to learn and apply new D and O, and teamwork. It was a great start. This team will only get better, and more exciting to watch. If PrettyFly continues to work hard and learn, it will win games against A teams like UCSD, Davis, and Santa Cruz, and crush other B teams.

At the end of a tournament, it's good to remember what you have learned as individuals and as a team, what we did well and how we can improve. Taking time now to catalog your accomplishments, as well as identify areas for improvement will prepare you to get the most of out of the practices we have between tournaments.

Some things we did well:
1) Defense! -- We are a great defensive team. We generated D's (as opposed to getting the disc only when the Offense turns it) on every team we played including UCLA, one of the best teams in the country. We also learned a new D, 1-3-3, and excecuted it perfectly. We should be very proud of our D, and challenge ourselves to bring that same defensive intensity to practice.
2) Sidelines -- Our sidelines were very active. We moved with the play, yelled until we lost our voices, stayed focused on the game even when we were off the playing field. That show of dedication, teamwork and support for the players on the field was huge this weekend. There were many D's and scores where the Sideline made a difference.
3) Learning -- We coaches taught you guys a lot of new things and asked you guys to make adjustments all weekend, and you responded immediately.
4) Going-to -- We may not have caught every pass (that will improve with time and experience), but we ran hard to attack each one, and didn't give our D a chance at the disc.
5) Intensity -- It was great that we rushed the field when Sarah L. got a callahan, we cheered when Rachel K. laid-out for a big huck and caught it out of bounds, and Lauren kept the team fed and cheered all weekend without playing a single point.
6) Nickanames -- Scout, Tank, Chips... to name a few.

Some things to work on:
1) Offense -- patience, timing, and consistency in Zone, vertical or Ho. We need to convert those great D's into scores!
1a) Patience -- especially on the endzone line.
1b) Patience on O -- am I making my point? We have a tendency to panic and force throws that are not open/have bad form. Do not get flustered. You can always put it long upfield if there are no open options, and give your teammates a chance to run it down. We can work on this in practice by upping the D intensity in scrimmages and making throws harder or cuts look less open, so we get used to playing O under pressure.
2) Catching -- someone once told me, "if you can touch it, you can catch it." We touched most of the passes thrown this weekend, so if we work harder at catching, mentally and physically, we will drastically reduce our turnovers.
3) Throwing in the wind, throwing with a mark -- Our throws will only improve with practice. The disc is light, flat, and will fit in almost any backpack. Carry one with you and throw whenever you can. By yourself, with a buddy, with a dog etc... If you don't own a disc, borrow one from the disc bag and bring it to practices. I believe we are putting in an order for PrettyFly discs soon so you can get a disc of your own! Don't make the coaches enforce random disc checks on campus -- you know we can/will stalk you.
4) Disc motion -- We were stalled at least twice this weekend. Let's work together to make sure that handlers have early options, that cutters have open dumps, and that we never let our D get to stall nine (or eight).
5) Making calls -- Please call fouls, marking violations, double teams, picks, whatever. Do it with confidence because Yelena taught you the rules, and she knows her UPA 11th edition! Also, remember that calling fouls, etc. isn't just about individuals. The entire team has to play D if there is a turn that results from a foul, bad mark, or double team against one player.

And lastly, the following is a comprehensive list of the new things we learned this weekend. For those of PrettyFly who were in Santa Barbara, review these. For those of PrettyFly who were not there, be aware that we will be teaching these in future practices/tournaments, and be sure to ask for details from teammates. Bottom line, come to tournaments because you learn a lot!

1) 1-3-3 Defense + trap
2) Monkey -- new endzone play + variation
3) Ho-stack
4) Handler weave drill
5) Go-to with D drill
6) V-cut drill
7) The Dish
8) Zone O
9) Throwing in the wind

In conclusion, great job this weekend PrettyFly!
And, hopefully, we'll see you guys next weekend.